ã€ŠThe Undying Emperor [Grand Conquest Fantasy]ã€‹


 0-1 - Bandit Infiltration

    The first tongues of dawn flame had begun to lick across the sky and cast light upon the carnage. Flies, fat on unexpected viscera, flitted from corpse to corpse, finding the blood of men preferable to suckling at the hinds of goats. The future emperor of mankind passed through the blood and the shadows of the well town, each step quicker than the last. The rush of battle was fading from his veins, which transformed the bodies from mere enemies back to the figures of men. This alchemy of ideas transpired entirely within his mind, and without the self-protection of labeling them bandits. He had something more pressing upon his mind.

    He needed a suitable place to take a piss.

    My pupil had not yet earned the name that would make him famous. He was still a boy of seventeen at this time, and still growing into the prowess he would need. However, he had grown more than he realized, and yet to realize I had nudged him to the precipice of the nest and was about to kick him off the side. In the shadows of my protection, he didn¡¯t think about what ambitious flights he might make. The boy was preoccupied with very droll concerns, such as not wanting to piss on a man he had just killed not half an hour past.

    Part of his problem was how terribly little space there was in the clutch of buildings that called itself a town. It wasn¡¯t even a crossroads, but merely a spot along the road where the locals had managed to dig a well deep enough for shepherds to water their flocks. We were in the northern reaches of the Giordanan desert, in the contested fringe that by rights belonged to Giordana, but the central kingdoms always had something to say about that.

    The locals had barely been able to scratch out sustenance farms from the sandy loam, so neither the so-called policing patrols nor the more gluttonous chevauchees had bothered the little stopover town. By rights, they should have been able to keep their heads down and get on with their lives with no concerns about kings and gods, not even taxes. The bandits had changed that permanently.

    They must have thought the owner of the inn and stables had hidden away some mass of gold or silver, accumulated from travelers over the years. They had torn the place apart and killed the proprietor for less money than they had in their own pockets.

    It¡¯s little consolation for the dead, but we in turn killed them. I doubt their goddess passed along the message in the afterlife.

    Almond eyes fixed upon my pupil as he hiked up his chain and undershirt. Beyond the last mudbrick house he had sighted upon a scraggly thorn bush as his target, as had one of the meandering goats. The animal stood, nonplussed by his natural display. It neither cared that their owner laid some twenty paces away, stuck full of arrows.

    ¡°I hope you weren¡¯t planning to eat this.¡±

    The goat bleated at him as he watered the plant, but it was my shouting which cowed it away. ¡°I told you to leave one alive, didn¡¯t I?¡± We weren¡¯t done with our work. A half dozen bandits would barely get us a purse of copper in bounty. The real prize was somewhere in the  knobbly hills of sandstone. We needed a proper lure, and that meant preparations.

    Which was why I was marching through the town, holding a dead bird by the neck.

    The real brawn of our operation was the elder of the Tolzi brothers, who sat upon the lip of the well with a flagon of wine in one hand, and a cleaning rag in the other. Leomund Tolzi was one of the berserkers that had earned the north its reputation. A troll hunter nearly wasted upon a cadre of thieves. He spat some dregs of sediment out as I approached and gestured at the boy. ¡°I thought he was supposed to save you one?¡±

    The boy came strolling over, refitting his belt. ¡°You¡¯re the expert. Couldn¡¯t you have just taken off one of their legs or something?¡±

    ¡°I tried. He bled out.¡±

    I wanted to just toss the crow into the well and forget about it, but I wasn¡¯t out of options. ¡°I¡¯ll make do with a goat. What about the other problem?¡±

    Leomund nudged a corpse with his foot. ¡°Right here, Master.¡±

    The bandit was nearly perfect. About the same age as my pupil and with the same blond hair, fair skin. A Vassish man, very far from home. ¡°Excellent. Strip him. I¡¯ll get the goat.¡±

    The boy sneered, sizing up the corpse¡¯s appearance against his own. ¡°Are you sure this is going to work? We don¡¯t exactly look alike, and we don¡¯t know the first thing about this guy.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯ll work. You¡¯re an actor aren¡¯t you?¡± I left them to the scavenging and wooed a goat over.

    My pupil was on his knees first, tugging off the chain coif and sand cape. He muttered as he worked. ¡°Don¡¯t even know his name.¡±

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    Leomund gave one last swipe of his oilcloth and sheathed his sword. ¡°Not a problem, boy. The ruse doesn¡¯t have to last long and you¡¯re not going to be asked for a name.¡±

    ¡°What if they ask me anything?¡±

    ¡°Make it up. Act delirious. I¡¯m going to have to give you a hell of a cut. You should strip yourself.¡±

    While Leomund got down and untied the bandit¡¯s boots, my pupil stripped off his armor. He folded it neatly and bundled it within his own cape. He had just taken his undershirt off when he saw the cut across the bandit¡¯s gut that had done him in. ¡°I won¡¯t be able to do much if you slice my stomach open.¡±

    Leomund tossed the bloody shirt at him. ¡°Don¡¯t worry about it. I¡¯ll stick to your little baby fat, yeah?¡±

    He squeezed the bloody tunic. ¡°Well, be careful, would you?¡±

    ¡°Can¡¯t be too careful. Still has to get you into their camp. Now get changing. Can¡¯t you hear them coming?¡± If Leomund truly could hear them coming, his senses would have surprised me.

    By the time I returned, live bird in hand, the two Vassish boys¨C to call the bandit anything other than a stupid boy would be silly¨C had traded clothes. Leomund and his brother Nikolai stared with pursed lips. I took one look between my pupil and the corpse and shook my head. ¡°The nose is wrong.¡±

    The boy threw up his arms. ¡°You¡¯re asking too much here. We barely have a plan.¡±

    Leomund nodded. ¡°Nose is wrong. Gunna have to fix that.¡±

    ¡°Fix what?¡± the boy asked. ¡°There¡¯s nothing wrong with my nose.¡±

    ¡°You see that?¡± Leomund asked, pointing at the corpse¡¯s pig like snout of a nose. Then, he punched my pupil in the face, snapping his nose.

    He reeled back, screaming and cussing as blood squirted down his face. ¡°Wha whuz ah oor?¡± he demanded, barely able to speak with his crooked nose.

    I laughed. ¡°Perfect. Now they won¡¯t even question the voice. Now, let¡¯s see here¡­ get you into character. Your name will be Sieg. You¡¯re a long way from home, working for bandits. Why, I bet you were a sailor that got in bad with some gambling debts. By a stroke of good fortune, after you got sold off to a slave mine, the transport was beset by bandits. Thankful like you never were to the gods, you threw yourself at the chief¡¯s feet and pledged to work for him. Now, a few months later, you haven¡¯t quite paid off your debt to him, which is why you took on such a dirty task as ravaging this dung heap of a town. You were cut down by knights in blue. You couldn¡¯t make out their emblem but you know they had a bit of yellow on them. Hard to see by the moon. Very dangerous though. Most important you see the chief at once to inform him. Injuries or no.¡±

    Three days of apprehension had nurtured inside him, ever since we had found the bounty posting. It screamed out inside him that he was in danger and should go back. But, I had taught him well that the heart of danger was the quickest way to grow. He was to be the sword I would thrust at the world, and so I first thrust it to the deepest heart of the forge.

    Sieg steeled himself and locked eyes with me as Leomund fetched up a fallen sword. One quick slash and his belly opened up. I watched him gasp, double over, and crumple to the ground. He choked down a gasp and bit off a whimper. He squirmed across the sand, writhing from the pain as if worms had set into his gut.

    Leomund tossed the sword into the well. It clattered and splashed as shock began to set in for the boy. ¡°Looks real enough to me. Plenty of blood.¡±

    ¡°Right then,¡± Nikolai said, and grabbed the actual bandit by the legs. Leomund took the shoulders and the two of them carried it off to the stables. The bandits had so kindly piled up the bodies of the villagers and a slain horse there. They tossed this body in with the rest, they threw a lantern to the hay. Within a few moments, oily black smoke belched to the sky, and that would spur on the rescue team.

    Meanwhile, I squatted beside Sieg. I tugged the scarf down from my face and looked at him quite seriously. It was the look I used when he had made a mistake and needed to learn his lesson, so he paid rapt attention to me. ¡°You¡¯re almost eighteen boy, almost a man. Show me the worth of what I¡¯ve taught you all these years. A great opportunity is about to come to us, so prove that you¡¯re up to the task.¡±

    Sieg swallowed some blood that had dripped into his mouth and nodded his head. ¡°Yes, Master.¡±

    ¡°And try to not rely on this, yes?¡± I added, tapping him on the chest. Then I tapped his forehead. ¡°What I nurtured was this, so make use of it.¡±

    He nodded again, and then the Tolzi brothers and I had to make our escape. Even I could hear the approaching hoofbeats. So I tossed the crow to a rooftop where it clumsily landed and made off in the opposite direction.

    Sieg was left behind, and in no way had to fake his faintness of mind. Their approach was only heralded to him by the tremors in the ground. Then a dozen red cloaked bandits poured through the town. They shouted and swore, cussing in their guttural dialect. They screamed at the fire, at the smoke pluming to the heavens and lamented their lost comrades. Sieg nearly missed the time to feebly croak for help.

    At once the leader of the rogues leapt from his horse and descended on him. ¡°Oh, by the goddess. What happened here?¡± the swarthy man cried out as he put Sieg flat on the ground. ¡°Medico!¡±

    ¡°Knights,¡± Sieg said, coughing up blood.

    ¡°Knights?¡± the bandit asked, gently taking Sieg¡¯s head in both hands. The man wetted his lips, gently put his thumbs to the boy¡¯s crooked nose and asked, ¡°What Knights?¡± then he snapped it back into position.

    Sieg screamed. He snorted more blood out. His whole face felt ablaze as swelling spread from cheek to cheek. Then he made no effort whatsoever to stay awake. The bandits screamed again, half fear and half warcry. The medic shredded the hem of Sieg¡¯s shirt to bind his wound. At the leader¡¯s order, they tied him onto one of the horses and departed with barely enough time spent to retrieve the coin purses and swords. The bodies they left behind as they fled back to their encampment.

    Not one of them questioned why the town¡¯s lone crow ignored the plentiful carrion to soar after them into the sandswept hills.

 0-2 - Stab At The Heart

    Everyone with enough clout to say that they were in charge, be it of a town or a kingdom, had been confounded as to how no fewer than fifty bandits could survive the northern wastes. ¡°There¡¯s no water!¡± they each said, and everyone understood that no water meant no crops, and while they certainly plundered merchants in the area, they didn¡¯t take fifty people¡¯s worth of food.

    These people each had the short sightedness common to humans, for they only know the world as they see it and not as it once was. The so-called northern wastelands were once quite fertile, with proper irrigation. A great river flowed south through the land, birthing a green carpet between the hills. The lesser tributaries still feed into the meager Snake River, but the proper watershed was long ago diverted west and led by way of canal into Isthmus Lake. This was so long ago that there was an isthmus connecting the fortified island to the shore, but of course not after such a change.

    Pure hubris that the petty lords of the Central Kingdoms would snub their noses at these bandits while completely unaware that Snake Road was in fact a riverbed their ancestors dried up.

    All this is to say that no one should be surprised the bandits found a plethora of subterranean structures to live within. That they had more wells than they knew what to do with. It¡¯s not uncommon at all for such criminals to capture women and bring them back, but what was remarkable was the mundaneness of the camp duties for those women. They farmed.

    I took this in from the eye of my crow. Sieg came to as the temperature dropped. The bit of sand left his nose and leaves rustled. At first he thought he had been brought to some lord¡¯s castle, that he had been trotted into a great hall. The sweep of sandstone carvings and the echoing hooves came from tunnels, not from masonry. Generation upon generation of workmen had scooped stone away from the land like so many ants.

    The bandits were no different, but they quarried their rocks out to build fortifications. They had walls and watchtowers. They blended their handiwork in with the landscape and hid in plain sight. It was no wonder that the knights of the north had never managed to find them. And yet, if they had simply looked at a map from a few centuries back, the camp would have been openly labeled as a trade city.

    The troupe of reconnaissance bandits had trumpeted ahead with bird calls, crying out for a doctor. The posse of Giordanans were lucky enough to have one, and the man met them within a shaded courtyard. He was too old to fight, and kept his beard long and gray. ¡°How many?¡±

    ¡°Only one,¡± the leader said, hopping off his own horse to help untie Sieg.

    ¡°Injured?¡±

    ¡°Survivor.¡±

    The doctor frowned and tutted. He got on his knees as Sieg was laid down and took the boy by the head. ¡°Hey, can you hear me?¡±

    Sieg swallowed and nodded, trying to keep his eyes focused on the man. For him, the doctor was little more than a phantom of gray, but he had no fear of dying. ¡°We were attacked.¡±

    ¡°I see that. Got you good, and the others better, eh? But hey, you always had an ugly nose anyway. Now you¡¯ll at least look like a man who fights, right?¡± As he spoke, he rubbed his thumbs gently across Sieg¡¯s face, feeling the crack of bone and tissue. ¡°Woman, some plugs.¡±

    The mere touch had caused more blood to gush from the boy¡¯s nose, but he had seen enough life in the eyes to be satisfied. The doctor let his assistant, a dark haired woman, kneel down and stuff his nose full of cloth strips. With those, his nose certainly had the proper pig-like look. The doctor¡¯s attention shifted down to the maroon patch of cloth binding Sieg¡¯s stomach. Gingerly, he peeled it back. ¡°Don¡¯t want to give this too much air. Bad spirits will get in.¡±

    ¡°The knights though. I need to speak to the chief. Need to warn him,¡± the boy insisted, keeping his eyes anywhere but the little urn of medicinal salve and the sewing needle the doctor had on hand.

    It was the bandit who saved him that knelt down and grabbed him by the hand. With a heavy slap, palm to palm, he said, ¡°You survive first. Then we will have our revenge. Don¡¯t worry.¡±

    The doctor said, ¡°He¡¯s not going to die. This isn¡¯t so bad. Cut him up, sure, but it''s shallow. Look here, you can see the muscle still in one piece. This didn¡¯t pierce his bowels. He¡¯ll be on his feet in no time.¡± As he packed the herb infused cream through Sieg¡¯s wound, he spread it out and cleaned it.

    Sieg screamed like razors were being dragged across his nerves. ¡°I¡¯ll be on my feet now!¡±

    ¡°Shush,¡± the assistant said, and stuffed the neck of a wineskin to his lips. ¡°The sickbed is no place for bravado. Keep your strength for living.¡±

    ¡°No, he¡¯s right,¡± the bandit said, rising and pacing the room. ¡°Sew him up and help me carry him to the chief. He¡¯s the one that should say what happened. There¡¯s much we will need to do, and little time to do it.¡±

    The doctor shook his head. ¡°If he wants to get himself killed, he had better do it where I can¡¯t see him,¡± he said, but the man was already stabbing the needle in one side and out the other, dragging fine thread to a tight cinch.

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    ¡°I¡¯m not going to die,¡± Sieg said, wiping spilled wine from his chin. He had barely been able to taste it over the blood.

    ¡°You¡¯re young. You¡¯ll be fine,¡± the doctor said, as calm as a butler in the countryside. Then he started the knots to hold it in place. He pulled the wound so tight the skin buckled and the boy whimpered and bloody cream seeped across his gut. Then it was done. He and his assistant wiped it off and wrapped fresh bandages around him, tying them tight as well.

    It was only then he noticed a hint of something beneath the remains of Sieg¡¯s shirt. A bit of black across the skin which shouldn¡¯t have been there. The doctor wiped his hand across, frowning and moving the cloth back.

    Sieg grabbed him by the wrist and pushed his hand back. Despite the pain, he pushed himself up. ¡°Help me up,¡± he ordered.

    The doctor didn¡¯t move. He narrowed his eyes and pursed his lips and considered what he had thought he had seen. It was the bandit who obliged Sieg, and took him by the arm. The older man dragged him up and pulled the boy¡¯s arm across his shoulders to take his weight. ¡°Come on then, I see battle has made you stronger. You¡¯re lucky you didn¡¯t break. You¡¯re going to go far, you just need to focus on staying alive, yeah?¡±

    The way Sieg was dragged through the main strip of the camp drew everyone¡¯s attention. The call for a doctor had started the stir, but that was but a spark and this was the kindling. The happy little band of thieves found themselves faced with their own mortality. Some balked, with blank and ashen faces as they looked at my pupil. Others glowered and nurtured rage. They sought refuge in thoughts of revenge. But each of them saw only what they expected to see: the very bandit they had sent out the night before.

    Utterly inconceivable that a doppelganger had taken his place.

    These deluded bandits trailed after Sieg, drawn in as they marched through the dead riverbed to the temple. Contrary to all that is holy and sanctified, the temple reeked of rot and wine. The sculptures that had been delicately extracted from the stone lacked all paint, all gilding, all color save the white feces of birds. This profane mausoleum no longer had doors, the front staying open like a snake¡¯s maw.

    The chieftain of the bandits, the charismatic core of the group and the one with a thousand silver talons riding on his head, dat upon the steps of the dias. The carcass of a goat dangled behind him, strung up from the ceiling and dripping blood across the altar. Muharib welcomed them with a wave from his wine goblet. ¡°What happened?¡± His words were controlled. They echoed through the shadows of the temple.

    ¡°There was a massacre,¡± the bandit leader said, helping Sieg deeper. The stench of blood pervaded the air, able to make even a desert feel humid.

    ¡°Where are the others?¡± Murahib asked, rising to face them. He was tall and strong, but we knew him to be an older man. His first life had been in the holy city of Tavina, using the magic of his stigmata to aid the farmers. That work had made him strong. His collaboration with the temples had made him wise. Seeing his wife hanged for theft by northerners had made him cruel.

    The bandit leader spat on the ground. ¡°Dead. Killed, all of them. I¡¯m not sure they killed any of the bastards, but it looked like a hell of a fight. One of the buildings got torched. You should have smelled the filth. Shepherd has plenty of souls with her now, that¡¯s certain.¡±

    Sorrowful eyes turned to Sieg. Muharib reached out, but stopped short of touching the bruising across the boy¡¯s face. His gaze went to the bandages, to the line of blood oozing into them. ¡°We¡¯ll have to avenge them. Who did it?¡±

    Sieg wasn¡¯t close enough to the man to do anything to him, not yet. Even if he was getting his strength back with every breath, the ruse was not so simple and he not so simple of mind. ¡°Knights. They were in blue with steel bowls for helms. Yellow emblem. I¡¯m sorry, I couldn¡¯t see much. It was so dark.¡±

    Muharib put up his hand. ¡°That¡¯s enough. Only one army looks like that¡­ It seems we have some ferrets to put down.¡± I should like to take this moment to offer an apology to the Ferrets of the Grass Sea for smearing their reputation.

    Sieg swallowed and nodded. He leaned himself forward to get closer to the chieftain and spoke while his mind worked a different problem. He didn¡¯t have a weapon, and to his surprise, the bandit leader had taken his sword off as well. ¡°They left after setting the fire. No prisoners. Headed west when¨C¡± he gestured with his head at the leader ¡°--arrived.¡±

    ¡°West? I suppose they must have, but that¡¯s deeper into Giordana. They¡¯ll be trapped¡­ we¡¯re between them and safety¡­¡± Muharib scratched his beard, and the more he did so, the more he smiled.

    The bandit leader scowled. ¡°We must have just missed them! I thought I heard horses.¡±

    Sieg swallowed. He shuffled his feet and cast glances. Sweat beaded on his forehead. When he spoke next, he faked a cough and both men grabbed him by the shoulders to hold him upright. A moment later, he cleared his throat. ¡°The thing is¡­ the timing.¡±

    Muharib frowned and cocked his head. ¡°What about it?¡±

    ¡°It was just after dawn,¡± the leader said.

    Sieg shied away from the other man and said, ¡°It seemed like they knew he was coming.¡±

    The idea gripped the two bandits. It consumed their attention as they both considered what he was implying, that someone in Muharib¡¯s cadre was betraying them.

    The bandit leader let go of him and backed off, hands in the air. ¡°Chief! He is delusional from blood loss. He should not be here. I¡¯m sorry, I should not have brought him. The man speaks nonsense.¡±

    Muharib kept Sieg steady, but his attention was on the other man. ¡°I¡¯m not going to punish a man for speaking of a concern.¡±

    ¡°It was merely dawn. Of course they would flee at dawn, when the light of day would reveal them!¡±

    And so the two of them went, but at the same time, Sieg had fixed his problem. While no sword had been brought to Muharib¡¯s presence, that didn¡¯t mean no weapon had been brought. Giordanan men of violent natures had a certain custom. They kept with them always honor blades, so that they might bloody themselves upon an oath. It might be for trade agreements and the such, or to swear vengeance that must only be paid in blood and flesh. A Giordanan vendetta is thus a frightening thing they carve into their own skin.

    But the honor blade is like any other piece of steel.

    It was sharp and sturdy and when Sieg rammed it into Muharib¡¯s chest, it cut between the ribs and right into the man¡¯s lungs.

    But, Muharib didn¡¯t die. His stigmata didn¡¯t let him bleed out so easily.

 0-3 - A Knight of Bluffing

    Getting stabbed is not pleasant, and it also doesn¡¯t typically feel like one imagines it would feel like. When a hand¡¯s length of steel gets rammed through a chest, it first passes through skin, which hurts like fire. Then it has to scrape in past the ribs, and bone pain can wrench sobs out of the mightiest warrior. But the last is the pain from the organ, which can be surprisingly dull. Be it two inches or ten, the victim would have no idea the difference before, in this case, he drowned in his own blood.

    Sieg should have ripped a gash open through Muharib, but he thought the stab had reached the bandit chief¡¯s heart because he could feel the thumping reverberate through the handle. So he ripped it out and dove at the other bandit. He needed a fall guy after all. For the other bandit, the one who had been so comradely as to rescue him and hold his hand with the doctor, Sieg slashed the surprised man¡¯s throat open. He had to tackle him to the floor and wrestle, putting his weight into the stab, but he ripped through the man¡¯s throat before words could fly.

    Warm blood squirted across his face, marring and muddying him again with death. Sieg rolled off and scrambled to his feet, ears tense for the pounding of feet and the cries of alarm. Those approached certainly, and they meant grown men, hardened killers, and real swords. His mind reeled with lies and stories, fabrications of wit and deceit. He needed to show them what they expected to see, and do it in a way that didn¡¯t get his head cut off.

    My crow cawed at him, because I was not so blind as he. A small aid to my pupil.

    Gooseskin ran from the tips of his fingers to the back of his skull. Muharib had not fallen over. He stood where he had, one hand to his bleeding chest but already the blood had stopped. ¡°Betrayer,¡± he said, coughing up red.

    Muharib had been blessed by the gods, just like Sieg had. In a way, his power was far better than my pupils, for he had been able to use it for irrigation, for construction, to simplify the labor of living and create prosperity. By comparison, Sieg¡¯s ability was nearly useless. Muharib could manipulate water. He had used it to wash away canals, shoving waves back and forth until he was exhausted or until the oasis of Tavina had reached another garden. Standing across from Sieg, he showed another use for it : recirculating his blood back into his body.

    ¡°Shit.¡±

    His plan in tatters, Sieg sought to at least secure the kill. He darted back at Muharib, red steel darting and dashing. Leomund had been true to his promise and none of the boy¡¯s muscles had been cut nor slashed. The blood loss had been severe, but he was well used to such anemic conditions. It was Muharib at the disadvantage, with his own life sputtering from his chest and half his mind stitching his blood vessels shut. Even with ten years more training than my pupil, the most the bandit chief could do was stagger back and take the cuts upon his arms.

    The other bandits charged up the temple steps, their chain armor rattling. They were the ones that had just rescued Sieg and they brought all their weapons to the commotion. Just as the first of them ran into the firelit shadows of the temple, Sieg plunged the honor blade into Muharib¡¯s forearm. The bandit howled as it bit through from one side to the next, but it had gone in between the two bones.

    A twist and a yank ripped the weapon from Sieg¡¯s grasp.

    Disarmed, surrounded, and with Muharib still alive, Sieg suddenly needed to improvise.

    Muharib pointed a bloody finger at him and screamed, ¡°Kill him!¡±

    Sieg ripped the cloth plugs from his nose with a gout of blood. ¡°We¡¯re all going to die if we don¡¯t hand him over. The ferret knights are here in force. Two hundred of them ready to burn this place to the ground and everyone in it. They want Muharib¡¯s head as a trophy. It¡¯s our only bargaining chip!¡±

    Swords pointed at him suddenly wavered with uncertainty. The bandits glanced at one another. ¡°He did say they were knights. Is this a war?¡± one asked.

    ¡°Cut him down,¡± Muharib ordered, backing further to the altar, his own blood dripping from his arms.

    That sparked a new fear in the men. One darted past Sieg. ¡°Chief, the spirit!¡±

    ¡°Fuck the spirit! I¡¯ll feed him to the spirit,¡± Muharib roared, ripping the honor blade out of his arm. One of his subordinates called for the doctor once more.

    ¡°Two hundred knights,¡± Sieg said again, fastening his eyes to one weak soul. Of the four bandits that had first arrived, one seemed to give credence to the fake warning. The problem was that man was a coward. He stood furthest from my pupil, held his sword weakly in his hand, and was nearly ready to run the other way.

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    One of the bandits stepped forward, the tip of his sword pointed at Sieg¡¯s throat. He was a thick man, with most of his head shaved clean due to burn scars reaching from his back to the crown of his head. Whatever had happened to him had also burned compassion from his eyes. ¡°Those knights killed our friends.¡±

    ¡°And they¡¯ll kill us too,¡± Sieg shot back.

    ¡°They may try.¡±

    More bandits were coming. Men who had been in the camp for the day, and unarmored but still with spears in their hands. Some crowded into the temple, others remained on the steps, uncertain what to do. A general alarm began to go up, rousing everyone to alertness.

    Sieg swallowed his fear as more men surrounded him with steel drawn. ¡°I¡¯d fight for vengeance like any of you, if there was a chance. Are we an army here? Or are we some few dozen men who know how to fight? What training do we even have? Really?¡±

    Muharib spat on the ground. ¡°Vassish pig. You know nothing of our ways. I should have never let you join us. Your oath clearly means nothing to you, but a Giordanan¡¯s oath is iron. Hear me! By this honor blade, taken from my dead friend, I swear by blood that I will not rest until these killers are slain.¡± Then he carved a line across his chest. He cut through his shirt and skin and let the blood ooze across his chest for all to see. He wore it like the emblem of a tabard, and it enraptured the gazes of his men.

    The bandit chief thrust the honor blade above his head and screamed, ¡°I declare this a vendetta!¡±

    Only one man in the temple did not stare in surprise at the declaration. It was the one man who wasn¡¯t a native to the area: Sieg. While the others let out whoops and let their minds wander for a moment of excitation about the righteous war to come, Sieg bolted. Not for the door, not through the mass of armed robbers with steel pointed at him. He rolled the dice with the shadows and charged through the dark halls that didn¡¯t have armed men blocking his way.

    Lit scarcely by cracks in the stone and reflections of light, he slammed his shoulders into walls and bumbled through the darkness. He groped from stone to stone as some bandits gave chase and others scrambled to get lanterns lit.

    The first to reach him found not a fleeing coward, but Sieg¡¯s fist. He tackled the surprised bandit into the wall, bouncing the man¡¯s leather helm off the stone. One hand went to the handle of the bandit¡¯s sword to fight for it, and with his other he grabbed the end of the blade itself, just an inch from the tip. Judging the spot by the man¡¯s foul breath more than sight, he wrenched the sword backwards and stabbed it into the bandit¡¯s own throat. More blood, including some from his palm, spilled.

    But he had a weapon.

    ¡°He¡¯s getting away!¡± one screamed, and Sieg ran deeper into the temple. Rather than finding private rooms, solars for meditation or perhaps larders and kitchens for the living of the priests, he found stairs down. Chased by bobbing lanterns and curses, he sprinted down the ancient steps.

    The men chasing him brought the light he needed. They ran with lanterns overhead and steel drawn. They practically screamed their presence out and made it all too simple. Sieg found a corner by touch and waited. The air was saturated with foul, stagnant water in the temple basement. The walls seemed to sweat as he did, running clammy lines of filth down his back as he waited.

    Then he saw the first man, by weapon tip first.

    Sieg dove out. The man screamed. He plunged the blade in and the man swung wildly. The bandit cut Sieg across the chin. The edge raked across the boy¡¯s jaw but then he was in. The stolen sword caught the man in the gut and pierced through. Both of them tumbled to the ground. Every movement carved the edge deeper before Sieg could rip it free.

    The boot of the second bandit slammed into his side, sending him rolling across the hall. He hit the wall, swinging his sword up just as the bandit tried to stab him. They clashed, Sieg swept his foot and brought the bandit down to his level. After that, it was a simple matter to kill him.

    That was but two bandits however, and he had to get back to his feet. Freshly injured and barely able to grasp his strength. The might of the gods dwelled within his body, but not quite at his beck and call. What¡¯s more, I had told him to not rely on it.

    The bandits had brought lanterns with both of them, so he threw one back at the stairs as more men emerged, and he darted onwards with the second. Again, he found more stairs down. This time, they were the surrounding wall of a pit descending down and down to darkness with no other path. So he went down.

    Dread nagged at him, whispering that the pit was beneath the altar. That he was going down to some forgotten shrine. The bandits had bled a goat to death at that altar and such sacrifice was neither common nor without reason. Whatever might have been down there didn¡¯t matter, because a small army of bandits were after his head and he needed a way out. So down to the depths of the temple he went.

    The smell of rot, that horrid mixture of ammonia, methane and disease, gagged the boy. A veritable swamp of decayed flesh waited at the bottom of the stairs. He couldn¡¯t take one step without crunching bones beneath his feet. Even the bandits chasing after him stopped on the stairs and watched him. They called back that he had gotten to the bottom but they did not set foot upon the bodies. They did nothing to stop him from creeping down the arched tunnel that led out, where the swamp of blood and gore slowly flowed.

    Evidently the river had been dammed and the city abandoned, but the ways of the city spirit had not been lost.

 0-4 - Grave For A Snake

    In the dark, ¡®neath the stone, where the dead rot to bone, that was where spirit made lair.

    By lantern¡¯s light the boy stepped forth to what had once been a home. He passed through portals without doors and trode across carpets lost to gore. Murals yet colored the vaulted walls with haunted vistas and garden sprawls. No passage of time could change the colored tiles, but no artist¡¯s hand had caked on blood as paint. With shaking fingers, some ancient had scrawled, ¡°The essence of life is water.¡±

    ¡°The water of life is blood.¡±

    ¡°Drink of blood and ye shall live.¡±

    ¡°The sand devours it.¡±

    ¡°The land craves it.¡±

    ¡°Spill upon the altar not upon the ground.¡±

    ¡°Offer the blood as sacrifice.¡±

    ¡°Bring back the god.¡±

    ¡°The god must live.¡±

    ¡°The god is our protector.¡±

    ¡°Protect the god so we may live.¡±

    ¡°Sacrifice to survive.¡±

    ¡°Offer of yourself.¡±

    ¡°Offer of your enemies.¡±

    ¡°Spill the blood of your enemies.¡±

    ¡°Sacrifice them in the name of¨C¡±

    The decaying grime of sacrificed bodies, human and animal both, shifted beneath Sieg. The sludge pulled back from the innermost chamber by some unseen force, drying out the skeletons and flowing across Sieg¡¯s feet. Behind him, the mass pulled up through the core of the spiraling staircase as though it were a drip from a spigot falling to the sky.

    Sieg ran on.

    The force holding the muck reversed, flooding it back at him in a torrential flood. It hammered the walls behind him. It spewed through the door, giving him barely enough time to dive aside. The sickly sweet rotten blood frothed into the air and hammered across a heap at the center of the chamber. After the tide of blood came voices. ¡°That¡¯s a dead end. He¡¯s trapped.¡±

    ¡°He¡¯s killed three people already.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll pledge myself to Muharib¡¯s vendetta with Vassish blood!¡±

    Sieg gritted his teeth and sucked in breath. The bandits couldn¡¯t run after him, even at goading from their chief. The bodies wouldn¡¯t permit such recklessness. It gave him a moment to look, and to hope. He swung his lantern from side to side. There had been paintings in this room, now torn to shreds. Ripped to tatters and thrown to the ground to soak and rot. Only gilded frames remained and in their place was more blood writing. Frantic and overwritten. The words layered upon themselves in shades of from sanguine to black.

    ¡°More¡±

    ¡°Blood¡±

    ¡°More¡±

    ¡°Sacrifice¡±

    ¡°More¡±

    ¡°Light¡±

    Again and again, swirling around him the words repeated and at the center was the heaping mass: a pile of bones not human. Vertebra after vertebra with ribs on every one, the desiccated and withered corpse of a beast beyond any living animal. In life, it could have swallowed a horse whole, and likely had many times; but, now it had only one difference between it and the forgotten sacrifices.

    Its bones were engraven in the language of the gods, and those runes still shimmered with power.

    Muharib called out, his voice echoing through the chamber as he approached. ¡°What a magnificent sight, is it not? Terrifying in its power.¡±

    Sieg kept his composure. He knew the corpse of the Divine Beast couldn¡¯t leap up and attack him, no matter how many humans were offered to it. Instead, he did as he had been commanded, and used his head. The air did not make him light in the head, it was not completely saturated with the gasses nor with the breath of animals devoid of plants. His lantern had not combusted the entire chamber, rendering an inferno and himself to ash.

    That meant there was another way up. A crack or a chimney perhaps, but possibly a direct access tunnel for the enormous snake when it had lived.

    Muharib continued, his steps deliberately cracking through skulls. ¡°The great snake Vita, emissary of our goddess, angel of the city¡­ she has been waiting here for a very long time and has given such wonderful counsel.¡±

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    Sieg assessed the room once more. It had been in the design of a bedroom, one for a human but sized for the snake. Here and there structures of wood hinted at furniture they might have been. Trunks and armoires, a bed frame, and at last he saw one painting which hadn¡¯t rotten completely. The canvas was dipped in the filth at the bottom, and black tendrils creeped up like fire across the cloth and oil. It gave the enormous artwork an impression of being burned away from the bottom up, as if the rot were consuming the depicted woman inch by inch. Her feet had already vanished, and her legs were crossed by fungal destruction. The humidity had seeped into the canvas itself, fighting with the paint and soaking the vibrancy from it year over year.

    And yet the beauty of the woman remained, encircled by a turquoise snake.

    It was also large enough to obscure a doorway. Sieg trudged over to it, the festering grime up to his ankles and snaring his every step. He had only just gotten his hands upon the frame and found it fastened to the ground by the sucking grip of mud when the bandits filed into the chamber.

    Muharib took the center, fresh stitches in his chest for the stab but not the slash. He didn¡¯t leap to battle, he did not pounce upon Sieg. He merely took the stage and let his subordinates spread to either side. ¡°You know, we make it a bit of a habit to not pry into one anothers pasts here, boy. But, I should have asked you about your home. You see, I¡¯m curious about whether you Vassish people still have emissaries from your goddess, or do you only have the sea monsters?¡±

    Sieg glanced around. Half a dozen lanterns flickered now, filling the chamber with light. He dropped his own then reached behind himself to knock on the canvas. He hit it hard like a drum and the bandits scowled at him, but he had felt the wood behind it. ¡°You mean a little child of the gods like this?¡± he asked, buying himself time as he tried to spot the bulge of the door handle through the painting.

    ¡°Time makes a mockery of all living things. All beauty sours.¡±

    ¡°Are you here to be philosophical? Or are you here to kill me? I¡¯d appreciate it if you picked one.¡±

    Muharib bared his teeth at Sieg in a mockery of a smile. ¡°You¡¯re not our man, are you? Calling you a betrayer was wrong. You¡¯re an infiltrator.¡±

    Sieg¡¯s forced smirk vanished. A chill passed through him. ¡°I assure you¡­ what I said up there? About the knights? It¡¯s true. They want your head. I was going to give it to¨C¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t try to lie to me. You know, you had me fooled for a while there. Was it the broken nose? I didn¡¯t notice how wrong your voice was until now. How foolish of me¡­ you¡¯re a bounty hunter, aren¡¯t you?¡±

    And so the ruse began to shatter, but progress had been made. Of the fifty bandits, we had killed six in the well town already, and Sieg had added three so far. The injuries to Muharib would do him in eventually, by infection if nothing else. So a fifth of their fighting force had been removed.

    Sieg wetted his lips and nodded, and began his next lie with a heaping of truth. ¡°You know, it really was remarkable how quick you assumed I was your friend just because I took his clothes. We Vassish don¡¯t look that alike, you know?¡±

    Muharib snorted. ¡°You certainly did the work to sell the masquerade. A real cut through the gut and a real broken nose.¡±

    ¡°For as much as they hurt, I¡¯m glad they paid off so grandly. Look at me now, I have the great Muharib of the northern wastes right where I want him!¡±

    The Giordanan cracked his neck. ¡°Injured, yes. But, you¡¯re outnumbered six to one. And you¡¯re too young to be a blade master.¡±

    Sieg gave the stolen blade a flourish. He twirled like a street performer between his fingers before flinging it into the air and catching it once more. ¡°But, I was taught by one.¡±

    One of the lesser bandits grunted. ¡°We should have brought bows.¡± Others leveled spears at him and advanced. They took deliberate steps without taking their eyes off of him. If he tried to rip the door open, they were ready to pounce and run him through. But as they closed with him, they hugged the walls.

    So Sieg jumped atop the bones of their god.

    ¡°Bastard!¡± Muharib roared as Sieg¡¯s bloody sandals cracked the spine from the ribs, breaking the old cartilage like kindling sticks. It wasn¡¯t their god that struck Sieg down, they had to do that themselves. The spearmen jumped forward, stabbing at him like they were trying to knock apples from a tree.

    Sieg twirled, slashing with his sword and batting them away. He ducked and twisted, only letting the steel catch his clothes. Muharib raged that Sieg was but an injured boy, but that boy snatched one of the spears by the shaft. With a hand on it, he yanked the bandit closer and cut a line across his face. The bandit howled until blood choked in his nose and mouth.

    The second spear scraped through his back, ripping his shirt and shoulder both before he could spin. With a roar, Sieg rammed his spear through the bandit¡¯s chest. That left four, Muharib included, each with only swords like his.

    They hesitated. Each had seen the cut and they could stare at the bandages over his belly. He was bleeding and sweating and panting. In time, having the high ground would mean nothing, profane or not. They thought they would let him bleed out.

    Sieg laughed at them.

    Then his blood dripped from his shoulder, down his arm and fell from his fingers. The ravings of old were true. Life does exist within the blood, and Sieg¡¯s was especially potent. Like Muharib, he had been blessed by the gods and with a peculiarly strong stigmata. Power permeated his essence and lingered within the drips of vitae he shed upon the bones. It flowed within the engravings like ink to a printer¡¯s block.

    While the bandits dared to put one foot upon the pile that had once been a mattress for the divine beast, Sieg fended them off none the wiser. Their dancing of feet, shoving of bodies and shifting of weight obscured the shifts and cracks of bone knitting together with blood for mortar. Within the sockets of its hatchet skull, life sparked and smoldered and grew.

    ¡°Come on!¡± Muharib roared. ¡°Kill him. It¡¯s been far too long since we¡¯ve had a proper sacrifice. Just think! Think what we¡¯ll get for starting a vendetta with fresh blood like this? Get up there and run him through. I¡¯ll give the man who does it a night with any woman in the camp he wants!¡±

    Two of the bandits screamed, muscles straining and veins bulging. Then they dropped their lamps and charged the boy. He had been waiting for that moment. Years of practice with Leomund had transformed his muscles to weapons. The first one to reach him cleaved down, chopping overhead. Sparks flew as Sieg threw up his own blade and twirled it round his head. With half a sidestep, he evaded the attack just as he cleaved his sword into the bandit¡¯s head. It chopped through flesh and bone and snapped his spine.

    The warcry of the other had not ceased. Sieg had to wrench his blade free and spin around. Blood flew as he tried to parry but the world shifted around him. The vertebra he had stood upon lifted, pushing him up and back and off balance. His parry was suddenly not where it was supposed to be. It did not stop the bandit¡¯s sword from plunging into his chest and skewering his heart. Blood sprayed out from the wound with each throb of pain, sprinkling the bandit and the mound with his life.

    And then the divine beast spoke.

 0-5 - One Way Out

    ¡°Five hundred years,¡± the Divine Beast Vita said, emanating her voice to the room. She as yet had no flesh, no lungs, throat or mouth. Her will was merely made manifest as my pupil collapsed atop her and bled. The snake shifted and stirred, realigning bones and giving life to withered tendons and languished muscles. Like a plant¡¯s roots, she sucked in the decayed blood from the chamber floor. It oozed across her body and shaped it anew.

    The Giordanans fell back, eyes wide and mouths agape. Some dropped their weapons. All looked to their leader for guidance. He was the one who had spoken with the spirit, who had received its guidance. So he squashed his fear and presented himself to the snake. ¡°You have returned to the world of flesh?¡±

    ¡°You fed me goats,¡± Vita said, her words morphing from a rasp to an old woman¡¯s voice. It was weak and stretched, like old rope ready to snap.

    Muharib rocked back on his feet and glanced at Sieg¡¯s unmoving body. Already the blood had stopped flowing from him as the boy laid across the snake¡¯s tail. ¡°It was all we could spare. Taking prisoners back here it is¡­ difficult and the men found it distasteful.¡±

    ¡°Goat blood is distasteful,¡± Vita said, lifting her head higher and inspecting the room.

    ¡°But¡­ it did nourish you, yes?¡±

    ¡°Barely. Oh¡­ Ennia, what happened here.¡± The divine beast dipped her head, slowly moving from one body to the next as black ichor coated her skull. It wasn¡¯t quite flesh, but it would suffice. She coated herself with it as though she were putting on clothes.

    Muharib cleared his throat. ¡°Then what fortune! What blessing. It is splendid and wonderful that my vendetta¨C so quick to be wetted¨C would be what woke you from your slumber. For years now I could but only listen and now we may speak!¡±

    Vita turned her gaze on the man. She shifted her coils, rocking the bodies beneath her and rising until her head nearly touched the ceiling. ¡°For five hundred years I was at the mercy of humans for sustenance. Tell me, why did my mother abandon me?¡±

    Muharib glanced at his men, but they offered no help. ¡°For many years, generations, this town¨C¡±

    ¡°Ennia¡¯s Crossing,¡± the divine beast interjected.

    ¡°Ah, is that what it was first called? It had been abandoned. We found scorch marks when we first came here. The central kingdoms diverted the Snake River. It strangled the town and the people abandoned it.¡±

    ¡°It was burned. They were killed. I remember that clearly. The fire, the blood¡­ the men on horses skewering me with lance after lance. They pinned me to the ground after exhausting me and they made me watch as they murdered all of the priestesses. I remember. They dumped the bodies in the river. It was raining then, and one by one like sacks of ink the bodies turned the river red. It was to mock me.¡±

    ¡°This was¡­ knights, yes? From the central kingdoms? The Three Swords Kingdom perhaps?¡± Muharib offered, hoping the Ferrets of the Grass Sea could be tied in.

    Vita shook her head. ¡°That I don¡¯t recall. Yellow. Yellow is the only color I remember of those men.¡±

    Muharib waited for her to say more, but the snake seemed deep in thought. He whispered some orders and sent one of his men running back to spread the news. Then, he asked, ¡°We here are also aggrieved of foreign killers. Men who kill in the night, who want our heads and our land and food and every piece of silver and gold. Today, we lost nearly ten of our number, but¡­ perhaps we have gained an even more powerful ally?¡±

    Vita barely listened. She hung her head and began to breathe. The movements of breath were weak and shallow. They wouldn''t have been able to rustle hair on someone¡¯s face even if they were close enough to kiss. ¡°Five hundred years and I must wait even more,¡± she said, her voice almost in mourning. Then she lunged her head down and sank teeth into her prey: not the fresh corpse of the boy but of the bandit he had slain.

    The men gasped, some strangled their own cries of fear and disgust. They instinctively brought their weapons back up. They broadened their stances so that they might either flee or strike. Only Muharib scolded them as they all watched the divine beast lift the body of their friend into the air. She tossed it and chomped it again, swallowing half down her throat then pulling in the rest. The great bulge of ichor-skin wrapped around the mass and inched down the snake¡¯s throat.

    The chieftain stepped closer, one hand to his chest. ¡°Please, goddess¨C¡±

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    ¡°I am not a goddess,¡± Vita snapped back at him, her voice in part rejuvenated. Some twenty years of age, by human reckoning, were healed as the bandit slid from throat to belly. Blood dripped from the snake¡¯s mouth, getting forced from scaled lips as her gums grew back.

    ¡°Dear emissary,¡± Muharib said, and was not rebuked. ¡°Please, allow us to fetch the bodies of our enemies. Let your loyal servants bury their dead. That boy, the Vassish, if you must eat then eat him.¡±

    And so the divine beast turned her attention to Sieg. The boy who had been run through in the chest and left to bleed out and die. Except, there was no wound upon his chest. The blood matting his shirt to his skin nearly obscured it along with the sigil of his stigmata, but the emissary was not fooled. ¡°I do not eat the living.¡±

    Perhaps Sieg could have stayed listening for longer, but his senses had returned to him. Listening to the speech between man and beast left him agitated. It made his breathing rough and difficult to conceal and the moment their attention was on him, the fear that he couldn''t keep a still face swarmed his mind. So he leapt up and dove for the canvas.

    Vita watched him go. ¡°What are you¨C¡± He slashed the painting open and felt the tip of his blade dig through sodden wood. The handle was exposed, and then it came into his hand. The snake roared. ¡°Bastard!¡±

    He ripped the door open and found what he had hoped for, a staircase up. It was narrow and winding, and the edges of the steps had been grinded off by centuries of rain and presumably the scales of the snake, but enough remained for him to sprint away from the bandits. At the first curve, he was thrust into darkness, his own lantern forgotten in the snake¡¯s lair. The stone struck at him like briars and ambush vipers, catching his feet until he had to scramble with his hands to keep going.

    With rage chasing behind him, he found light at the end of the tunnel. Murky, turquoise light filtered through an algae infested water sanctum. The boy failed to surmise the purpose of the strange entrance. In the heat of the moment, it didn¡¯t occur to him that a snake large enough to eat a man whole had curious needs if she intended to remain dignified in appearance. All Sieg saw was a way to drown himself if he wasn¡¯t careful, and drowning was not something he could simply heal.

    A screaming bandit made him spin. The hall was narrow, too tight for two men abreast. The confinement gave Sieg the advantage, but pressed into a corner he couldn¡¯t back into was not. With lantern light shoved directly into his eyes, he traded blows with the enraged rogue. Their blades danced, clashing off one another until Sieg was forced to take a step back. His foot plunged into the cool water.

    The bandit roared, redoubling his attack to seize the opportunity.

    Sieg¡¯s foot held fast on the algae-covered rock though. He parried, locking out the overhead chop before throwing himself back at the bandit. The pommel of his blade smashed the man¡¯s nose with a crack. His eyes crossed, unseeing, and Sieg cleaved through the man¡¯s bare skull with a hammer blow.

    Steel lashed out at him.

    He had to dive backwards, landing in the open mouth of the reservoir to avoid the spear tip. The cold embraced him and he had no choice but to suck in breath and dive before the spear could stab again. While the hall gave him the advantage over swords, getting past a spear would be near hopeless.

    The water nearly blinded him, but he steeled himself with the knowledge that he was in a building, not a cave. There would be no fish, no crittering jittering bugs, and no carnivorous slimes. The only thing his fingers and arms grabbed hold of was algae and sandstone and his feet kicked to propel him through. He had to search near blind through a tunnel he didn¡¯t know had an exit, but he did know it had light from the other end.

    The water distorted the sound of bandits shouting and arguing, trying to goad one another into swimming after him, but Sieg¡¯s foreign nature saved him. He was of Vassermark, a maritime kingdom. Unlike the men of the desert, he knew how to swim. A dark pool of water wasn¡¯t merely a place to drown someone.

    With only the blurry hint of light to guide him, and his lungs burning for air, the water biting at the remnants of lacerations through his skin, he managed to kick off and throw himself up to the surface. His fingers broke free first, spraying water as he grabbed for the lip and hauled himself upwards. Noon sun beat down on him, flashing on and off as a rough tarp flapped in the wind above his head. Only on the second breath did he catch the fecal stench in the air

    A moderately surprised goat that had been drinking from the well bleated at him. It stood, flapping ears to scare off the flies, and stared with almond eyes at him. For the second time that day, he stared into the fat lines of a goat¡¯s pupils. A quick glance around revealed he had emerged into a stables. For a moment, he wondered why such an escape tunnel through the back of the temple was unwatched and unbarred.

    The stench alone was answer enough.

    With a shake of his head, he tossed the stolen sword out from the water trough and crawled out himself. Despite weary muscles and a burning chest, he resisted the urge to flop onto the ground, lest he come up covered in shit and weeds.

    The commotion to hunt him sounded like it was boiling out the front of the temple, and he could hear it echoing through the reclaimed town. Not one voice screamed that he was in the stables. No voice except the annoyed goat that wanted to bully him away from the water.

    My crow cawed, circling overhead with eyes fixed upon him.

    Sieg nodded. He understood what was expected. The Tolzi brothers would not arrive yet. The bandits were still his problem to conquer. So, he set about cooking up another lie. Rather than deal with the main host of mobilizing men, he ducked his head and ran through the town alleys. The bandits tasked with keeping watch would be armed, but hardly informed. He knew that if there was anyone left to fool, it would be one of them.

    And at the worst, it would be a mere two rogues to fight at the same time, rather than a dozen.

 0-6 - A Matter Of Trust

    ¡°By Shepherd¡¯s blessing, what happened to you?¡± the watchpost guard asked. The bandit didn¡¯t rise to greet Sieg. His post was akin to a tiny cave which kept him shaded and cool.

    Sieg had to stand in the full blast of the sun, whose only redeeming quality was the instantaneous ability to dry him off. The blood stains didn¡¯t wash off though. ¡°I was down in the sanctum of the temple, where all the¡­ mess is. I don¡¯t recommend it, but there was a spy. The Ferrets of the Grass Sea tried to assassinate Muharib, but got the wrong man.¡±

    The guard whistled, and another man stuck his head out from a cubby in the sandstone to ask, ¡°Is that what all the clamor is about?¡±

    Sieg grinned. ¡°Partly. The spy died in the struggle. He died right on the altar and his blood¡­¡± He drew it out as much as he dared. The camp was a whirlpool of men trying to kill him, and they¡¯d find him soon enough. ¡°The angel of the city has awoken at last. Vita fed upon his corpse and lives once more.¡±

    The watch post guards froze. They waited for him to say it was a joke. Then they cheered. Both of them threw their hands into the air and leapt out. They embraced Sieg and they embraced one another, laughing almost to the point of tears.

    Sieg stayed them with a raised hand. ¡°It¡¯s not time to celebrate yet. Vita is alive, but weak¡­ what¡¯s more, Muharib has sworn a vendetta against the knights who did this. Before the spy was killed, he said there were more killers like him waiting.¡±

    The first guard frowned. ¡°So¡­?¡±

    Sieg tapped him in the chest and gestured up the riverbed road. ¡°So come on. We¡¯re taking horses. If there¡¯s a lot of them, we come back with the whole camp. If there¡¯s just one or two¡­ well¡­ a snake needs to feed, right?¡±

    The second guard wetted his lips and glanced back to the heart of the camp. ¡°We can¡¯t just abandon our post¡­ what if they slip by and just waltz in?¡±

    Sieg said, ¡°That¡¯s why I¡¯m only taking one of you with me. The other stays. Come on, these are direct orders from Muharib.¡±

    The guards glanced at one another, studied each other¡¯s face, then shrugged. The first guard picked up his bow and quiver, slinging them over a shoulder with a nod. ¡°Let¡¯s go. I¡¯d love to be the one to feed one of those bastards to the emissary.¡±

    ¡°Come on, before they realize something has happened to their assassin,¡± Sieg said, and the two of them jogged down to a sand swept horse stables. It stank of ammonia and the two horses were delighted to be unhitched. It meant they might get away from the biting flies. They weren¡¯t warhorses by any stretch of the imagination, but neither Sieg nor the guard had armor weighing them down. The white mares were used for finding merchants and other prey, so they were kept saddled. The two of them leapt onto them and took off at a trot.

    They were around the first bend before anyone went to question the watch post, and they vanished to the wastelands before other horses could be found for pursuit. ¡°Come on,¡± the guard said. ¡°If there¡¯s anybody coming from the north to sneak up on us, I know just the place they¡¯d go.¡± It proved not far from the camp, which was fine by Sieg.

    He still had to go back and kill Muharib somehow.

    The guard led him up a slope between two mounds of weathered rock and they dismounted. The bandit stuck a finger to his lips to hush him, then squatted down. They crept through the crevices, setting their feet as softly as possible against the ground. The man shrugged off his bow and nocked an arrow. A thorn bush rustled in the wind and he peered through it, squinting at the hiding spot he assumed had northern knights in it.

    There was nothing but sand and stone and the shadow of my crow flying overhead.

    ¡°Damn, not here,¡± the guard said and stood. He scratched his beard, considering where else to check. Sieg did much the same, but he was considering something else entirely. ¡°Hey, I¡¯ve been meaning to ask you. Why do you have a sword but no scabbard for it? I don¡¯t even see your belt.¡±

    Sieg glanced down. He didn¡¯t have a convincing lie for that question. ¡°Ah, well, during the attack¨C¡± He stabbed the guard up through the stomach and into his lungs. There was a wet ripping through the flesh as the guard choked on blood and collapsed. That meant the blade was getting dull. Sieg pulled it free and spent a moment inspecting his weapon. To his horror, the blade was merely riveted onto the handle, and almost ready to come loose. A Vassish blacksmith would have killed himself from shame if he had produced such a shoddy thing, but Sieg was almost on the other side of the world and it was what he had to work with.

    He also helped himself to the guard¡¯s supplies. He took the man¡¯s bow, his unbloodied scarf, and his sword belt. Finally able to sheathe the blade, he almost looked innocuous.

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    Eleven of fifty bandits slain, Sieg picked a perch overlooking where the two horses had been left. He sucked down the dead guard¡¯s wineskin as he waited. To call the swill wine was a disservice to every vineyard I¡¯d ever been to, but the drink slaked his thirst and filled his stomach. Leathery aftertaste notwithstanding.

    Waiting for his pursuers became a sensitive affair. The boy was anemic despite healing his injuries with the power the gods put in him. Even a stigmata as potent as his could not create matter from nothing, so every drop of blood he lost had to be replaced and wine was a poor substitute. The sun looked down upon him mercilessly, until sweat beaded on his skin without a breeze to whisk it away.

    He was beginning to grow drowsy when he heard hoofbeats. The time elapsed could have been minutes or an hour in his mind, though I knew only ten minutes had passed. His pursuers charged down the riverbed road in a group of four. They came armed with spears and bows and spotted the abandoned horses. They slowed to a stop in some confusion, rounding on them. After a quiet discussion, three dismounted and one stayed ready to flee.

    It was that bandit which Sieg set his eyes upon. The boy drew the bow taut, until the wood cried in his hand for the tension, and emerged from his cover. He loosed before they spotted him and the shaft flew true. The tip plunged into the man¡¯s chest and stuck. Not as deep as it should have gone but deep enough. The tip pierced deep enough to turn the man¡¯s shirt red. The bandit screamed, panicking his horse which scampered in a circle.

    ¡°Son of a whore, get him!¡± one of the others shouted, each of them scanning the rocks.

    Sieg had already moved, descending down the backside of the rocks. He stole across back towards the camp and waited. The injured bandit eventually wrestled control of his horse once more and put his heels to the animal. Each trot jolted him with agony and made the man moan. Sieg sat close enough that he heard the rustling chain beneath his shirt as the man approached. Then he loosed a second arrow into the man¡¯s back and dropped him off the horse.

    Rather than stay and deal with the bandits hunting him down, Sieg burst from hiding. He ran down the road, leapt over the corpse, and grabbed the confused horse by the reins. Jamming one foot in the stirrup, he threw himself upon the animal and rode it back to the encampment.

    Before his face could be made out, he wrapped the stolen scarf around his face and shouted, ¡°We found him! He¡¯s to the north, hiding in the hills. There¡¯s a whole army coming down on us though. Raise the alarm!¡±

    Some men had been gathered along the north end of the camp and obeyed his cries from habit. Soon a hammer was beating on a sheet of copper, summoning the rest of the men over to it. They let Sieg ride in among them without loosing a volley of arrows at him, and to their surprise he rode straight past them. Several of them frowned and turned their heads. They asked one another, ¡°Was that the¡­ what color was his skin just now?¡±

    A moment before they could confer with one another on what they had just seen, before the most courageous among them could shout, ¡°That was him!¡±, Sieg abandoned the horse and threw himself into an alley. Then the chase was anew, darting and dashing between shadows. The bandits attempted to surround him, to make a search perimeter and trap him like a fish in a net, but could only do so by shouting between each other. They practically told the boy exactly where they each were.

    While many of the larger buildings in Ennia¡¯s Crossing in fact burrowed into the stone as a means of warding off the heat, the growth of the ancient city had often cleaved off the backwall and made a building from a cave to a freestanding structure. The resident masons in turn dug beyond to make a new hovel, leaving nearly random cut throughs and passages and backdoors. Rather than face the business end of a spear in a tight alley, he drew his sword once more and shoved through one of those backdoors.

    It wasn¡¯t a bandit that blinked back at him in surprise, but the doctor¡¯s assistant. She snatched up a surgical blade and pointed it at Sieg. Before she could open her mouth and scream, the doctor interjected with a soft, ¡°Don¡¯t.¡± He stepped around the corner, from the front room and to the storeroom. He walked carefully, stepping between the shelves of clay pots and keeping his hands clasped behind his back.

    ¡°Why?¡± Sieg asked.

    The doctor frowned. ¡°I should have realized you weren¡¯t the other Vassish boy when I first saw you. Arram was so eager to drag you off¡­ I had just noticed the stigmata across your chest.¡±

    ¡°What about it?¡±

    ¡°The size,¡± the doctor said, and shrugged. ¡°Whatever it does, I get the impression that you¡¯re quite capable of killing every single person in this camp by yourself.¡±

    ¡°And?¡±

    The doctor nodded towards the wall. The bandits outside were sounding off, closing the net. ¡°My job is to keep them alive. They¡¯re just boys in a sense, like you. Is there anything I can do to convince you to spare them?¡±

    Sieg sucked his chest full of air and let it out. He straightened his stance and walked over to the older man. At his full height, he could just barely loom over him, and he said, ¡°Help me get Muharib¡¯s head and I will leave.¡±

    The doctor nodded. ¡°That will be hard, now that he¡¯s begging favor of the emissary.¡±

    Sieg narrowed his eyes. ¡°Why aren¡¯t you begging for Vita¡¯s help against me?¡±

    The doctor smirked. ¡°Because I don¡¯t trust her. I¡¯ve never heard of Shepherd having a snake for an angel.¡±

    Sieg laughed. ¡°You should have seen her eat that corpse. There was nothing angelic about that, that¡¯s for sure.¡±

    The doctor winced and shook his head. He ordered his assistant to put the knife down and be quiet. The search had grown more distant in their shouts and it seemed they didn¡¯t realize they had missed the boy so easily. The doctor at last nodded to him and said, ¡°I will help you get Muharib, as much as that pains me, because it will free us of his vendetta. If the snake attacks you however¡­¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll deal with that if I have to.¡±

 0-7 - Shocking Negotiations

    ¡°You really don¡¯t look like him at all,¡± the doctor¡¯s assistant said. She loomed over him, arms crossed and blocking the light.

    Sieg bit off another piece of dried meat and shrugged. He sat against the back wall of the building, between unmarked barrels where the stone stayed cool despite the day¡¯s blaze.  ¡°People see what they expect to see. So, I showed them an injured Vassish man of the right age and the right clothes. I don¡¯t even know his name. Nobody¡¯s used his name this entire time. They didn¡¯t really know him.¡±

    ¡°It was Liam. Were you the one to kill him?¡±

    ¡°No, my friend did. Do you expect me to cry on his behalf or something?¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re trampling on his reputation to kill people.¡±

    Sieg shook his head. ¡°This camp is nothing but thieves and murderers and the women they¡¯ve brought.¡±

    The woman hung her head. ¡°They¡¯re good to us¡­¡±

    ¡°But?¡±

    ¡°But, they are killers, yes, and so are you, man who is not Liam.¡±

    ¡°Call me Sieg.¡±

    The woman huffed and moved her hands to her hips. She glanced back at the light. There were other men at the front of the shop. The doctor was occupying them and keeping them from investigating his storehouse. ¡°I¡¯m amazed you can eat that. We could have poisoned it.¡±

    Sieg swallowed and nodded. ¡°You certainly have the tools to do so, but if you did, I¡¯d kill both of you.¡±

    ¡°We could be stalling you to gather all of the men around this building and torch it, burn you alive.¡±

    Sieg laughed. ¡°If you did that, you¡¯d all die. It wouldn¡¯t be pretty, and it would hurt a lot, but I¡¯d get the job done. All you¡¯d do by that is earn me a scolding.¡±

    ¡°You have so much faith in your stigmata?¡±

    Sieg put the last of the jerky in his mouth and chewed it. His gaze grew distant and he stared more at the shadows than at the woman. ¡°I don¡¯t think faith is the right word. I know exactly what it can do, and I know what I can do. I¡¯ve already taken the measure of these bandits and yeah, if forty of them came at me at once, I might be in trouble¡­ but they won¡¯t. I¡¯ve already killed too many of them. You can see it. If you don¡¯t believe me, go out there and look at their eyes. Not in the faces of the men in charge, but in the ones they¡¯re ordering around. These aren¡¯t trained men, they¡¯re vigilantes at the most kind interpretation. Just normal men who have maybe killed once before. Probably they¡¯ve only seen other people do the killing and they did the plundering.¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t you think killing their friends would have enraged them? Embittered them?¡±

    ¡°Some, like Muharib. Not just any man can make a blood oath like that, on the spur of the moment no less. But that¡¯s why he¡¯s in charge: he¡¯s unusual. Right now? The rest of them? They¡¯re realizing their choice is between fighting me who they know has killed ten already, and even if they do kill me they¡¯ll now be working for a man-eating angel, or running away.¡±

    The woman clicked her tongue and scowled. ¡°The men of Giordana are not cowards.¡±

    ¡°So you say, but if the blood starts flowing, do you really think they¡¯ll fight to the last man? Against an enemy they can¡¯t kill no matter how many times they stab?¡±

    She opened her mouth, words half formed. She hesitated. The more the question turned in her head, the more she scowled at the boy because she slowly realized he was right. The men would be scattered. They would break and flee. It would shame them but they would be alive to feel that shame. Eventually, she swallowed her rebuke and straightened up. ¡°A disgusting use of power.¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t like it? There are plenty of small villages that never see a day of violence. Go find one,¡± Sieg said, and he watched her fail to answer him. She couldn¡¯t find the words because she wasn¡¯t free to leave and she knew it. For all that he had seen in Ennia¡¯s Crossing, she was one of the few women able to walk freely, with her head up and dressed how she pleased. She had privileges, but they only went so far.

    She eyed him as he uncorked his stolen wineskin again and squeezed the last drops into his mouth. She asked, ¡°What are you going to do if the angel comes with him?¡±

    ¡°Vita? She won¡¯t. And even if she does, I have options.¡±

    ¡°You speak as though you know a centuries lost god child.¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t put them on pedestals like that. The emissaries are just like any human, they just have magic and no sense of meekness.¡±

    ¡°So they¡¯re like you.¡±

    ¡°You could say that. Mostly, you just have to remember that they don¡¯t bow to laws. They don¡¯t have cultural expectations on them. They are free in ways you and I never can be.¡±

    ¡°You sound like you admire them.¡±

    ¡°I respect them.¡±

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    ¡°But you don¡¯t fear them.¡±

    ¡°Not like you do, no.¡±

    ¡°And you¡¯d kill her self-appointed priest right in front of her?¡±

    Sieg grinned and spread out his arms. ¡°And then I¡¯d offer her his corpse.¡± She shook her head and turned to leave. Sieg jumped up. ¡°Now, hold on,¡± he said, reaching for the back of her dress. ¡°Where are you going? You¡¯re the collateral for the deal, aren¡¯t you?¡±

    She stopped, her posture stiff. ¡°No, I¡¯m the one that will make it happen. I¡¯m the bait.¡±

    The door to the front room, where the doctor worked his more normal trade as a barber, opened up. The old man stuck his head through and gestured at the back door. ¡°Go, go now.¡±

    The woman spun on her heels and Sieg followed as they slipped out the back. Rather than follow the alleys, she led him to one of the buildings still half-buried by the sandstone. The place had become a refuse heap of discarded and rotten furniture, likely cleaned from the town by the bandits as they settled in. But there was a slim path to the back. She guided him to it, and then up a ladder made from pockets carved into the stone. The path was tight as a chimney and went straight up to the outer buttresses of stone.

    Unabated sun beat down, drawing ever longer shadows across the sand. There was a rugged path out to the wastes, and from there one could circle either to the riverbed road or any number of other paths. It was surely a passage that should have been guarded and monitored, for had we known of it the ruse would have been unnecessary. We could have stolen in during the night and slit throats. Of course, such ease of murder would have done little to demonstrate the boy¡¯s independent capabilities. Alas, these wastelanders lacked the manpower to guard such an insignificant passage, relying on the desert itself as their protection. Their concern was of armies, not assassins.

    Sieg followed her out to a clearing between some rocks, a hollow that might once have been flush with water, with tough fronds of plant life and carp darting about. They found only stone and sand, not even miserly roots. The depression was just enough that a man atop the roofs of Ennia¡¯s Crossing wouldn¡¯t be able to see in, so Sieg came to a stop.

    ¡°You can leave,¡± he said.

    The woman balled her hands to fists and glanced over her shoulder at him. ¡°So you can put an arrow in my back?¡±

    ¡°Why would I do that? I¡¯ll keep my end of the bargain. Just when you leave, you go away. Don¡¯t circle around and bring the other bandits.¡±

    ¡°Muharib will bring men.¡±

    Sieg drew his sword and walked over to one of the rock walls. As he leaned against it, he said, ¡°Let him. It will be more to feed to the snake.¡±

    The woman took a few steps away from him, and saw that he didn¡¯t move to stop her. ¡°You¡¯ll really just let me go? Just like that?¡±

    ¡°Haven¡¯t you ever heard the saying to not look a gift horse in the mouth? If you¡¯re the bait to bring him out here, then I assume you¡¯re with¨C¡±

    ¡°Where is he?¡± Muharib roared. The bandit chief came in running and vaulted the edge of the rock valley. He crashed to the sand, landing on his feet with his sword drawn, face red.

    The woman bolted, turning and scrambling up the far side of the wall as Sieg stepped forward to meet the man with a bounty on his head. ¡°Just you?¡± he asked.

    ¡°Hostage taking!--¡± Muharib¡¯s rage stumbled as he watched the woman freely escaping. He stared, processing and considering. In the moment the tension of his body slackened from confusion, Sieg lunged forward. The two of them whipped their arms, twisting blades back and forth in wild slashes. The back and forth clash of steel rang out like the beat of music until blood began to wet the sand.

    Both men came to realize that they were being let down by their own weapons. The swords were cheaply made, mass produced by blacksmith apprentices using passed down, secondhand methods. The steel itself had been reforged from earlier steel time and time again, salvaged from battlefields and hammered back into the crude shape of a blade. What they each held were thick and blunt, they swung pendulously with a life of their own, recoiling off one another. Even when they slashed flesh, the weapon bogged down in cloth and fat.

    But of the two warriors, Sieg was the more fit and the more trained. His stigmata had already stitched together his pierced heart and closed his stomach. It had transmogrified wine to blood and maintained his youthful vigor. But he had fought nearly a dozen men already.

    The bandits Muharib had brought with him were slow to join the fray, loathe to throw themselves into the flurry of blades. The doctor¡¯s lie had been of a hostage, that their chief¡¯s woman would be killed on the spot; but, she was already gone and yet Muharib had not changed his orders. Every moment that passed made them more convinced that orders didn¡¯t matter: that they should jump in to run the Vassish boy through.

    So, despite his other advantages, Sieg had to press the fight, press his luck, and he took a chance with an overhead chop. In a sense, it was a sloppy thing, the way Leomund would have fought but without the mass of muscle that northern bear possessed. Sieg could only try to imitate the ferocity and smashed the edge of his blade down.

    He landed upon Muharib¡¯s fingerguard, where the steel had been riveted to the handle. Alas, it was his battered blade which erupted. Steel and wood shattered in every direction, shrapnel flying in both of their faces. They reeled, feeling the hot sting of blood.

    The bandit chief blinked and grinned a shark¡¯s toothy grin. Up raised his own blade to return the blow.

    Training took over. Sieg leapt forward. His hands closed around Muharib¡¯s sword arm. The bandit roared and tried to grab him off, but his other hand was the arm Sieg had run through with the blade only that morning. His grip failed. Sieg pushed himself on, jumping off the ground and swinging. He wrenched the older man¡¯s arm around and pulled him off his feet. Both of them hit the sand. They rolled and grappled. Limbs flailed. Up and down the sword was waved, slapping against the sand. Muharib found himself above Sieg and drove a shoulder into the boy. He hammered his entire weight against the bandages across his gut.

    Sieg cried out in pain, but didn¡¯t lose his grip. He had no wound left to split open there. His focus never left the task at hand. He snapped Muharib¡¯s little finger, pried it straight off the handle of the sword until it bent in half and the bandit howled. But, he didn¡¯t try to take the sword. He instead smashed his sandaled foot into Muharib¡¯s face. Something cracked.

    The man went slack.

    Then, Sieg took the sword from his grasp. The other bandits realized too late who had gotten the better of the grapple. They jumped forward, spears upraised.

    ¡°Stop,¡± Vita ordered, rising up with the sun to her back. She no longer had the form of a mere snake, but that of a woman from the waist up. The beautiful visage of the painting, bare to the skin. She scowled down at him. ¡°Violence disgusts me. I, as an emissary of the gods, command you¨C¡±

    Sieg stabbed Muharib through the chest. The older man¡¯s sternum cracked. Blood squirted free. He convulsed and choked. He groped at Sieg¡¯s arm, at the sword, at the boy¡¯s neck. In but an instant, he was too feeble to even close his hands.

    All stared at him. The bandits looked to Vita for guidance, born servants that they were, but she was at a loss for words.

    My crow landed behind Sieg and cawed twice.

 0-8 - Taking The Head

    Beneath the sun the two men laid, one atop the other with steel and blood linked between. Sweat dripped from lifeless limbs and ragged breath filled but one. Sieg turned his gaze back up, to face the shock and horror. The suntanned Giordanan men floated about him, no strength in their feet to drive them on. They held spears at the ready but were repelled by the ghastly sight. Honor eschewed, etiquette as dead as their chief. Whether to rage or cry, they did not seem to know. But all called Sieg the betrayer.

    Vita struck. Age and power gave her composure. The sight of blood did not stun her as it once had, but she did not trust the bandits which stood beside her. Faith laid only in herself, so she was the one to lash out. Her tail swung, more like a river crocodile than the anaconda her serpentine half mimicked. Flesh and scale slammed across Sieg with the force of a battering ram.

    The boy flew and struck the stone. A bandit jumped to skewer him as he landed across the sand. Vita had to pull the man back, throwing him to the ground before Sieg¡¯s rolling thrust could spill his bowels. Up Sieg went, to hands and knees as his stomach spilled out his throat. The sweet mess of wine and acid splattered beneath him as the emissary descended to the makeshift arena.

    ¡°You¡¯re going to fight me?¡± he asked, wiping his chin of red stained vomit.

    ¡°You impudent little insect. You arrogant ape. Did you grow up in the woods? Was the sense beaten from your skull? Do you not understand who I am? What your place is in this world? I can work magic you couldn¡¯t even comprehend!¡±

    ¡°No, you can¡¯t,¡± Sieg said, and didn¡¯t deign to look at her. He stared at the bandits which crowded behind the serpentine woman like children to their mother¡¯s skirt. He laughed. ¡°If you had the strength to, you would have just killed me. You angels don¡¯t speak, not like this. I happen to be quite familiar with what is and isn¡¯t possible for you.¡±

    Vita raised herself up like a viper about to bite. She scowled down at him with bare rage. A very striking figure for the boy, as she had yet to clothe herself. ¡°Everything is possible!¡±

    ¡°What? From one goat and a dead drunk? I bet you barely had enough power to rebuild your body. Why else would you still have a monstrous half? What are you going to do? Spit at me?¡±

    ¡°I will curse you.¡±

    ¡°Go ahead and try. How much time do you have, anyway? Shepherd is going to notice soon enough.¡±

    Vita hesitated, her eyes narrowing. ¡°What does she have to do with this?¡±

    Sieg held out his arms, his chest bare of defenses. When she didn¡¯t strike him down, he said, ¡°There¡¯s at least one soul you didn¡¯t gobble up. What are you going to do if he tells the reapers about you?¡±

    One of the bandits craned his head up and said, ¡°She is the daughter of the goddess, you foreign bastard.¡±

    Sieg set his gaze on the talkative bandit and asked, ¡°But which¨C¡±

    ¡°You like to talk, don¡¯t you, boy?¡± Vita asked, cutting him off.

    ¡°That I do. I¡¯m almost as good at it as I am with a sword. Of course, it helps when I have the upperhand.¡±

    ¡°Blasphemer,¡± one of the other bandits said, and he glanced to Vita. they all seemed raptly attentive to the pose of the angel. They expected her to avenge their chief for them, the fools.

    Vita huffed. She brushed her hair back and let the sun illumin her face. AS the moments passed, vitality continued to creep through her body. Skin that had been subtly pallid became flush with golden life, but that transformation was not without cost. She was disarming herself of the very ability needed to fight Sieg, and both of them knew it. A half step to proper negotiations as she said, ¡°What a godless land this has become.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s a speck of desert ruled by criminals ousted from their homes. What else would you expect?¡±

    ¡°This was a city once,¡± she said, crossing her arms. ¡°Nearly lost to time but now I have returned. Thanks to the good faith of these people and their years of sacrifice. It is not something I will give up lightly.¡±

    Sieg began to relax his shoulders. ¡°You may do with these ruins as you bloody well see fit. Why you would want these men as inhabitants¡­ well, I can only guess.¡±

    ¡°I suppose they¡¯re not much of a bandit troupe without a chieftain, now are they?¡±

    At last the other men caught on and realized that she was selling out their honor. ¡°My lady! You can¡¯t mean to let him leave?¡± one demanded.

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    ¡°Put your spear down,¡± she ordered.

    ¡°There was a vendetta!¡±

    ¡°Muharib is dead,¡± Sieg barked at them. ¡°The oath is broken. If you want revenge, well¡­¡± He grabbed the front of his shirt and tore it off, letting the innumerable little cuts and slashes shred the fabric. It ripped free, fluttering away in the wind and bared his chest to them. Upon his breast sat the divine sigil of his stigmata, the same language that adorned Vita¡¯s bones. The runes circled around his heart in patterns and geometries of ineffable purpose. Muharib had such a marking across his own chest, but his was not even one third the complexity of my pupil¡¯s blessing. By the difference in size alone the bandits began to realize the gulf between them and the mere boy before them.

    Vita clicked her tongue and scowled. She could read the marking as well as I could and was under no illusion as to its power. ¡°So that¡¯s how you survived a sword to your heart.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s a pretty useful trick, ain¡¯t it?¡±

    Still, the bandits gnashed their teeth. Their blood boiled and the death of their dear leader spurred them on. They spread out to either side and pointed their spears. One even apologized to the emissary. ¡°Our honor won¡¯t allow him to leave,¡± he said.

    The doctor appeared along the hidden path, strolling down as he barked at him, ¡°Let him go you idiots. You bunch of fatherless bastards who don¡¯t know strength from foolishness. Honor is worthless in the grave. Shepherd has been trying to teach that to you people for nearly a thousand years, but you just don¡¯t quit it.¡±

    Sieg broadened his stance and put his heels to the rock behind him. The sword he had stolen from Muharib was in rough shape, but it was the tool he had. ¡°It¡¯s hollow men indeed that can¡¯t live with shame. You aren¡¯t such noble creatures as you pretend to be. If you must meet your goddess, then come. If you have better sense, then let me leave with my trophy.¡±

    ¡°Step aside!¡± the doctor bellowed at the wavering men. ¡°Don¡¯t you have anything to live for?¡±

    Vita too said, ¡°Put your spears down you idiots. If violence is all you¡¯re good for, I think I should have to find new people to live here. Perhaps I should let him gut you all like pigs, but I¡¯d hate to see the goats languish to the crows.¡± I suspect by this time she had already comprehended my ploy with the bird, for I circled overhead, gliding from heat rushes to updrafts, with eyes upon my pupil.

    I confess, I was considering killing her. The sacrifice of a goat let me marionette a bird for a day, but the sacrifice of an angel? There were many things I could have done, had I taken the risk of angering her mother. But for a forgotten child, yet to cry out for help and return to the goddess¡¯ embrace? In such a godless land no less. I still wonder if I should have. Perhaps I would have been able to do something different at some crucial moment. But such a choice was not my pupil¡¯s to make, and this is his story, not mine.

    ¡°Just attack me if you¡¯re going to. One way or another, the banditry here is over. The choice is yours: die, or give up and become priests. Even if you think you can take me, my friends are coming to get me already. I¡¯m just waiting for a horse to ride.¡±

    One of them did think he could take Sieg. He screamed and dashed forward, spear raised. I¡¯ll never know what peculiar circumstance led to his making that decision. Perhaps he was in love with Muharib, or perhaps he had some form of brain damage. Both things were common and neither spoken of. Either way, he overcommitted to his first stab. Before anyone else could focus their wits, Sieg had closed with him. The bandit tried to pull his spear back and shove him away but it was too late. Sieg cut him from groin to shoulder then kicked him to the ground.

    Two other bandits stumbled to a stop, faced once more with their own mortality. Sieg stared them down, fresh blood sprayed across his chest and face.

    I finally judged the affair to be over, and signaled to Leomund. The northerner along with his brother rose from their hiding and walked to the edge of the pit. To announce himself, Leomund lobbed an ax down to the sand. He sent it spinning through the air and let it slam into the dirt before Sieg¡¯s feet. The weapon was no ordinary war ax. Those are quick and hooked, good for tugging shields aside and smashing through helms. He sent a long bladed thing, more fit for chopping firewood or clearing brush than for battle.

    ¡°Run away, boys. The berserkers are here now,¡± Leomund said as he slowly drew out his greatsword. He let them watch inch after inch of fine, crucible steel emerge and shimmer in the light. Well oiled and stout enough to cleave straight through their spear hafts. He held a troll-killer¡¯s weapon and had the hulking physique to use it.

    Sieg let out his breath and relaxed his stance as the bandits fled. They turned and ran and scrambled up the stone walls like scampering monkeys. Even the angel cowed away, circling the sand and rising to the upper ledge as she eyed him carefully. I suspect he looked somewhat similar to the men that had burned Ennia¡¯s Crossing so many centuries ago and she considered the risk of attacking him purely to sate that ancient hatred.

    I landed the crow upon his shoulder and stared her down.

    ¡°What¡¯s that for?¡± Sieg asked, pointing to the ax.

    Leomund grinned. ¡°Isn¡¯t it obvious? We need his head to get the bounty.¡±

    The boy paled and looked over at his earlier handiwork. The blade was indeed the width to cut through a man¡¯s neck. He wetted his lips and checked to see if Leomund would laugh and say something else, but the northerner didn¡¯t. So he pulled the headsman¡¯s ax free and kicked over Muharib¡¯s corpse.

    The doctor held his tongue and watched. He did not turn away from the bloody scene he had helped orchestrate. I suppose that made him the most honorable man in the whole encampment, but it earned him no regard from his peers. It took Sieg three tries to break through all the muscle and cartilage, to split the vertebra and rip the head off. Had he not already puked, he would have again.

    Vita tried to slither away as he wrapped the bloody head in his scarf. The boy was preoccupied thinking about how to preserve the thing long enough to deliver it for the bounty, but I had grander plans. I alighted the crow between Vita and the town and stared her down.

    I didn¡¯t kill her that day, but I did make her work for my leniency.

 0-9 - The End Of Boyhood

    The trip to Tavina took nearly a week, as the men had to hunt down the most remote of farming hovels and buy water for the trip. They traveled by night and were lucky to get a cask in which they could submerge Muharib¡¯s head in oil. It wasn¡¯t a perfect means of preservation, but it did the job until we were able to pull it out for the town steward. That old man nearly fainted at the grisly sight, but he paid out quickly.

    For a few days, we dined like kings, because we had nothing to do but wait. And so, a day came when we sat together along the side of Dead King¡¯s Park. Adjoining the oasis pool which formed the heart of the city, hardy grass blanketed the ground right up to the edge of the water. An almost silly tradition of the city had successfully left the mausoleum at the park¡¯s heart untouched by consensus. As long as that ancient grave remained, the park had to remain, and no greedy merchant could gobble up the one spot of green the city had.

    With a plate of syruppy dates laid between us, I asked my pupil, ¡°So what have you learned?¡± and stuck another of the fruits between my lips.

    ¡°Well, if nothing else I should know what my enemy is capable of before breaking my hard won illusion.¡±

    ¡°Very good, that¡¯s certainly something to value. You nearly had a mess on your hands when he didn¡¯t keel over on the spot. You showed good improvisation however, so my training hasn¡¯t been for nothing. What else?¡±

    He plucked one of the dates and popped it into his mouth. After looking across the roads, the milling people with their heads down like the temple towers might glare at them too fiercely, he said, ¡°most people just believe what they¡¯re told to believe. Fifty bandits and what? A handful were impulsive idiots, a couple had the ability to lead, and the rest fell in line.¡±

    I nodded. ¡°Very good indeed. To lead is a very heavy burden for the mind. Most people you see want nothing to do with it. It¡¯s too hard for them to even lead themselves. That¡¯s how you get kings. Even when they¡¯re bloodthirsty tyrants, the fear of having to be responsible for themselves can still overpower the lowly will to power. Humans are like sheep. Often enough, the only thing they care about is what the group consensus is. If everyone is going along with the lie, then it is the truth.¡±

    ¡°Still, Master¡­ you¡¯re asking me to tell a very big lie.¡±

    ¡°The biggest that ever was told. Well, second or third at least. The temples of Lumius will probably keep the title of biggest liars, but still. The grander the lie, the easier it will be.¡±

    My pupil grimaced. ¡°If you say so.¡±

    ¡°I do.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re not going to break my nose again, are you?¡±

    ¡°Oh, no, no I have a better plan than that. I¡¯ve brought in an expert this time. Much more refined than Leomund bashing you in the face. Ah, there she is now,¡± I said, gesturing to the absolutely stunning woman walking down the cobblestone road towards us. Tall, mature, golden of skin and black of hair, dressed in silks and with vertical slit pupils.

    My pupil almost fell out of his chair, grabbing for his sword, before I told him to stop, and let Vita of Ennia¡¯s Crossing join us at the table. ¡°How are you finding the city?¡±

    She crossed one leg over the other, stole a date from us, and said, ¡°A near incomprehensible maze. There¡¯s so many people. There¡¯s people packed into people, I swear. Don¡¯t they realize they can just build more walls? Do they really need to pile on top of one another like one giant orgy of commerce?¡±

    I said, ¡°It seems to be the natural evolution of human affairs.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s disgusting. I can¡¯t get the smell of sweat out of my nose. Even when I go to the spice merchants!¡±

    ¡°Did you find a merchant for your needs?¡±

    ¡°To furnish my city? No, not yet. I had my hopes for a family called the Cantas. People spoke well of them, but it seems they¡¯ve already been contracted.¡±

    I grinned and folded my hands together on the cafe table. ¡°Indeed they have. Most of Giordana has been conquered by the people of the west, Vassermark. Any merchant could tell you that the best deals are all being offered by the men with an army at their back. The locals are a tad scared to go against them, lest the Vassish march over here and put them to the sword. These conquerors would love nothing more than a reason to seize all their assets.¡±

    She sneered. ¡°Makes it very hard to counter offer.¡±

    I laughed. ¡°Give it time. The Vassish are prepping an expedition to the southern continent and taking most of their resources with them. They¡¯re going to leave behind a nominal force at best, and far too much resentment. Did you see the young Vassish commander meeting with the Cantas?¡±

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    The young blond? The one that couldn¡¯t wait to throw himself into the gambling den?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s the one.¡±

    ¡°What about him?¡±

    I hooked a thumb at my pupil. ¡°Sieg is no more. Sieg played his part and now it¡¯s time for a new identity. Give the actor his new role and I¡¯ll give you a hand with Ennia¡¯s Crossing, yes?¡±

    ¡°An expert? This is what you call an expert?¡± my pupil demanded, gesturing at the emissary that had nearly killed him, or at least as close as his undying body could go.

    Vita ignored his quip and reached out to put her hand to his face. She rubbed the bits of baby fat and felt his cheekbone. ¡°Yes, I am an expert at this. I¡¯m an artist. Can¡¯t you tell from how beautiful I am?¡±

    ¡°Your hand is cold, like your blood,¡± the boy said, staring into her eyes as she ran her thumb over his lips.

    The angel narrowed her eyes. ¡°Most men would be begging to warm my bed.¡±

    I cleared my throat. ¡°The boy¡¯s had a rough life.¡±

    ¡°Living with you, Amurabi? I¡¯d be shocked if he hadn¡¯t. I should have known it was you the moment I saw that bird. You know, there¡¯s probably going to be some other would-be warlord at Ennia¡¯s Crossing, don¡¯t you? In my absence here, someone is going to think they can replace Muharib and turn against me.¡±

    ¡°If you¡¯re asking for a bit of muscle, you¡¯ll owe me more than a glorified makeover.¡±

    She clicked her tongue. ¡°Please, you can spare those barbarians, and if you expect me to make this boy the spitting image of¨C¡±

    I held up my hand. ¡°I expect you to make him better looking than that garrison commander. You are capable of that, aren¡¯t you?¡±

    ¡°Of course I am. I could change him into a woman able to start wars with a sigh if I wanted to.¡±

    ¡°Master!¡±

    ¡°Best not,¡± I said. ¡°He needs to lead men, not lure them.¡±

    ¡°Shame. I love working the feminine form.¡±

    ¡°Absolutely not,¡± the boy said, pulling away from her.

    Vita sighed and shrugged. ¡°Too bad, but there is more than one way to be beautiful.¡±

    I ignored his balking shock and said, ¡°Just remember that he also needs to stab people to death. So, give him a warrior¡¯s jawline. He still has to pass as that noble brat though.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re putting a lot of restrictions on this request,¡± Vita said, rubbing her own chin as she stared at the boy¡¯s face and imagined what it could be.

    ¡°Artist¡¯s thrive under pressure, don¡¯t they?¡±

    The boy looked between both of us, unsure where to find support. ¡°Hold on, I think I¡¯m a rather good looking guy.¡±

    The angel and I both laughed. ¡°You¡¯re just physically fit. That¡¯s only enough for a mundane life. You need to reach for more than mundane. More than any single man ever has before. You¡¯re to be a storybook hero made flesh. Anything less and the illusion won¡¯t hold up. Like I said, the bigger the lie, the easier it will be.¡±

    The boy retreated within himself for a time and only spoke up from the other rim of a wine glass. ¡°This isn¡¯t exactly what I thought you¡¯d be getting me for my eighteenth, you know.¡±

    ¡°Bah,¡± I said. ¡°You¡¯re already a man. You drink, you kill, you have all the skills needed to be free and independent. What more do you want? Because I¡¯m about to get you power, the right to rule over people and lead them to battle.¡±

    Everyone at the table knew what came to that boy¡¯s head afterward, but he didn¡¯t voice it. If he wasn¡¯t going to voice it out of some form of propriety, then I wasn¡¯t going to go out of my way to get him a woman for his eighteenth. I thought the angel might volunteer herself, but she had made it clear enough that she didn¡¯t care for men.

    So, I resolved to indulge a different vice with him. I put the purse of silver down in front of him and said, ¡°You¡¯re going to have to practice your gaming skills, you know? Dice, cards, trireme, you name it. The garrison commander is a well known gambler, even if he does lose more than he makes. Why don¡¯t you see if you can turn that silver to gold before we have to give you a new name?¡±

    ¡°So I¡¯m not Sieg anymore?¡±

    ¡°Of course not. We¡¯re done with those bandits. They¡¯re not even thieves anymore,¡± I said, with a pointed glance at Vita. She nodded agreement. ¡°And don¡¯t even think of using your bloody birth name. People¡¯d spit on you soon as they heard it. Soon enough you¡¯ll have a proper name. A noble¡¯s name that commands respect. I¡¯ve certainly taught you all the etiquette and posturing you¡¯ll need for it, so look forward to it, yes?¡±

    The boy nodded. ¡°Yes, Master.¡±

    ¡°Good. You can pick a new name for yourself, and use it in the gambling halls until the time is right. We¡¯re going to have to go south to Puerto Faro and wait for just the right moment. King Arandall has thrown gold by the wagon at this expedition that conquered the coast, and so far all I know is that they¡¯re going to the southern continent. Those cannibals will give them more trouble than they can imagine, I suspect, so something will go wrong soon enough. And then we strike.¡±

    Vita nodded. ¡°Are you fine with me changing his face tonight? That won¡¯t cause problems?¡±

    The boy said, ¡°As long as I don¡¯t dress like a nobleman, I won¡¯t be mistaken for one. It¡¯s all in the posture and attitude anyway.¡±

    Vita cocked her head to one side. ¡°What are you? An actor? You bluffed your way right past men who should have known the boy you killed and replaced.¡±

    The boy couldn¡¯t help but smirk. ¡°Something like that.¡±

    ¡°Soon enough,¡± I said, ¡°the lie will be real, and he won¡¯t be an actor but a nobleman. He will be Lucius von Solhart like that idiot brat could never dream of being.¡±

    The boy would would be Lucius lifted up his wine glass and I lifted mine. Vita at last realized I had prepared one for her, and the three of us made a toast. ¡°Here here,¡± he said.

    We all wetted our throats. ¡°A long time coming, too,¡± I said.

    Vita licked her lips clean. ¡°Just, stay on your own side of the world, please?¡±

    I cackled. ¡°What an interesting choice of words you used. Tell me, what constitutes my side of the world? Because if I get to choose, I¡¯ll take the side of the world that the great god Lumius shines upon,¡± I said, pointing to the sun overhead and all the lands that it touched.

 Act 1 - A Hero Fabricated

    Foreword,

    My name is Amurabi Et Al, the Last Wizard. I was born in a time before the present calendar, in a land lost to the veil, and to a people who can no longer walk beneath the so-called sun. I must begin by apologizing to you, my dear reader, as what follows is nothing more than my best attempt at chronicling the history of the Undying Emperor. Many events recorded here happened while I was not present, and are based off of memoirs or recollections that cannot be fully trusted. I have done my utmost to compile all relevant facts into one narrative, although I will confess that some dates may have been changed, or the actions of some minor players attributed to one personage who never truly existed.

    Due to the nature of this document, you may see revisions, footnotes, errors, and omissions as I issue corrections to the tale of my foolish pupil. Rest assured that the broad strokes of history are truer here than in any bardic poem, though some of the grander deeds may be even more embellished. Even after his inevitable, yet predicted, betrayal, I confess I still dote on my dear student. He was truly my greatest achievement.

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    History is a story we tell ourselves. The omission of my forgotten kin from this text speaks to this fact. Nowadays, to find the truth of those that came before, the Soliedar as we loftily called ourselves, one would have to follow in my footsteps and transgress beyond even the veil; but, this is not something I would advise to anyone who values their sanity. I have chosen to not disturb those graves, even while I rest my laurels at the tavern and bask in a plot well schemed.

    This history I pen is to be the origin story of the greatest empire that ever existed, of humanity¡¯s only hope against the deific pretenders. It is to be the progenitor myth that will guide the next thousand years, despite barely filling one man¡¯s lifespan.

    This is the story of Lucius von Solhart, the man who conquered the world.

 1-1 - Vendetta

    After several centuries of life, it is my firm conviction that a man is the culmination of his acts. Accordingly, I will begin this tale not while he was the mere victim of those with power, but upon the night he stepped out from my tutelage. Across the stage from him, another youth out from the protection of his father and bloodied for it. One from the conquering land of Vassermark, the other betrayed and left for dead by them. The young Medorosa Canta clawed his way back from the jaws of death and brought a declaration of war with him. In so doing, he tied their fates together, inextricably pulling them towards an embrace of steel.

    When the first rumors of Medorosa Canta¡¯s intent began to circulate, my pupil was but the smallest man at the table and too easily overlooked. The whispers of betrayal and hatred spread like lit kindling, working to catch the logs of a fire. I had prepared for the conflagration for months, and yet, in the hours before the event, we could do nothing but wait.

    My student, young as he was, struck out to the taverns while he still could. For him, alcohol retained a seductive allure and fa?ade of maturity. More importantly, there were men to gamble with, men whose money was easy to win. The bet he won earned him more than money.

    He won a heart.

    A great many things can come together within the fire-licked mud walls of a tavern. Exhaustion and frustration is loosened and released by the flow of drinks. Very terrible things were loosened that night.

    Arguments over the Canta boy flared up around him, bringing the drunkards of Puerto Faro to the brink. Sailors no more, those men had crashed upon the rocks of that rotten port and never escaped. Drifters, vagabonds, deserters, and rogues from all over the world clung to that Giordanan city till the sun cooked their skin like a brand. No decent captain would ever take them aboard. That city trapped them at the edge of the desert as surely as an island in the sea.

    ¡°I knew we should never have trusted the Vassish.¡± The man was as thick as an ox and his purse was as thin as his temper. Rather than linger upon how much of his coin sat inside my pupil¡¯s pocket, he pressed the malcontent of the day. ¡°I could wipe my ass with their noble honor. They left Canta¡¯s crew to die!¡±

    The bookie leaned in to meet him. Years of knife-fighting had given the tavern bookie an appearance much like a piece of pottery smashed on the ground and put back together. ¡°Stop complaining just because you lost a ship bet. You¡¯re gripping your coins like a peddler now. Buy yourself a drink, why don¡¯t you?¡± He wouldn¡¯t have lasted long as a bookie if his tongue wasn¡¯t as useful as his knife. Ship bets were a black thing for wishing death upon the free men who passed in and out of the city and left the locals behind. A black-hearted indulgence for sullen men to push coins from one hand to the next while sneering at the visitors.

    ¡°Forget the ship bet!¡± the large man bellowed, hammering his fist on the table. Everyone else had to snatch up their mugs. The ale¡¯s vile taste deserved no such protection, but the dry heat of Giordana demanded something to soothe the throat. ¡°Obviously I want my money back, but I had friends with Canta¡¯s crew! Those Vassish bastards abandoned them.¡±

    ¡°So Medorosa says,¡± my pupil said. He alone kept his elbows off the table, keeping his face out of the argument. His ears were engaged with the men, but his eyes sat upon the serving girl and to the fiery haired songstress dancing near the hearth.

    ¡°I¡¯d trust the Canta boy over the Vassish any day,¡± said the old sailor beside my pupil. It seemed to surprise most people that he in fact did have a mouth beneath his solemn white whiskers. ¡°But, he¡¯s damned young to have sworn a vendetta. His father should have taught him better restraint.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s about honor, you old barnacle!¡± the large man said. People at adjacent tables murmured agreement at that. ¡°It was his people that were killed. It¡¯s the good men of Tavina that have their heads on spikes, never to know peace in the next life.¡±

    ¡°I wasn¡¯t aware Vassish blood would fix that,¡± my pupil said. This was an error born of his wandering eyes. He had misjudged the table and should have kept his mouth shut. All turned on him as he sat there alone.

    ¡°Who exactly are you, anyways?¡± the large man asked, setting his arm in front of himself. Etched into his skin was the crest of the merchant family that had openly taken in Medorosa Canta, the Medini¡¯s.

    ¡°Me? I¡¯m nobody. I¡¯m just waiting to get my pay,¡± he said, leaning back into the table and meeting the large man¡¯s gaze for a moment. When he saw the flicker of confusion, he looked to the back corner of the tavern, to where the bookie¡¯s backer sat. The old merchant who owned the establishment had been watching and listening, and in turn he looked at the bookie.

    ¡°Ah, right. About that,¡± the bookie said, smiling and holding up a finger as he tried to think up his lie.

    The eyes that had been fixing my pupil to his seat did the same to the bookie. ¡°What¡¯s this about then? I wasn¡¯t aware anyone had arrived today,¡± one of the other men at the table asked.

    My pupil smirked. ¡°I bet on Medorosa.¡±

    ¡°But that pay was settled two days ago when the big fleet fled west. Canta¡¯s ship never made it on time!¡± the man said.

    The burn in the bookie¡¯s cheeks set in like a teenager courting a girl for the first time. ¡°Well he didn¡¯t quite bet on that.¡±

    ¡°He bet my brother survived,¡± the songstress said as she stepped up behind my pupil and planted her hands on his shoulders. ¡°I was here. The day that Vassish noble said my brother had been killed by the cannibals. He came in and put a bet down that he hadn¡¯t!¡±

    The backer sent one of his personal thugs over to the table, a giant-marked brute that had to stoop his head lest he bump the rafters. Sadly, I never got the chance to inspect just what form his stigmata had taken to gift him such an imposing frame, but he knew how to put it to good use. ¡°What were the odds?¡± he asked, standing directly behind the bookie.

    My pupil shrugged and turned up his hands. ¡°Twenty to one that he would arrive within the week.¡±

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    ¡°And how much did you bet?¡± the thug asked, squeezing the bookie¡¯s shoulder.

    In those days, my pupil was still too young to keep the smile off his face. ¡°One hundred talons.¡±

    The backer nearly had a fit at that. He grabbed at the table with withered, miserly fingers, which made his opinion on paying out clear to his thug. The indigenous scoundrels of Puerto Faro knew the best ways to fleece sailors of all they¡¯re worth, but soldiers had stubbornly resisted. After all their efforts, only a few thousand talons had made it from the pockets of the Vassish and into the pockets of the locals. Almost all of that had come directly from the young and stupid Lucius von Solhart; the commander of the garrison.

    Two thousand talons were due into the waiting hands of my student; a boy hailing from the lands of Vassermark. It doesn¡¯t take my wealth of knowledge to see how that would go over.

    ¡°Why don¡¯t you come to the backroom,¡± the thug said. ¡°We can¡¯t pay you that much gold out here.¡±

    ¡°Sounds good to me,¡± my pupil said, and rose from his chair. He followed the thug, eager to get away from the malcontents, from those ready to throw their weight behind Medorosa¡¯s vendetta.

    The singer girl tried to stop him. She tugged on his arm and pulled herself tight against him with a smile, and quite unbefitting of her looks, she whispered, ¡°Are you an idiot? They¡¯re going to kill you. You¡¯d be lucky to end up in a slave pit.¡±

    Her soft embrace made his head light and his thoughts fleeting. He had only just had his eighteenth year begin, and she was the jewel of Tavina to the north, plucked from her home by the caravans and so close he could smell her perfume over the pepper-leaf candles and ale. ¡°I¡¯ll be fine. I¡¯ll figure it out somehow. Don¡¯t you have another song to perform? You¡¯re¡­ did you say you were Medorosa¡¯s sister?¡±

    ¡°Aisha Canta, at your service! And presently trying to keep you from getting killed,¡± she said with the smile that had made a dozen coin purses open that night.

    My pupil turned and put his hand on her arm. ¡°You should leave the city, or at least go somewhere safe. Go back to Tavina when you can. Things are going to get very bloody here tonight. Your brother brought the fires to Puerto Faro,¡± he said, and walked out behind the tavern with the thug.

    Nights on the Giordanan coast could be quite pleasant, if one didn¡¯t mind the grape-sized flies. The pepper-leaf candles within the nighttime oases of depravity kept them at bay, but the filth of a back alley was rife with them. Fortunately for my pupil, they much preferred the giant. One of the insects made a dive bomb right onto the thug¡¯s neck as soon as he stepped out. He swatted it dead. ¡°You must be a lot dumber than you are lucky,¡± he said, flicking the insect guts off his hand.

    My pupil shrugged and glanced around. Scant few windows cast light across the pallid plaster. The main street would have been open, with rows of shops and cafes almost as enticing as the sequestered brothels. Behind the buildings, there wasn¡¯t even color to the city aside from a few tattered rugs out for cleaning. That, and any blood that would be spilt. ¡°Not even going to make pretenses? I got you good and you know it. It¡¯s just two thousand talons.¡±

    The thug pulled out a blade. ¡°You chose a bad night to be Vassish.¡±

    ¡°You don¡¯t choose your ethnicity, man. Besides, I¡¯m from Jarnmark. Look at you, you don¡¯t even know what Jarnmark is.¡±

    ¡°Does it matter? You¡¯re Vassish. There¡¯s a vendetta against all of you. No one will notice one more dead and that makes us two thousand talons richer. Besides, if I do let you go, someone else will slit your throat anyways. And if I let you run, there¡¯d be rumors. Can¡¯t have that. You know how it is,¡± the thug said, carefully stepping closer. He had done it before, he knew he was cornering a cagey animal.

    Most gamblers trembled in front of him, their knees shook and their eyes darted. Something they did would betray whether they would go left or right. Some went at him. My pupil lunged forward, one hand darting at the thug¡¯s face, fingers extended, and the other closing around the knife hand. Had he been against a normal sized man, he would have gouged their eyes out, but the giant jerked away just as my student¡¯s hand closed around the knife.

    The next move would have been obvious, to break the blade free of his grasp and take the advantage. Perfect to win a duel. My student was not in a duel. The giant was the imposing face of the enforcement, but he came with backup. An accomplice lurked atop the roof and put an arrow into my pupil''s back, the iron tip plunging through his shirt and past his ribs. It struck him like a planted flag, the banner was the splurt of blood from his lips.

    ¡°Oh¡­ shit¡­¡± he said, and coughed up blood. Warmth pooled up inside his chest. He toppled and hit the dirt, drooling his life out across the alley.

    The thug grumbled and shook his hand out. He sheathed the blade again and left him to die. The thug left him upon the ground, nothing more than one more inglorious grave come the morrow. Hundreds of men answered the call of Medorosa¡¯s vendetta and let their evil loose upon the Vassish garrison. Soldiers who were drunk, who thought they were among local friends or courting local women, came to know knives, clubs, and hatred.

    Shouting filled the streets of Puerto Faro, including Aisha¡¯s as she threw herself on the ground next to my pupil and tore his shirt open. ¡°It¡¯s okay, hey stay with me. It¡¯s just an arrow. You¡¯re a man, aren¡¯t you?¡± she asked as she rolled him onto his side. Blood squirted out of him, splattering her dress and coating her hands as it ran down to the gutters.

    ¡°Are they gone?¡±

    ¡°Yes, yes, they¡¯re gone. You¡¯ll be alright.¡±

    ¡°Pull it out. I can¡¯t move my arm,¡± he ordered.

    Aisha had little medical knowledge. She had been raised by a trader, not a doctor, so she complied. She took hold of the stubby shaft and, after my student gritted his teeth, ripped it out of his chest. He grunted, and she quickly started wiping the blood off of him before applying pressure. ¡°You¡¯re going to be alright. I¡¯ll get you to a doctor, okay?¡±

    ¡°I am alright,¡± my student grunted, pushing himself up to his knees. ¡°Get off of me, will you? You¡¯re ruining your clothes.¡±

    ¡°Are you insane? You¡¯re nearly dead!¡± she shouted as he spat the blood out of his mouth and wiped his chin off.

    ¡°I¡¯m fine, the wound is already closed,¡± he said, stretching his shoulder out to show her that the skin had sealed up once more. ¡°Stigmata,¡± he said, tapping the mark across his breast. Dirt and blood marred the divine sigil to the point of illegibility, not that anyone other than a wizard could actually read it regardless. ¡°Forget you saw me. Helping a Vassish man will be nothing but trouble for you. The riot has started.¡±

    She swatted him in the shoulder. Her cheeks darkened. ¡°I was worried about you and you¡¯re fine?¡±

    ¡°For the love of- are you upset that I¡¯m fine? What is wrong with you?¡±

    Before she could retort, a sudden defenestration smashed a man¡¯s body through the awning over the horse water. He didn¡¯t get up. Aisha looked at her bloody hands as my pupil slipped over and stole the dead man¡¯s sword. It was a fine, Vassish infantry blade. ¡°Um, you wouldn¡¯t just abandon me after I tried to save you, would you?¡±

    ¡°You should go in the exact opposite direction as me. I¡¯m going to the garrison.¡±

    ¡°Wait!¡± she cried out as he peered around the corner. ¡°What¡¯s your name?¡±

    My pupil hesitated at the edge of shadows within the alley. He could hear shouts and fighting, the clash of steel and the cries of death, and one name rose up again and again. From the lips of dozens of men, and soon from dozens more, there was the name of a new army. ¡°Cynizia!¡±

    The girl still stared at him, still expected an answer, but all he could say was, ¡°I don¡¯t have one¡­ yet.¡±

 1-2 - The Voluntaries

    ¡°What are you doing still walking?¡±

    The man cornering my pupil at the mouth of the alley was none other than the gambler from within the tavern, whom¡¯s gold was in my student¡¯s pocket. The man didn¡¯t wait for an answer, he barely thought it over as he looked between him and Aisha. He came to the conclusion he wanted to and bared his teeth with a grin.

    My pupil squeezed the grip of his sword, but didn¡¯t raise it. ¡°Why don¡¯t you forget you ever saw us? It¡¯d be better for you.¡±

    The Giordanan man had in his head that he was rescuing the sister of Medorosa Canta, and slugged my pupil in the mouth. It was a slow, but brutal thing. It split his cheeks against his teeth and knocked blood across the sandy street. Obviously, my pupil could have blocked it had he so chosen.

    Aisha half gasped and half shrieked. That only egged the man on, and out came a steel braced cane. Evidently he wasn¡¯t able to afford a sword of his own, I suspect that speaks to his general skill at gambling. My pupil didn¡¯t go down from the punch, nor from getting his temple split open by the cane.

    He just grinned as hot blood poured down his face. ¡°Thanks, now I look the part,¡± he said, and cut the man down. The fight only took a moment, average men don¡¯t last long; but, when it was done, my pupil nearly collapsed into Aisha¡¯s embrace.

    ¡°This is insanity,¡± she said, pulling him tight against her and pulling his arm across her shoulders.

    ¡°Your brother brought it, not me. I¡¯m telling you to get out of the damn city the moment you can.¡±

    ¡°What? Do you expect me to go running off on my own? With streets like this?¡±

    ¡°Fine, fine I¡¯ll get you somewhere safe, but¡­ before I lose consciousness,¡± he said with a gesture towards the garrison.

    ¡°Open up! Help! He needs medical attention!¡± Aisha cried out. She had my student¡¯s arm around her shoulders and had to drag him limp to the garrison. She had to drag him over to the Vassish men, as the only firm muscle on his body was his grip on his blade.

    A few half-armored men scurried out of the palisade gate and grabbed hold of my student. In that moment, the entire ruse hinged on the shock greeting of those guards and what they would think of seeing a Vassish man they didn¡¯t immediately know, and a Giordanan girl with him. The slightest layer of scrutiny and fear might have exposed him.

    But, the Vassish protected their own.

    The garrison had taken over Puerto Faro¡¯s main courtyard and a few boarding houses adjacent. With the wooden walls thrown up, it sat like an island in a swamp of violence. ¡°Give him here, give him here,¡± one of the guards said as he hoisted the bloody man up. ¡°By the light of god(1), what¡¯s happening out there? He¡¯s the tenth to come in like this!¡±

    The other gave my student a more careful examination, wiping some of the blood from his face. Of course, neither guard recognized him, but he was Vassish, armed with a military blade, and dying in his arms. The guard didn¡¯t ask any questions, just mumbled, ¡°Must be one of the voluntaries.¡±

    ¡°You his woman?¡± the first asked as they started dragging him to the infirmary. Aisha blushed and stammered long enough that they assumed she was, and let her follow inside. Letting people make their own assumptions can be the best way to sell a lie. They set him down on a cot, right between one man howling into a gag, clutching a severed arm, and another man sweating so profusely his sheet would need to get wringed out like laundry. The guards couldn¡¯t stay, not with their commander howling at everyone to rally to him.

    To rally and put down the riot by killing the Medini family.

    The infirmary doctor spared him a glance. With laudenum in one hand, and the other holding a funnel down a soldier¡¯s throat, he gave a groan at yet another arrival. He was a slim man whose spectacles and gentle features gave him a scholarly air. Had he not been covered in blood with his long hair tied back like a butcher, he would have been the delight of any women¡¯s circle. ¡°Is he actively dying?¡±

    My student gave Aisha a nod as she sat down next to him. ¡°No, I think. He¡¯s bleeding but it¡¯s slowed down.¡±

    ¡°That probably means he is almost out of blood then,¡± the doctor said as he pulled a strip of bandages out and started winding them around his patient¡¯s head.

    ¡°No no, they¡¯re just closing up!¡± she blurted out quickly. ¡°I think he¡¯ll be alright.¡±

    ¡°What? Wounds don¡¯t just close up. What is he, a sand snake?¡± the doctor demanded. He dunked his hands into a bucket of bloody water, wiped them off with a rag and ran over. ¡°You there, can you hear me?¡± The doctor grabbed my student¡¯s face, prying one eye open. For all the acting skills he had been taught before I picked him up as a boy, he never mastered how to dilate his pupils on command, which the doctor instantly noticed.

    ¡°Just stitch me up, will you?¡± he asked, using the soft exhale of his breath to understate himself. ¡°Some food would be nice, to replace the blood, you know?¡±

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    ¡°Do I look like a chef to you?¡± the doctor asked, running a wet cloth over the wounds.

    My pupil grinned. ¡°Might be a butcher.¡±

    ¡°Only on Sunsday,¡± the doctor said, sharing the grin with my pupil. ¡°The name¡¯s Samson, but everyone calls me Sammy. What¡¯s this?¡± he asked, jabbing a finger against the stigmata on my student¡¯s chest.

    ¡°Dunno, it just manifested. Might be why I¡¯m not dead,¡± my student lied. Of course, under the strictest scrutiny, the edges of this lie might have eventually crumbled, but timing is never perfect and a selection of truths to create a lie is better than wholecloth fabrication. For, the man he would be impersonating was still there in the garrison at the time.

    ¡°Well you¡¯d be the luckiest man in the city if that¡¯s true. Hey, you,¡± the doctor said as he looked up at Aisha. ¡°Gruel and beer are in the back corner. Get him some, will you? I have to seal these cuts.¡±

    Aisha took the chance to separate herself, and lingered at the back of the tent. The commotion could be heard there; the soldiers of Vassermark gathering like ants to a fallen piece of bread. There were no lines, there was no order, there was a confused mass of auxiliaries that barely had their armor and weapons on properly. Standing in the center, turning around as if bewildered, stood the commander of the garrison; Lucius von Solhart. He didn¡¯t shout out orders for silence, or to count heads, not even to form ranks and march down the street or bunker down. He shouted, ¡°The Medini Family! They¡¯re behind this plot! They took that Medorosa snake in and now they shall pay for this bloodshed!¡±

    The men of the garrison threw up their arms and roared. They had been conscripted from their lands and fiefs, stuffed onto boats and sailed halfway across the sea. They were rogues in a foreign land and had been the ones to sow the seeds of hatred through Puerto Faro. When threatened, they doubled down. Confused and armed men can only hold one thing in their mind; who to put their steel into, and their commander had just given them a target.

    ¡°Do you need any pain relief?¡± the doctor asked, his voice cool and calm.

    ¡°Just the beer. You can forget about me. I¡¯m sure everyone else in here needs your attention more. Except maybe him,¡± my student said, with a side eyed look at the sweaty man next to him.

    ¡°He¡¯s got dysentery, he¡¯s actually the most likely to die of all I¡¯d say. But, you shall have your wish,¡± the doctor said as he tied off the last stitch.

    Aisha marched back over holding a bowl of gruel in one hand and a tankard in the other. Both hands trembled. ¡°Why are they attacking the Medini¡¯s? They didn¡¯t do anything wrong. They¡¯re good people.¡±

    No one wanted to answer that question. Everyone else save the doctor had an excuse to remain silent, so he pressed his lips together and turned to her. ¡°We Vassish have a bit of a maxim. It is better to do something than nothing. Sometimes it leads to swift justice and relief, other times an innocent is victimized. We¡¯ll know tomorrow which it was.¡±

    My pupil could see the writing on the wall and quickly reached out to grab the food before she dashed it across the floor. ¡°Miss Medini hasn¡¯t done anything wrong! She didn¡¯t agree to the vendetta! He¡¯s just going there because of his gambling debts!¡±

    The doctor rose quickly, taking hold of his lapels and setting his back to the garrison. ¡°I think you should consider your words more wisely,¡± he said, and a few of the less injured men glared at her.

    My student pulled her down by the sleeve and made her kneel next to his cot. ¡°You came with me because the Cynizia scared you, right?¡± he hissed. ¡°Medorosa set demons loose in the city and you begged me to take you along. So keep your mouth shut. You don¡¯t have the power to do anything here. Understand?¡±

    She did understand, and kept her mouth shut and her head bowed as my student filled his stomach. The commander had stormed off into the night by the time my pupil finished. The moment the doctor stepped away from the infirmary, the two of them slipped out the back. She didn¡¯t ask where he was headed, but refused to leave his side. Word had gotten through the walls of the garrison, and the leftover soldiers whispered about the Cynizia. The oldest and least fit stood guard on the ground, men who clutched spears with boney hands and watched the night with wide stares.

    The true veterans of the army also lingered within the walls of the garrison, for their leader had contravened Lucius¡¯ orders. With a cold inspection of the nighttime garrison, one of them declared, ¡°He¡¯s going to get himself killed.¡± The second nicest boarding house that the army had taken over was home to the Voluntaries, men on leave from the main host and taking rest in the backline for a few weeks. They didn¡¯t associate with the auxiliaries below, and didn¡¯t bother to keep their voices down.

    ¡°I¡¯d rather camp with the cannibals than follow that filcher,¡± said another who sat down on the railing and surveyed the fires that sprouted like spring buds.

    ¡°You¡¯d volunteer to camp with them if it meant courting that chieftess,¡± the first said, getting a roar of laughter from the other voluntaries.

    My student slipped past them, moving from shadow to shadow until he entered the commander¡¯s quarters; a small storefront with a bedroom above. ¡°At least the lieutenants are trying,¡± he whispered. When everyone had marshalled to the walls, no one had remained to guard the quarters. Guarding Solhart¡¯s belongings wouldn¡¯t matter if they were overrun.

    Aisha asked, ¡°What are you doing?¡±

    ¡°Stealing,¡± he answered, and passed through the looted store room and up the stairs.

    Just as he prepared to drive his boot through the door, Aisha stopped him. ¡°My father used to own this building, while we still thought you Vassish were honorable,¡± she said, and produced the key from above the door frame.

    ¡°Honor is subjective,¡± my student answered as he accepted the key and opened the door. The personal quarters of Lucius von Solhart were a mess, with empty wine bottles strewn about the floor, hundreds of letters piled up atop the writing desk, and a stench of over-used pepper-leaf. My pupil ignored all of that and went straight for the trunk.

    ¡°What are you stealing anyways? You¡¯re risking execution to steal from a debtor you know. He doesn¡¯t have any money,¡± Aisha asked.

    What he pulled out of the trunk was Lucius¡¯s helmet. Not the shoddy one he had stolen off a gate guard¡¯s head, but an exquisite cavalry helm with a brush of green bristles arcing from brow backwards and a shining steel half mask in front. ¡°I¡¯m not after his money. I¡¯m after his name. From now on, you can call me Lucius, Lucius von Solhart. I don¡¯t think the original will mind; he¡¯s not going to survive the night.¡±

    <hr>

    <ol>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">I actually confirmed this line specifically, and it seems that yes a Vassish guard swore to the sun god, rather than the water goddess. Not impossible but it was improbable. The converts had been emboldened by King Arandall¡¯s marriage to a wife from the central kingdoms, but social discrimination was still common at the time.</li>

    </ol>

 1-3 - The Original Lucius

    Puerto Faro had become a grisly festival, and Commander Solhart marched his men right through it, the one born with the name that is. The auxiliaries were armed with spear and torch, filing through the sandy roads. All other lights in the night were their foes. The good people of the city had barred their doors, blocked their windows, and shut themselves away. Anything illumined belonged to the Cynizia as they colored the streets with corpses in feverish hues.

    Outside this marching creep of light, my mercenaries trailed from rooftop to rooftop. The Tolzi brothers were large men, trolls by comparison to the short Giordanans. Having grown up in the half-frozen woods and swamps of the north, afraid any rustle of leaves or snap of a branch would scatter their prey or summon a troll, a real one, the sand floors of Puerto Faro let them move like wisps.

    Commander Solhart would not have been able to spot them even if he hadn¡¯t been consumed by fear. All about him were shouts of battle and the cries of women. Horses charged down the streets, bloody and frothing. Men laid dead on the ground, skulls split by mace and by rock. He saw men gasping and bleeding and did nothing to help. He ran past the bodies, the anguish, the evil of men¡¯s hearts laid bare, and did nothing against it.

    Perhaps he thought a fire had broken out, or rival merchant families were having a feud. The possibility of his own destruction gripped his mind so tightly it blinded him from the true danger before his very eyes. Had he stopped to consult with his subordinates, perhaps history would have gone differently, but he was young and far from home. Most of all, he was terrified his own poor choices would be laid bare for all to see.

    The coffers of the garrison, given to him by Lord Felix von Raymi, were empty. He had stolen from them to pay his gambling debts and even that could not cover his debts. When his creditors convened and came to realize the scope of his foolishness, they put knives to him and gave him an ultimatum; produce the money by blood, or they would take it from his body. They had the liveliest of debates over whose slave pit he would end up in, before he fled to stoke the flames.

    The Medini family, Solhart¡¯s victim of choice, sat on the west side of the town, away from the Tavina River. Their complex surrounded the Medini estado with a lattice of pillars and spanning arches. A maze of shuttered peddler stalls laid out through their bazaar, with more shadows, blind alleys, and unexpected walls than a Drachenreise labyrinth of trials. Marching into a viper nest would have been safer, but near two hundred soldiers pushed him onwards. He had rallied a mob and he knew well enough that something had to be destroyed. If not the Medini¡¯s, it would be him.

    Now, even before the eighth century, the Vassermark army was nothing to take lightly, even the auxiliaries. While the average Giordanan soldier had barely more than a few rods or disks of brass and iron strapped to a linen shirt, the Vassish had segmented plate over gambesons. With shields and stout spears, they had little to fear from a merchant guard. Or so Lucius thought.

    ¡°Stella Medini!¡± he bellowed, calling out to the woman who had taken in Medorosa.(1)

    ¡°He said you would come here, you greed-blinded bastard,¡± she said from her balcony. Her features could hardly be made out, silhouetted by her room¡¯s lamp as she was. The voice left little doubt as to her identity; the shadow of her guard hound left none.

    ¡°Medorosa, I presume? Stella, I demand you turn yourself over for rebellion. You will pay for this!¡± Let no one ever say that he was not good at bluffing. It was statistics he had failed at.

    The man of the night, the spark that struck the fire, walked out beside her. Medorosa Canta lifted his chin and shouted, ¡°I am right here, you honorless bastard.¡± He wore no shirt, let alone armor, at that moment; as though goading a courageous arrow or spear. All could see the stigmata written across his flesh, and the trickling red line sliced through his breast. He held the knife that did it in his hand; his honor blade.

    Lucius had been told who the man was, and his noble honor did not let him be cowed. ¡°Honor? You¡¯re an oathbreaker by turning your blade at us!¡±

    ¡°You Vassish broke your oaths first!¡± he screamed, and slammed the pommel of his blade down on the balcony railing. Every last soul in the deathly marketplace looked to him. They clutched their weapons tighter and they listened. ¡°What did your Vassish oaths mean when you people saw us under attack? When cannibals were butchering my friends in the river? When you left me, all of us, to die!... Was it the money? Was it that you wanted to squirm out of paying us our measly wage? That¡¯s all you Vassish care about, isn¡¯t it?¡±

    ¡°Money,¡± Lucius grumbled, and he drew his sword. He pointed his broad bladed infantry sword at the rebel and with all the gravitas his upbringing could give him, he said, ¡°We are here at the order of our King! For the prosperity of not just our people, but your backwards, slave-infested filth of a region as well. You should be grateful we chose to impose our rule upon you, rather than burn your cities to the ground to make way for good people. It is Vassermark that will lead the world. You and your honor will be forgotten.¡±

    ¡°Godless bastards,¡± Medorosa said, and he held up his honor blade. The moonlight shown upon the edge, silver. At the signal, a hundred men rose up around them with short bows. They had been hiding in shadows, atop roofs and awnings, within crates and carts, and everywhere else. Arrows flew into the Vassish before shields could be swung about. Shouts of surprise became screams of pain. The Vassish around Lucius never recovered after the first volley; their formation crumbled. Like timber in a burning building, the whole thing came down around him.

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    To his credit, Lucius, a man with the tenacity of a cockroach to survive, managed to cut his way free. The ambush was effective, but archers are easily routed in the face of drawn steel. Outside the market they were free of the harrying arrows and able to face down the rebels in the streets. He nearly cut his bloody way back to the garrison, back to the voluntaries he had left behind, and perhaps he might have lived.

    Trampling over the bodies of his fallen men, the soldiers he had been charged to lead and fight alongside, he turned tail and escaped the Medini bloodbath. He lacked even the conviction to scream, ¡°To me!¡± His plunge into the darkness was with head down and breath pumping. Without his proper helm, he appeared no different from any other Vassish soldier in the night, save to the watchful eyes of the Tolzi brothers.

    My mercenaries dropped down in front and behind him the moment he took an alley, and they trapped him there. With dark buildings to his left and his right, foreign mercenaries ahead and behind, the sweat began to pour from Lucius.

    The elder brother spoke. ¡°Well if it isn¡¯t the pauper prince! Now bereft of even an army,¡± Leomund declared with a bear-like grin. He spread his arms, swallowing the alley with his own presence.

    ¡°Who are you?¡± Lucius demanded, and belatedly put up his sword. ¡°You¡¯re no Giordanan.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m a recent hire.¡±

    ¡°Hire? So my creditors had me tailed? Some honor then.¡±

    Leomund couldn¡¯t help but throw his head back and laugh. ¡°It¡¯s not their honor that¡¯s in question, but yours. What have you done to put value in your word, Lucius?¡±

    He straightened up. ¡°I pay my debts!¡±

    ¡°To the women you sleep with, maybe,¡± Leomund said. He leaned down to be of a height with the man, and put his hands on his hips. ¡°But you lost money that wasn¡¯t even yours. Dereliction of duty is dereliction of honor.¡±

    ¡°When my father hears of this, this city will burn!¡±

    ¡°The city¡¯s already burning, and it¡¯s the Vassish who are dying. What¡¯s your daddy going to do about it?¡± Leomund asked. Lucius couldn¡¯t meet the northerner¡¯s glare; he didn¡¯t have it in him. Leomund continued, ¡°What¡¯s he going to do but bail you out of your own mess?¡±

    Lucius had no answer, and his mind could see nothing but the secret slave pits of Giordana. That was not to be his fate however. Nikolai, the younger Tolzi, cut his fate short and separated his head from his shoulders. The thwack of steel to flesh sounded like chopping green firewood. The commander of the Vassish garrison crumpled to the ground, squirting blood across the walls before that too came to a pitiful end.

    Leomund bent over and picked up the severed head, holding it by the hair. ¡°Don¡¯t worry,¡± he said, speaking to the last vestige of will left within Lucius. ¡°We¡¯ll take care of your name. We might even make your father proud, like you never would have.¡±

    The Tolzi brothers left the body behind. Nothing about it was identifiable save that it was Vassish. Many dozens of other corpses filled the gutters of Puerto Faro that night, and the victors had no interest in identifying the dead. Leomund put the head into a sack, and the two of them scampered back up to the rooftops. Nikolai departed south to inform me of the success. Leomund went north, to the temple of Last Respite.

    The priest had been innocuously cleaning the sand from the steps, and just so happened to leave the doors of the temple open when he saw Leomund. Entering separately, the two of them met in the meager light of a single candle. ¡°You¡¯ve done it, then?¡± the priest of Shepherd, goddess of death, asked.

    Leomund grunted and put the bloody sack on the altar between them. The marble idol of Shepherd looked down on them with shadows, staring into the spiteful soul of the man. The priest smiled as he held the light to the face. He said, ¡°It would never do for me to take a side in this, you know?¡±

    Leomund grunted. His ears were keen for the sound of fighting outside the stone walls of the temple. ¡°And yet, here we are in the dark.¡±

    ¡°Not everything should be done in the light. Could you imagine a society where every single action is held to public scrutiny? No, no, that would be a foolish way to live. No one wants to know the great mass of actions that keep society together. We¡¯d never be able to do what needs be done.¡± The priest poured oil over the severed head as he spoke.

    The northerner jabbed a calloused finger into the priest¡¯s shoulder. ¡°Just keep your end of the deal.¡±

    ¡°I will, I will. My word is my honor, as I do serve the goddess,¡± the priest said, scowling back at the mercenary. ¡°This is simply what the Vassish deserve.(2) They are the crudest sort of barbarians, by my reckoning. Their carelessness destroys everything around them. The Canta family will never again-¡±

    ¡°Stop blabbing like I care,¡± Leomund ordered. ¡°Your town is nothing but a rat warren getting trampled by the march of time. Now light it or I will.¡±

    The priest stiffed his back and swallowed his words. Without breaking eye contact with Leomund, he dipped the candle and set the wick to the oil. The altar erupted in flames. Orange tongues like spear tips that danced and coiled, belching black smoke. The color shifted, a bright blue streaking through it in sputtering bursts. The heat grew so great both men had to step back.

    The soul of Lucius Von Solhart was sacrificed and obliterated; cleared out from the world of the living so that another might take its place.

    <hr>

    (1) I found her to be a lovely woman, though most men drew their comparisons to vinegar rather than fine wine. Most men are imbeciles.

    (2) There is much historical contention about the persecution of the Shepherd¡¯s faith in Giordana, more than I can speak to here. I will only note that the Vassish had a habit of breaking power structures that got in their way, and putting up new ones. The temples had been nearly the only line of credit a merchant in Giordana could get, before the Vassish arrived and stripped them of that power.

 1-4 - Last Respite

    After so boldly storming into the garrison, my pupil¡¯s next trick was to escape from it with the armor. Unfortunately, there was nothing so convenient as a hidden passage to the sewers to allow him to slip out. I would know, I had checked for just such a thing. I even considered making one, but forced architecture was never my specialty.

    He dared not don the armor just yet, or the grand ruse may have been for naught. Contrary to popular belief, fitted armor doesn¡¯t make much noise when moving, but the commander¡¯s armor was fitted to a man much thicker through the waist than my student. With all the steel packed up and bundled with the gambeson, all together slung over his shoulder, he had to escape back into the depths of Puerto Faro.

    ¡°Where are you going?¡± Aisha demanded as he was checking the weight and jumping around. He had to stop and re-pack before he was satisfied.

    ¡°Dunno, out. I have to stop at the temple and I¡¯ll figure it out from there. The real Lucius just marched off to his death. I¡¯ll have to blend in with the routed forces after he gets killed,¡± he said. Once he had it back on his shoulders he turned to face the girl. ¡°You should probably stay at the temple. Neither side is going to mess with the faith. It will be safe.¡±

    She hung her head and twisted her foot. The room had once belonged to her father, but in the dead of night, alone with a man she barely knew and surrounded by violence, nothing about it comforted her. ¡°I guess you¡¯re right. Will you help me get there?¡±

    ¡°I can do that. Just¡­ you realize you can¡¯t tell your brother about me, right? It doesn¡¯t really matter. As long as the soldiers follow me, whether I am or am not the real Lucius will stop mattering. But I don¡¯t want to regret helping you,¡± he said. His voice was calm and consoling, intimate as a whisper, and yet he put his hand on the pommel of his stolen blade.

    ¡°You¡¯re not going to kill him, are you?¡±

    ¡°If he lets us flee, then no. If he chases us. What choice will I have?¡±

    She couldn¡¯t answer that question. She knew what her brother had sparked, even if he hadn¡¯t been the one to lay the groundwork. Months of occupation by foreigners had simmered hatred within the people of Puerto Faro. They had been ruled over by incompetents and bastards, forced to bow heads to conscripts. But it was still her brother who had started the fighting. ¡°I won¡¯t say anything. If you escape, it won¡¯t matter.¡±

    She followed behind him after that, and the two made their way up to the roof. There had been a garden protected from the salty wind by some cloth, but the new owner hadn¡¯t bothered to tend it. The plants were withered brown, and the curtains blown off. Aisha lingered next to it as Lucius crept over to the edge. The Voluntaries were speaking still, but this time to the sound of arming up. Belts were tightening, boots stamping, and the lights from top to bottom were going out. The lietunants of the voluntaries had come to some decision, though they had yet to voice it to the men. Announcing a retreat without the commander would be desertion of duty.

    ¡°Come on. While we still can,¡± he said, and took a leap off the back. The palisade surrounding the garrison was only so high, much shorter than the building. He was able to land on the roof of the adjacent house with ease, rolling across the dirt-strewn roof and getting his footing.

    ¡°Are you insane?¡± Aisha demanded, staring across the alley gap to him. Lucius held out his hands to catch her and waited. Eventually, she bundled up the hem of her dress in her hands and took the leap. She landed in his arms gracefully, though he was never able to say as much. Lucius in fact preferred to not mention at all what landed in his arms that night.

    The two of them stole off into the city. The men roaming the streets weren¡¯t out for Canta¡¯s vendetta. At worst they were opportunists that shied away at the sight of his blade. Those that would have fought had all assembled at the Medini family estado. A great many cries of pain haunted the city, chasing after their ears as they ducked heads and ran.

    The Temple of Last Respite was a glorious thing, and overburdened by iconography. Generations of merchants and pilgrims had poured their money into it as offerings, each eager to add their own statue or mural or other depiction of devotion. The priests never bothered to tell them that the Shepherd doesn¡¯t deal in indulgences the way other deities do. The artists weren¡¯t ones to complain either. Personally, I don¡¯t see anything wrong with what those guilty merchants did with their blood money. Their slaves might have had other opinions, but memoirs of slaves are few and far between. I myself made such a donation, though no one is ever impressed by the statue. It is by far the most accurate depiction of her however.

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    ¡°You must be Tolzi¡¯s friend,¡± the priest said as he lofted a lantern over his head and shined it at Lucius and Aisha.

    ¡°Is Leomund already here?¡± Lucius asked. The words transformed the priest for anxiety to relief, and he let the two of them in. ¡°As I said, you should stay here for refuge. They won¡¯t turn you away,¡± he told Aisha, and got a nod from the priest who seemed to understand the situation. Lucius proceeded to the back of the temple, past the pews and past the prayer corners, he left the main hall and stepped into one of the contemplation chambers.

    Leomund Tolzi waited for him there. The elder of the Tolzi brothers, he was one of my most useful assets in those days, and had been Lucius¡¯ primary sparring partner for over a year. The enormous deserter from the north was far better than him with a blade, and with spears and bows, and just about everything else, but hadn¡¯t won a spar with my undying pupil in months. It would have been a problem for the scheme if he thought himself better than Lucius. ¡°How did the thieving go?¡±

    ¡°Well enough. How did the cleanup go?¡±

    ¡°Well enough. Solhart got his men slaughtered at the Medini family place. Marched them right into the bazaar and got more arrows stuck in them than a porcupine. The little rat managed to escape, but we took his head off and took care of the body. Even better than planned; people know he escaped the ambush,¡± Leomund said with a grin that could have cowed a lion. ¡°But, they didn¡¯t see him die.¡±

    ¡°The rebels will move on the garrison soon. Do they stand a chance.¡±

    ¡°A chance, yeah. I wouldn¡¯t bet on them though.¡±

    ¡°Right then,¡± Lucius said with a nod, and set the bag of armor down. He tugged it open. ¡°Time to be the hero. Just¡­ do me a favor and make sure that girl doesn¡¯t get into trouble, yeah? She helped me sneak in. She knows.¡±

    Leomund leaned back, the candlelight shadows shifting and darkening across his face. ¡°Should I kill her?¡±

    ¡°No, there¡¯s no need. She¡¯s good-hearted, unlike everyone else in this city,¡± Lucius said as he stared into the eye sockets of the commander¡¯s helmet. Leomund nodded, and let Lucius don the armor beneath the solemn gaze of the Shepherd.(1)

    This was a useful atmosphere for preparing Lucius. A temple to the sun might have riled him up, might have spurred his immature heart to an imprudent action. Puerto Faro was already lost to the Vassish, they just didn¡¯t know it yet. Courage is hardly necessary for a retreat.

    Once he had the commander¡¯s armor on, he looked like a different man; he looked like he should be in charge. The dyed mane atop his helm added several inches of supposed height, and the segmented pauldrons broadened his shoulders beyond his years. After what adjustments could be done; he wore it even better than the real Lucius von Solhart.

    He paid his thanks to the priest, and bid farewell to Leomund and Aisha. Using a side exit to an alley, lest someone think the temple had provided him aid, Lucius ran back into the dark streets of Puerto Faro. The city was lit by fire, though it wasn¡¯t on fire. The hardpacked dirt and plaster buildings were plenty resilient to a toppled lantern or a careless torch, but those twinkling blazes forced their color upon the city all the same.

    Lucius didn¡¯t go directly to the garrison, putting himself on the wrong side of a mob would have accomplished nothing. He headed to where the soldiers would have to flee; he headed to the harbor. The Vassish were not a desert people, not one of them would want to run into the sandy darkness to find safety. They had come to Puerto Faro by ship, and they would flee by ship.

    Getting stopped by two drunk Cynizia was an obstacle he had no patience for. They saw him, the armor he wore, and knew well enough what they were looking at. Perhaps they had been but mere pretenders, grown boys who wanted to have a bit of an adventure and say they had been part of the Canta Vendetta. Lucius found them without any blood on them, and left them dead in the street without having raised an alarm.

    <hr>

    (1) The Shepherd is by far the least odious of the divines. Her domain is explicitly the cycle of rebirth, of sowing souls back into the mortal realm. She has no audacious festivals in her name, and asks very little of those that would call her their goddess. The very nature of her faith is a contemplative one, for those concerned their affairs will end and what they will leave behind. Some of the more barbarous tribes of the world view her as a judge, as the final gaze of justice to sort the righteous from the sinners. Giordanans see her only as what awaits a traveller through the desert; a cool and gentle peace and an end to the struggle.

 1-5 - The Harbor

    Generally speaking, two types of ships were moored in the Puerto Faro harbor. The harbor itself was protected naturally by the shape of the submerged stone, and had been bolstered further over the generations. There was just enough protection from the depths that ships could be safe from the storms, even if they weren¡¯t seaworthy unto themselves. Along the western edge of the city and just next to the refuge was the Tavina River, although today the city had quite overgrown it and blackened it with their refuse, which brought many barges and floating crafts which would have folded on the sea. Those local craft would ferry up and down to the namesake city to the north, fueling that religious center and bringing jewels back to the market exchange.

    When Lucius first surveyed the harbor, the disordered array of bobbing vessels seemed promising. There was far more tonnage than what he would need to bring the garrison in retreat. Not until he descended to the gravel field before the docks did he see the ships for what they were; river barges.

    The sea-faring, high-masted rowships had all shoved off. He could see their flickering lights circling out into the South Sea and leaving behind Puerto Faro. They moved sluggishly, half their oars useless for lack of sailors. The captains had elected to abandon those who wanted to fight for the vendetta.

    Lucius squatted in the shadows of a popina, a snack bar of the area. There were other, inferior options to getting on a proper ship, and he turned them over in his head while he waited. On a clear day, the sandy dunes of the wastelands could be seen on the horizon. In the darkness of the night, lit only by the stout harbor lighthouses, he couldn¡¯t even see the skies properly.

    The time for thinking came to a close as a lone horseman came charging down the main road. A tall, swarthy man dressed in enough armor to be a knight rode down into the harbor. Rather than a weapon in his hand, he swung a lantern pole from side to side as he bellowed out, ¡°The Vassish are coming! The imperial thieves are coming here for your ships! Arm yourselves. Steel yourselves! Medorosa¡¯s vendetta has burst this bloody boil. Tonight is the night!¡±

    A great uprising of men rose up from the harbor. Torches and candles came to life as some clamored for blood and others demanded proof. Nearly every one of them had heard of the vendetta, even if they hadn¡¯t heard of Medorosa Canta before that night, and the horseman¡¯s words sunk claws into them. No man, no matter how complacent with politics he may be, would sit idly by and be robbed. In mere moments, a rabble some two hundred strong milled forward to the main street holding spears and cudgels. Their searching eyes didn¡¯t want for long; row upon row of Vassish infantry came marching down the road to confront them.

    Two forces squared up against each other, and Lucius immediately saw that it was the voluntaries that had marched to the harbor. Desertion of the garrison could carry the death penalty for those directly reporting to Lucius von Solhart, but the lieutenant of the battle group had prioritized the lives of his men. Five rows of twenty soldiers marched, followed by dozens of auxiliaries in desertion.

    The Vassish were an actual army, and the voluntaries took pride in their skills beyond mere survival. They came down the road shoulder to shoulder with shields raised. As an adaptation from field deployment, extra shields lined the sides, thrust out against shadowed alleys. Despite being half the manpower assembled against them, they had the majority of the steel. The voluntaries were like a great fist, ready to smash down on the rebels.

    The horseman trotted out to the front when he saw the Vassish men come to a stop. He seemed to be about to buy time, to talk and goad and hope that the core of the Cynizia would arrive. Lucius didn¡¯t let him. Armed with a bow taken from a slain Cynizia, Lucius waited for the man to square off to confront the lieutenant. When the horseman lifted his lantern there was a pause, an appraisal of the grandiosity of the moment.

    Lucius put an arrow through his side, right under the arm holding up the pole. The iron tip ripped through the man¡¯s ribs, into his lungs and robbed him of his voice. Lucius nocked another arrow and watched the man struggle and falter. When the arm came down, it didn¡¯t break the shaft but twisted it inside him. Blood burst from his lips before toppling onto the neck of his horse.

    One of the sailors blurted out, ¡°We¡¯re surrounded!¡± and the rabble of sailors pulled in among one another. There¡¯s a certain nuance to positioning troops, something you have to beat out of their instincts. The impulse to brush elbows with your allies in fact means neither of you can swing your arms. Further, it meant Lucius didn¡¯t even need to aim as he loosed more arrows from the darkness.

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    A few may have realized where he was attacking from, but the lieutenant of the voluntaries knew what he was doing. Like spearing a fish in the shallows, as soon as attention shifted to Lucius, the troops stepped forward. Shields locked together like a wall, and the lieutenant shouted from the back, ¡°Charge! Break them!¡±

    The Vassish troops sprinted forward in lockstep and hammered their shields into the sailors. Vanity had largely brought the strongest men to the front, and the charge was almost suppressed by a sheer difference in size between soldier and oarsmen; but, then the steel came stabbing in from the second row.

    The sailors outnumbered the Vassish two to one, but seeing twenty men die in a handful of seconds was too quick and brutal for untrained men. Rather than rally and swarm, surrounding the soldiers and beating them down, those at the back faltered and fled.

    Lucius kept loosing arrows until the press of bodies was too tight, too close to be safe. A handful of vengeful sailors charged his location, and he had to abandon the stolen weapon. He emerged into the street with steel drawn and chest high. Fighting off Aillesian pirates was a common experience for sailors after a few years, and the only ones that didn¡¯t end up in bondage were the victors. On a rocking ship, they may have had the advantage.

    When the first attacked, far sooner than his friends were able to surround Lucius, my student executed a perfect high parry. The spear had no crossguard at the tip, a liability in the types of open brawls that would appear on ships, so there was nothing to stop Lucius¡¯ blade from plunging down into his chest.

    The blustering man tried to grab hold of Lucius, but a twist of the blade sapped his strength and my student twirled out of his grasp. The second swung his spear down like it had a sword blade instead of a point, and hammered the edge into Lucius¡¯ vambraces. Fighting so close he couldn¡¯t so much as swing his arm, he shattered the sailor¡¯s nose with his pommel

    Blood sprayed across the two of them as Lucius put the bleeding man between him and the last assailant. He didn¡¯t have a shield, but the body was just as good. ¡°Move!¡± the third sailor roared, grasping a cudgel over his head with both hands. Lucius¡¯ sword shot forward, under the arm of the bleeding sailor, and caught the last in the stomach. The cudgel-wielder went down like his knees had been broken. Small minded, first order self-preservation took hold of him as he tried to keep his entrails off the floor.

    The last sailor, the one with the broken nose, screamed and grabbed hold of Lucius¡¯ arm. He drove his head back, hoping to return the favor, and split his skin across the steel brow of Lucius¡¯ helm. Prying his arm out of the sailor¡¯s grasp, an oarsman at that, would have been impossible. The infantry sword wasn¡¯t his only weapon though. With his free hand, he pulled his dagger free and plunged it through the sailor¡¯s throat. The man¡¯s strength dribbled across the cobblestone as Lucius was the last man standing of four.

    One of the Vassish soldiers started a cry, probably one of the auxiliaries but history will never know for certain. ¡°The commander! The commander is here! He fights with us!¡±

    The mass of soldiers slid across the harbor, closing in on him as the wary sailors fell back. Some glowered at Lucius, gripping their weapons and considering their chances, but with Vassish shields behind them, they retreated to their docks. Then, in the light of a few raised torches, Lucius came face to face with Lieutenant Tyrion, the leader of the as-of-yet-unnamed battlegroup. Tyrion was the only Vassish to have a horse, and he used its height to survey beyond the lines of his men, and to stare down at Lucius. ¡°Commander, where are your men?¡± the older man asked.

    Had he not a mask within his helm, the entire game might have been up at that very moment, for Lucius couldn¡¯t contain his scowl. ¡°Lost. The battle was lost¡­ Lieutenant, the city is lost. I am ordering a retreat to join up with Lord von Raymi to the west. All seafaring ships have already fled however.¡±

    Tyrion lifted his head and gripped his reins. He looked out to the sky. ¡°Our options are but two then. By foot, or by barge.¡±

    ¡°I choose barge. Men!¡± Lucius shouted, bellowing so every last one of them heard him, even if they couldn¡¯t turn to look at his bloody visage. ¡°Who among you knows which of these ships might survive the sea?¡± The question got no answer. Those nearest him gawked. ¡°Speak, one of you. I did little travel to the harbor these past weeks. Don¡¯t look so surprised. Do you think I¡¯m going to castigate you for chasing skirts down here or something? We need a barge that can fit all of us.¡±

    One soldier lowered his shield. A few eyes turned to him expectantly, but no one else spoke. ¡°W-well,¡± the soldier said, his voice barely enough to be heard over the jeering sailors and occasional rock tossed against their shields.

    ¡°Speak up,¡± Lucius ordered, approaching the man.

    ¡°There¡¯s the Gull¡¯s Drunk Flight, s-Sir. Under Captain Kallum,¡± he said, and gestured to the end of the harbor at the ugliest ship Lucius had ever seen. It appeared to be two longboats strapped together with a barge platform between them. It was large enough for everyone to board it however. ¡°They took it to the wastelands once, to resupply von Raymi.¡±

    It looked like a floating death trap to Lucius, but only if a storm blew in. The water he saw then was as calm as a river. ¡°Well, it¡¯s better to do something than nothing. Let¡¯s go. Men! Follow me, and keep an eye out for stragglers! I want no man left behind that we can save!¡±

 1-6 - The Gulls Drunk Flight

    Lucius didn¡¯t deal with Captain Kallum himself, he delegated that. What he did do was move the unit of troops down to the end of the harbor, and put himself between them and the city. He spared nothing more than a passing appraisal over the portly seaman, and left Lieutenant Tyrion to negotiate it.

    Tyrion¡¯s caliber eluded Lucius. We had surmised an impression of the man, but our preparations never included a direct conversation, and much can be learned from that. We took the gamble as best we could, but it was his gut that twisted into knots. It was his back that swords would plunge through if the ruse failed.

    Lucius wrung his grip upon the handle of his blade as he waited. As practiced, he stood up straight and faced the Cynizia with square shoulders. The only weakness he showed was to ask for the donation of a shield, which one of the voluntaries provided.

    He held no desire to fight without men at his side, but could only pray that the Voluntaries would close ranks around him should an attack come. Such heroism would never come from the auxiliaries. He couldn¡¯t even look over his shoulder to gauge their expressions, to read their confusion. The true Lucius von Solhart would have been at the back, the first aboard the ship. The difference in action drew out doubt and whispers from the men, like a slow leak through a hull.

    Showing his face would tempt out the cry, ¡°Imposter!¡± and nothing he could say would help.

    Only actions would. Only becoming the man they needed to save them would.

    That was when he first encountered Medorosa Canta, face to face and man to man. The heir of the Canta merchant family was barely past his twentieth year. Shepherd¡¯s temples had filled his head with their belief, and youth spurred him to action. Anger without temperance held up his half of the chaos; drove him to be the lynchpin of the revolt.

    The night wind ruffled his loose silk clothes, flapping the lapel between his tanned skin and his bloody wound. He took after the old tradition, and wrapped himself with an embroidered sash within which was the scabbard of his dagger.

    That was his honor blade, drawn and bloodied across his own chest to swear the vendetta. As per tradition, he still carried it unsheathed and would until he had sated the oath. Opposite the dagger, he gripped a broad bladed falchion. Like Lucius, he too stood in front of his men. ¡°So you escaped with your life. I could have sworn your head was cut off,¡± Medorosa said, raising his voice far beyond what was needed for Lucius to hear across the street. He spoke for the sake of the soldiers, something he picked up from Aisha¡¯s bardic practice.

    ¡°Bold words for a coward who ran from the wastelanders,¡± Lucius shouted back.(1) Lucius leveled his blade at the demagogue. ¡°You should be ashamed that you took a blood oath like this. Attacking men in the street? Ganging up on them? Jumping out from shadows and attacking from afar? You¡¯re just pillaging by another name. Why don¡¯t you get out from behind the Medini skirts and duel me?¡±

    Medorosa scoffed and surveyed the group. ¡°No, no I think not, Sir Solhart. My duel is with von Raymi; you¡¯re just in my way. Besides, I have the numbers here. Your cowards are crowding onto that boat!¡±

    As they had been speaking, Tyrion had finalized a deal, swearing upon his honor to get proper payment for the captain for such a rescue, and the troops had begun piling onto the Gull¡¯s Drunk Flight. At the same time, more and more men of Puerto Faro were joining the frayed rear of Medorosa¡¯s gang.

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    Lucius didn¡¯t lower his sword, he kept it pointed right at where he imagined Medorosa¡¯s wound was. ¡°Then come at me! Come walk over here and step within my reach and see what happens. You had your chance with me and now that¡¯s gone.¡±

    Medorosa scowled and glanced over his shoulder. There was a slight gesture and a dark arrow soared through the night sky.

    Lucius cut it down.

    Half the men of the Cynizia stepped back when they heard the click-clack of the shaft falling to the cobblestone, and then watched Lucius¡¯ blade rise back up to point at Medorosa.(2)

    ¡°Are you afraid of a parlor trick?¡± Medorosa roared, turning his attention to his men. Had Lucius been holding a spear, he would have thrown it through the man¡¯s chest. ¡°He¡¯s one man. We outnumber them nearly two to one and have them cornered.¡±

    ¡°He could have a stigmata,¡± the talkative Cynizia said, giving voice to their concerns.

    ¡°So what? Do you think he¡¯s the dragon king or something? You think they would have left someone useful behind like this? Archers! Loose!¡± he bellowed. The Cynizia had the loosest form of tactical knowledge, in that they put the men with swords, clubs, and shields in the front, and the archers in the back. Aiming was near impossible for them, but a massed volley didn¡¯t need to aim.

    Lucius shifted his stance, throwing the shield over his head as the arrows rained down on him. Some hit his pauldron or his mail skirt and glanced off, while others buried into his shield. The tips pierced through or broke off, splintering with the wood. Lucius didn¡¯t waver, he didn¡¯t break eye contact with Medorosa.

    To the credit of the Vassish, they closed ranks at once. Their shields locked together like the scales of a tortoise shell. The only gaps had pointed spears protruding from them and not a single arrow found Vassish flesh. The soldiers pulled in, retracting their formation and letting the Cynizia surround them. Their backs were to the barge and under Tyrion¡¯s orders they marched back to it.

    Before Medorosa could order a charge, for his men to waylay the retreating Vassish, Lucius bellowed out another provocation. ¡°Hear me now, you Giordanan bastards! You let us into your city of your own free will. We came offering stability and trade. Our laws would have brought equality to you hopeless laborers. In Vassermark even the lowest born peasant can own land. Can you? Some scrap of sand with no water perhaps. Everything else though? Owned by the faith or by merchant cartels. One of which claims to be of your ilk. You feel this anger inside your hearts, the burning passion of Giordana you pride yourselves with, and you mistakenly aim it at us because we are foreign, because we are new and different, but it is not because we have done anything to harm Puerto Faro. We leave here tonight routed, and you will wake up tomorrow and come to know the tyranny of anarchy once again. This city is the hole you have dug yourselves, you hear me? You have cut off the ladder sent down to you with your own hands!¡±

    The speech did little to stifle the Cynizia, but it drew in the surviving Auxiliaries that came charging in from all over. Soldiers by the twos and threes swarmed the mob from the shadows. Steel rose and steel fell. All sense of strategy and tactics vanished upon contact with the enemy, but the blood of the auxiliaries paved the escape for the Gull¡¯s Drunk Flight. Some even managed to dive into the water and catch up with it.

    Lucius cut down any Cynizia within his reach while backing up to the formation. The bloody mess was no place for heroics however.

    An arrow pierced his leg and drove him down to his knees on the dock. One of the Cynizia drove a spear tip through his neck, bursting blood through his lips and lungs. He sputtered and coughed, drowning in his own vitae as the voluntaries hauled him aboard. The flow proved too fast and too sudden, robbing him of consciousness as they rowed out to sea.

    A good thing too. Without his subsequent revival, he may never have been able to explain his changes as the sudden formation of his stigmata.

    <hr>

    <ol>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">The accusation was false, and most knew it, but most was not all. Goading was Lucius¡¯ specialty.</li>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">The trick of cutting down an arrow took Lucius three months and several hundred near-death experiences. The effect always proved worthwhile. It was an inhuman, illogical feat that was able to grab hold of the hearts of his enemies and push them back.</li>

    </ol>

 1-7 - Aishas Wavering

    While my pupil was busy making his debut, a good deal of more delicate work abounded. Replacing the original Lucius von Solhart was an operation of the most fragility, like trying to tie a net with spider silk. Should anyone ever claim that a complicated plan went off without a hitch, they are lying. Adjustments must always be made. For our case that evening, Aisha Canta offered both the greatest risk and the greatest boon.

    Beside Leomund in the night, she looked like an absconding princess with her unruly knight. When the two of them encountered a pair of Cynizia, she played the part. ¡°Just what do you think you men are doing? Is that not my brother¡¯s vendetta you¡¯re pledged to?¡±

    There wasn¡¯t a single Giordanan in the whole city who hadn¡¯t at least heard of Aisha, especially with the conflagration her brother had caused. The two Cynizia were drunk, but were no exceptions. ¡°Canta-ima,¡± the taller of the two said. He was a sinewy man, of a farming sort. It left his frame strong, but without the explosive speed a true warrior needs. The difference in stature between him and Leomund was enough to make him bow his head and wring his hands. ¡°You shouldn¡¯t be out like this. Surely you¡¯ve seen the fighting? The Medini family can take you in and give you safety. I¡¯d say go to your brother, but that would be to the thick of violence.¡±

    Aisha folded her arms and threw her hair back. ¡°My brother is not my father. He doesn¡¯t own me, nor my actions. Especially after swearing a vendetta. Until that is resolved, he is no brother of mine.¡±

    The man cringed. ¡°But Canta-ima, if anything were to happen to you, men would take their own lives out of grief.¡±

    She turned up her nose at him. ¡°I fail to see how that would concern me; I¡¯d be dead. Now are you to tell me you have nothing better to do here but harass me?¡±

    The shorter man answered, ¡°The Vassish camp has been broken and routed. We¡¯re looking for escapees. Some of them are noble. They can be ransomed. The rest will make fine slaves.¡±

    Leomund had barely been following the conversation, Giordanan was not his strongest language and his dialect would have pegged him for a brute. What he could follow was a man¡¯s character. His propensity to violence.

    The shorter man was no farmer, but more akin to the muscle that unscrupulous merchants kept around. He had a forward curving sword at his hip, a facsimile of an executioner¡¯s axe. Leomund was also aware of the dagger within their sleeve. The rogue had it hidden well, but not so well as to trick Leomund.

    ¡°Canta-ima,¡± the rogue said. He clasped his hands as he spoke. ¡°Who is this man you are with? He is neither Giordanan, nor Vassish.¡±

    Leomund grinned. He had teeth like a troll, and the scattered lights of Puerto Faro colored them in dreadful hues. ¡°I¡¯m from the north,¡± he said.

    Aisha sighed and gestured to the warrior. ¡°He¡¯s a man more enchanted by my singing than by a vendetta. Is it wrong for me to court protection in a time like this?¡±

    The Cynizia glowered and sized Leomund up anew. ¡°Canta-ima,¡± the tall one said. He squared his shoulders. ¡°Should you need protection, I would give my life for you!¡± With his declaration, he put his hand on his crude sword. His was more an heirloom, crafted from heavy brass. Of course, it could run a man through just the same as the finest Vassish blade.

    ¡°I¡¯m sure you would,¡± she said. And she knew that such an offer had hooks in it; obligations of honor and expectations. ¡°I am fine with this man. Being with you people would only invite Vassish retribution against me. Go. Go find your slaves.¡±

    The rogue¡¯s face hadn¡¯t flinched; itself a warning sign that Leomund made note of. ¡°So you intend to put your life in a foreigner¡¯s hands?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s what she said,¡± my knight said. He leaned in close, bringing his chin within arms reach of the rogue and stared into the man¡¯s eyes.

    Aisha closed her eyes, her irritation getting to her. ¡°What I do is no business of yours. Now get out of my way before-¡±

    The rogue stabbed forward with the dagger. A steel snake bite pointed at Leomund¡¯s throat.

    Leomund pulled back with superhuman speed. His hand that had been at his hip suddenly gripped his sword and cleaved. Blood arced across the sky and the rogue¡¯s hand flew high. His grin never faltered.

    Two screams filled the road; the maimed rogue, and Aisha¡¯s shock. She staggered backwards, bumping into Leomund¡¯s outstretched arm. He grabbed her up by the back, giving her the illusion of strength as she watched the Cynizia fall to his knees. He wept and screamed, clutching his stump.

    ¡°Get lost,¡± Leomund ordered, pointing his bloody blade at the taller man.

    The tall man took the message and abandoned his friend. He put his heels to it and vanished in the way only cowards can. The rogue took longer, the pain grappling with the shock. He couldn¡¯t think of fighting more, for Leomund had taken from him his sword arm. His lingering may well have saved his life however, because a man came charging to him, with a bulging leather bag under one arm. ¡°Doctor! Doctor!¡± he cried, and out from the shadows emerged the Vassish doctor Aisha had met earlier; Sammy.

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    ¡°Get back!¡± the rogue shouted, near delirious with pain.

    Aisha regained herself. ¡°He¡¯s a doctor! Shut up, you idiot!¡±

    The young man sighed and produced from his pocket the ancient symbol of apothecaries; two serpents entwined. Even a Giordanan criminal knew what that meant, and he dropped to his knees. I have always found that to be most curious, for there is nothing preventing the counterfeiting of apothecary badges, and yet I don¡¯t know of a single instance of it. Perhaps in the coming years I will try to determine the cultural protection it has. Regardless, the Giordanan rogue surrendered himself to the doctor.

    ¡°Hold him down. He¡¯s going to thrash,¡± Sammy said, in Vassish, while the rogue drank his fill of liquor.

    Leomund groaned. ¡°Boy, I¡¯m the one who maimed him. Why should I?¡±

    ¡°Because!¡± the doctor snapped. ¡°Had you meant to kill him, his head would be on the floor. Since you didn¡¯t intend for that, you should see to it that he doesn¡¯t die of gangrene!¡±

    I¡¯d be lying to you if I said Leomund cared in the slightest what became of the rogue, but he had given his word to my pupil in regard to the girl, and her glare was clear enough. He sheathed his sword and pinned the rogue down with a bit of leather jammed between his teeth.

    ¡°Prepare yourself!¡± Sammy said, and held up his surgeon¡¯s knife in one hand, and a bone saw in the other. ¡°This is going to hurt.¡±

    I have already mentioned that Aisha had little medical knowledge, even as the standards of Giordana go. When Sammy flayed the flesh off the rogue and pared it back to saw off a hand¡¯s span of bone, she was subjected to the most tortured of screams she had ever heard. The squirting blood doused the doctor in dark, arterial spray and made Aisha¡¯s chest seize within her. Her heart palpitated, her breathing faltered, and she fell to the ground unconscious before Sammy even got to stitching the wound closed.

    This was much to Leomund¡¯s pleasure. The moment he cleaned his hands off, to not soil her dress, he tossed her over his shoulder. He carried her on through the shadows and alleys of Puerto Faro, dogged only by the Vassish doctor, who was the first to admit about the dark path, ¡°Well, if I don¡¯t see them, I¡¯m not particularly obligated to help them, now am I?¡±

    It was the burning pepper-leaf candles of my dining table that roused her eventually. Thankfully, she wasn¡¯t so delicate that she expected to wake up on a feather mattress. While it was a stinging and bitter scent to keep the flies away, it wasn¡¯t the only smell. Another local merchant family, the Kahina Family, worked well with me, and understood the importance of privacy. As such, they had procured a restaurant overlooking the harbor and put out all the lights of the first floor, lest the glorified rioters think to plunge inside. The chefs worked in the dark, save for their sheltered cook flames. We were given a warmly illuminated balcony facing south to the sea.

    The feast Leomund and I shared--don¡¯t mistake me, there was enough for Aisha had she so chosen--covered the entire table with succulent treats and bottles of wine. Centered between us all sat a great pot of stewed vegetables and mud-axe; a delicacy not for the light of heart. A mud-axe is a soft, four-limbed shellfish that many people mistake to be some form of aquatic vermin. In truth, it has more in common with cephalopods than anything mammalian, but people can¡¯t see past the human-like eyes. The dish was considered heretical in Vassermark at the time, and I wanted to enjoy it before returning.

    I was biting through one of their heads when the lady Canta regained herself.

    She shouted and leapt to her feet.

    ¡°Sit down,¡± Leomund ordered, filling his mouth with garlic slathered bread.

    She looked around the room once more, recognizing Leomund and Sammy, but not myself, but she accustomed herself to the context quick enough. She did not adjust herself well to my appearance; but, that is something I am used to. ¡°You¡¯re with that boy, then?¡±

    I licked the juices from my lips and smiled at her. ¡°Tolzi has told me what has transpired this evening. Yes, he is my most precious accomplice.¡±

    She clutched the edge of the tablecloth and stared back at me. ¡°He is not Lucius von Solhart; you have slain my brother¡¯s enemy and hidden it from him.¡±

    To answer that, I had to put a stop to my feasting and entwine my fingers together. ¡°Your brother¡¯s vendetta is against all of Vassermark. It is a blood debt that cannot be paid. So, as the one here who knows him best, Aisha Canta, will your brother give up his honor, or his life?¡±

    She sank in her seat and stared at her hands. She couldn¡¯t answer me because the truth hurt too much to escape her lips. The doctor boy comforted her as best he could, merely putting a hand to her shoulder. He was seated beside her, and had only deigned to accept a glass of wine from the same amphora I had drank from. Strengthened some, she defiantly said, ¡°It¡¯s the Vassish who are at fault though.¡±

    ¡°Perhaps they are, but your brother will never get justice, merely blood.¡±

    ¡°So what are you then?¡±

    I smiled. ¡°Looters who have come here to steal political power.¡±

    Sammy cleared his throat and asked, ¡°Are you going to kill us then? Now that we know your secret?¡±

    Leomund lifted up his meat knife and pointed it at the doctor. ¡°Is that an invite?¡±

    I held up a hand. ¡°The only person who needs to die is Medorosa, and he needs to die at Lucius¡¯ hand. Everything else is trifling. If you intend to interfere with this, then yes, we will kill you.¡±

    Aisha asked, ¡°What are you trying to do? By¡­ stealing power like this; stealing an identity.¡±

    I plucked another shell from the pot and cracked it open. The mud-axe inside still thrashed with vestiges of life. The squirming thing leapt from my hands and onto the table, scattering our utensils. Aisha and the doctor gasped and jerked away, but I simply snatched it back up. The thing struggled within my grasp, straining its ill-formed body against my fingers. So I held it up in the light of the sconce. ¡°You couldn¡¯t possibly imagine the scope of what we are looking to achieve,¡± I said, and I squeezed the mud-axe¡¯s head with my thumb until it popped off and fell back into the stew.

    ¡°Now choose,¡± I told them. ¡°A certain friend of mine will be arriving shortly and will bind you to your word. Do you wish to conspire with us? Or will you leave and never again show your face in the tides of history?¡±

    Leomund¡¯s knife showed them the third option.

    Aisha pressed her lips and met my gaze. She could see the fates laid out as well as I could, and she said, ¡°I have already put my lot in with your Lucius. So take me with you to Vassermark.¡±

 1-8 - Fresh Air, Fresh Lies

    My pupil awoke with a sound like drowning. From his throat came a wet, coughing hack. A convulsion between breath and water, blood in his case.

    The sound was familiar to the sailors aboard the Gull¡¯s Drunk Flight, and fear spurred them to jump to his aid. Folk legend has it that sailors refuse to learn to swim, lest their ship go down and they be stranded in the waves. This is only true of sea sailors. The men that Captain Kallum employed were river men, where falling overboard was but one quick panic and thrust of the body to reach the shore.(1)

    Hands strong from rowing, and rough from hemp rope, pressed down on Lucius¡¯ chest and blasted the air from his lips. Out came a sputtering of blood, and in came fresh air. ¡°He lives!¡± one of them shouted. ¡°He needs a doctor!¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m fine,¡± Lucius said, and grabbed one of the sailors by the arm to pull himself upright. ¡°I need water though. Someone get me water, please.¡± Naturally, as this was the Giordanan coast, the crew hadn¡¯t been the only ones to leap to the newly awakened man. The flies were there too, drawn by his drying blood. Inert as he had been, bites covered his chest, the inflammation at war with the power of his stigmata.

    A group of soldiers began to gather around him, their eyes scrutinizing. Only after he had put the drink to his lips did my pupil realize that his helm had come off while he had been in the embrace of the Shepherd, the embrace of fleeting death. Before any questioned him, he pulled the waterskin from his lips. He took the initiative for himself, and asked, ¡°How many of us are aboard?¡±

    ¡°Two hundred and sixty, Sir,¡± a young auxiliary said. He clearly lacked the physical stature to be among the voluntaries. The danger was all the higher for it. Men of the auxiliaries were more familiar with the true Lucius. The identity sat upon my pupil like paint; liable to flake off. Watching a subject for some days and only from afar does little to teach an actor how to play his role; but, it was the best we had.

    He had been prepared well enough. ¡°How much food do we have? How much was carried from the camp?¡±

    Lieutenant Tyrion pushed through the ranks to answer him. ¡°No more than a day¡¯s worth. After speaking with Captain Kallum, the trip would take us a week at best. We¡¯ve overburdened the barge and maneuvering will be difficult.¡± The leader of the voluntaries was older than Lucius, and had the scars to show his years of service. Not one part of his body didn¡¯t have a scar from all the weapons known to man. If it weren¡¯t for the thick, brown beard he wore, his visage would have scared away any woman he didn¡¯t pay for.(2)

    Lucius answered him, ¡°We will have to live off the land then, unless someone happens to be an expert fisherman.¡±

    That sent a murmur through the troops. Many had already seen to bedding down. They wrapped themselves in cloaks and leaned against one another for protection from the sea wind. Many didn¡¯t find it so easy to dull their minds after a fight, and those were the ones who gave rise to a question, one which Lieutenant Tyrion took upon himself to ask. ¡°Sir, if I may be blunt; how did you survive?¡±

    ¡°The spear thrust?¡± Lucius asked. ¡°He wasn¡¯t very good with it.¡±

    A few men found the humor in his statement. It didn¡¯t touch Tyrion¡¯s gaze. ¡°The report was that your head had been cut off after you attacked the Medini family. I see that was exaggerated?¡±

    Lucius smiled. His teeth were still red with blood. ¡°Actually, I don¡¯t think it was. My memory is hazy of the incident, but, I woke alone on the street, passed by like rubbish of the battle. I had certainly been left for dead, but¡­¡± He ran a hand through his hair. Only sweat stained his fingers. ¡°Here I am. It¡¯s as though the Shepherd sent me back.¡±

    The answer didn¡¯t impress the veteran. ¡°And so you came back, alone?¡±

    ¡°I went to the garrison camp first, but that had been overrun. It was all I could do to outfit myself in the dark and rejoin you. Lieutenant, I want to thank you for taking charge in the chaos. You acted appropriately. You saved the lives of everyone here.¡±

    Pride can be such a wonderful nuance to a lie; but, it isn¡¯t enough to completely sell a falsehood. It merely bought Lucius more time. The leader of the voluntaries had to occupy his thoughts not just with his doubts over Lucius, but, of how to survive with or without him. Concern over the change in appearance pressed on him just slightly less than the prospect of an empty stomach on the morrow. While a trained soldier can go without food for a day or even two, if the marching is easy, a week of hunger was too much.

    ¡°What did you mean by live off the land?¡± Lieutenant Tyrion asked.

    My pupil gritted his teeth. He was on a fine line of pressing the man. Military decorum dictated that a subordinate--which Tyrion was--should speak formally. Lucius von Solhart had done nothing to earn the respect of his auxiliaries, let alone the visiting voluntaries. Demanding the lieutenant address him as such would have been like pushing a candle closer to a scroll to read it; liable to conflagrate the entire thing. He said, ¡°That¡¯s what swords are good for, isn¡¯t it?¡±

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    That put a dark expression across Tyrion¡¯s face, and my pupil met it with a pained pressing of his lips. He didn¡¯t show the man a single twitch of eagerness to do what he had proposed; to take their provisions from the locals. The voluntaries had pride to them, and the thought of pillaging for supplies greeted them like curdling in their milk. Empty stomachs were terribly persuasive though.

    ¡°Let me through, let me through,¡± Doctor Samson said as he squeezed between the men. Getting him out of the restaurant and to the barge in time had been quite the feat; one which Lucius never thanked me for. I imagine he never forgave the shock it gave him.

    From his perspective, this was perhaps the worst thing that could have occurred. The appearance of the doctor was the appearance of someone who had seen him face to face at the same time the original Lucius had been at camp. He had taken my deal however, so while Lucius reached for his dagger, what came out of Sammy¡¯s mouth was, ¡°You¡¯re tougher than you look, Commander Solhart.¡±

    Lucius was no stranger to improvisation, even before I took him under my wing. ¡°Tougher than I was yesterday, at least.¡±

    ¡°Come, take your armor off. I need to see this stigmata if I¡¯m to understand how to treat you,¡± Sammy said, and knelt beside my pupil. Under his breath and between the two of them, he said, ¡°You¡¯ll need a private checkup soon. When we can close the door.¡±

    Lucius grunted and between the two of them, they stripped his bloody armor off. A soldier was summoned to clean it up, for he had no squire present, and the doctor set about inspecting his throat. Thanks to his stigmata, not even a scar remained. ¡°You¡¯ve lost a lot of blood. You¡¯ll need to eat well,¡± the doctor said, his voice loud enough that Lieutenant Tyrion would hear it. ¡°Come on then, shirt too, or do I have to cut it off you? Let¡¯s see the sigil.¡±

    The announcement drew the attention of many soldiers, most of which did not bother to disguise their spying. The coming dawn put enough rose into the sky that they could see the markings across his chest. There, displayed for all to see, Lucius revealed the indecipherable script of the divine; his stigmata that defied even my comprehension. Perhaps a dozen soldiers in the Vassish army had stigmata, Lieutenant Tyrion among them. Common sigils by and large, and their commonness matched their simplicity.

    None had seen one as boldly written as his [Undying].

    ¡°So,¡± Lieutenant Tyrion said, ¡°That¡¯s what grew his head back? I wasn¡¯t aware something like that was possible.¡±

    ¡°Anything is possible with a stigmata. The trick is figuring out the nuances,¡± Sammy said, pressing his hands to Lucius¡¯ chest and feeling the muscles. ¡°If you would, commander, when you awoke with this, were you clothed?¡±

    ¡°Excuse me?¡±

    ¡°Did you regrow from the head or from your body?¡±

    ¡°Ah, I was clothed.¡± Which would have been a lie, had he actually been beheaded. We had done the experiment in the past; it was his head that formed the new body. That however, was a secret kept between the two of us.

    Sammy nodded and tugged on Lucius¡¯ eyelid to inspect his eyes again. ¡°That would explain a few things. Sir, as far as my medical opinion goes, you¡¯re even healthier than you were two days ago. Blood loss and hunger notwithstanding. If I had to guess, your healing doesn¡¯t discriminate between wounds and sickness. Your years of drinking have been alleviated. I¡¯d say you¡¯ve been born anew.¡±

    Now, I would not rate Sammy as a particularly good actor. He wasn¡¯t trained in it. He only had to carry his part for so long however. With the morning light, came the true special guest.

    The South Sea is a splendid and timeless sight. I recommend anyone with the means of travel to visit at least once, if for no other reason than passing from Vassermark to Ailleterre. The water glitters like a sea of gems in the placid win. The change in heat unfortunately lures out all manner of insects from the coast, but in turn that encourages the sluggish fish to feed. Finding a school of the little predators can bring the surface to a roil, at least until the supreme predators arrive to dine on the fish. I do not mean the fishermen of Giordana, but the raptors.

    And, the greatest among those birds would be the black raptors; the blessed birds of the Shepherd. Divine beasts nearly as tall as a man, and smarter than most. One by the name of Golden alighted upon the prow of The Gull¡¯s Drunk Flight. If only I could have seen the panic when the sailors and soldiers realized what had landed on their ship; a sight few priests even saw. In truth however, their legend far surpasses their power. They are capable of only a few tricks, such as binding oaths; but, Golden had always been a reliable messenger for the right price.

    ¡°Bring me your leader,¡± the prideful crow demanded.

    And so, Lieutenant Tyrion was forced under the gaze of his men, to assent that my pupil was his leader, and to let him go forward as their representative.

    <hr>

    <ol>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">Of course, finding oneself stranded along the edge of the Tavina River can be as desolate as the middle of the ocean, but any sensible captain would throw anchor to retrieve a soggy sailor running on the shore.</li>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">An astute reader may currently be wondering why so many men followed but one soldier; Lieutenant Tyrion. The Vassish army that Lucius first put his hands on very nearly resembled an organized mob of hunting parties, and their discipline held solely by the authority of their centurion, their lieutenant as I have so translated to stay in constance with future developments. The voluntaries numbered two hundred, and therefore had two centurions; but, the historical record has little trace of the other man. Lieutenant Alf barely even spoke to Lucius the whole trip, for he was sick in the head from venereal disease he had contracted either in Puerto Faro or from one of the tribes in the wastelands. Had he tried to exert his enfeebled mind, the soldiers would have been at great peril, for it was Lieutenant Tyrion who had been raised by a merchant and knew his way around provisions management.</li>

    </ol>

 1-9 - The Golden Ruse

    Divine Beasts are peculiar things to behold. The uninitiated can¡¯t even describe it beyond ¡°magical.¡± I am forced by technicality to confess that, yes, they are a magical sight. That however is a misunderstanding of the term. They have in them more essence of life than any mere animal, and a human who has attained at least some enlightenment can perceive the difference of intent to their existence.

    That is the essence of magic; intent.

    It¡¯s not that they glow, but rather that their fur, their skin, or feathers have more distinctness and reality to them, which makes the background seem drab by comparison. Even a creature such as Golden with wings like the night sky, the gloss of his feathers could turn the slightest glimmer of light into a shine, as though he sucked in the color from about him. When first seen, it¡¯s quite the captivating look, and it can bewilder most people.

    Personally, I find their naked displays audacious. I have a very good reason that I keep myself wrapped in my robes. When a person can only see my eyes, the effect is magnified to the point of frightening. I should not speak ill of the dead however, even if he did cheat me at cards.

    ¡°The commander of all these men is too meek to even address me?¡± Golden asked. Wood splintered beneath his talons as he hopped along the barge railing. He preened and fluttered his wings, like a singer clearing his throat before a performance.

    My pupil put his back to his men and raised his voice. ¡°I am Lucius von Solhart, former commander of the garrison at Puerto Faro. Whom do I have the pleasure of speaking with, and what brings you here?¡±

    An unrefuted attestation is powerful, and my friend let the words ripen in the air. Then he said, ¡°I am the emissary of the Shepherd, her will given flesh in these lands. As one half the cause of so much bloodshed last night, I ask of you, Lucius von Solhart, what do you have to say for yourself?¡±

    ¡°You expect me to apologize to a foreign god? These are the affairs of men.¡±

    Men such as Tyrion nearly choked on their indignation; but, fear of the Divine Beast held them in place. Golden ruffled his feathers and fixed my pupil with his metallic yellow glare. ¡°Is it not the business of a god when her worshippers are slain in the street?¡±

    ¡°They died with steel in hand. Do they not belong to the sun? I¡¯m not familiar with any of Shepherd¡¯s teachings that speaks of slaking grievances with blood.¡±

    ¡°Foolish man!¡± the bird shrieked and flared his wings. ¡°Has coming so close to your demise made you soft in the head?¡±

    Lucius crossed his arms and threw his head back. ¡°You would talk to me like this? I am a noble of Vassermark! I am loyal to the goddess Saphira(1), not to your gravekeeper. Now look where we are. This is not the Giordanan land, but the sea!¡±

    Soldiers clasped their hands into prayers for safety, which in truth had more weight to it than my pupil¡¯s words. The sea goddess did have certain pets in those southern waters at the time, but I had long ago severed any ties between him and the divine. His bravado was nothing but wind in his breath.

    Golden played his part well, and said back to him, ¡°But, you will have to set foot in her land soon enough, and you will do so with empty stomachs and grasping hands.¡±

    ¡°What of it?¡± Lucius demanded. ¡°Should we lay down and starve rather than return to our homes?¡±

    ¡°I think we both know the Canta boy would run you through and pile your bodies high before you starved.¡±

    ¡°He might try to. He would find his own grave instead.¡±

    A good number of the auxiliaries thrust up their fists and cheered. Anyone brave enough to have remained sleeping awoke to this cry and discovered the barge¡¯s new guest. They also saw who stood between them and the Divine Beast.

    ¡°Know this, Solhart,¡± Golden shouted, and put intent into his words. Water rippled out from the barge in every direction. A great force held it flat, denying the waves and the wind, but gripping the barge in stillness. ¡°The port you are en route to is Red Spire Monastery. Should you bring harm to the scholars there, I will personally see to the empowerment of Medorosa Canta¡¯s stigmata! Your flight will become futile. You have been warned!¡±

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    Golden then leapt off the railing, snapping the wood beneath his talons. A great flap of his wings gusted a storm across the deck and returned chop to the waters. A second pulse of his wings sent him soaring into the sky. He circled and rose higher, watching the terror play out beneath before departing to the north.

    Captain Kallum fell to his knees, speaking a profound prayer of repentance in old Altish; a language so dead I have my doubts about his knowledge of what he in fact said. Portly and balding, he lacked any sign of edge that a smuggler might. Such a criminal would have been better suited for the Vassish, but what they had was but a small merchant with a desire to put more coin in the pockets of his workers. There was at least one blessing to the unplanned captain, and my pupil caught sight of it within the neck of the captain¡¯s striped shirt.

    ¡°Calm yourself, captain,¡± Lucius ordered. He strode to the man and stood above him. ¡°So long as we don¡¯t attack the scholars, we have done no wrong by Shepherd, and thus you have done no wrong in aiding us.¡±

    The captain¡¯s prayer faded away. ¡°But, Sir, I heard you myself. I know it isn¡¯t right to eaves drop on my paying customers; but, there isn¡¯t much by way of a wall on my ship, so I heard what you said and I knew what you meant. You know as well as I that letters of credit from a Vassish will hardly buy you one meal, let alone several hundred! What choice will you have but to take it?¡±

    ¡°Be at peace. That bird gave us two pieces of information. First, it is the scholars we must not harm. Second, Medorosa already has a stigmata. We will find a way. Lieutenant! Come, we must speak again,¡± Lucius said, and waved Tyrion over to the aft of the ship.

    The wind there sucked their voices away from the crew and soldiers; as close to a wall as could be managed. Still, he kept his voice down from thereon. ¡°You fought alongside the Canta caravan at least once, didn¡¯t you?¡±

    ¡°Aye, sir,¡± Tyrion said.

    ¡°Did you know he had a stigmata?¡±

    ¡°No, sir.¡±

    ¡°Then we should be worried. If the stigmata were trivial, he would have mentioned it. If it were strong, he would have sold himself to us. If he hid it, then it is profoundly strong.¡±

    The older man scratched his beard and nodded. His gaze focused on the distant blot on the horizon that was Puerto Faro. ¡°I never thought much of him in a fight. He struck me as a coward; one who always clung to his friends around him. I swear that once I saw him faint in the middle of combat. If we weren¡¯t beset by savages with no sense of strategy beyond bloodlust, he would have been slain.¡±

    ¡°Bloodlust.¡±

    ¡°Aye, sir,¡± Tyrion said. ¡°You would have to see it yourself to understand. Someone who never went to the southern continent wouldn¡¯t understand; but, they don¡¯t have gods down there in the sand¡­ only demons. Just to survive with what scant food and water there is, they slaughter one another in sacrifice to their idols, and they pay with their minds. The survivors of this sacrilege don¡¯t see friend from foe; only blood.¡±

    ¡°They don¡¯t sound like a match for our soldiers. A rabble will always break across a shield formation.¡±

    The lieutenant backed out a laugh. ¡°Would you say the same to a Skaldish giant? To a hammer knight who can break a knight¡¯s arm and armor both? These wastelanders have more strength than a horse, and they only stop fighting when there are enough corpses for each to carry one back and beg succor of their demons.¡±

    ¡°Arrows then.¡±

    ¡°Aye, arrows did the trick¡­ when we had enough sight of them to react in time. The king¡¯s rocks cost many a life. We turned rivers red down there. I pray to the goddess that those stones were worth the price.¡±

    ¡°Pray to her that we get back to Lord Raymi first.¡±

    Lieutenant Tyrion nodded. ¡°So do we press on to the next town? If we are to avoid these monks?¡±

    Lucius leaned on the railing of the barge and scanned the coastline. ¡°We aren¡¯t moving fast enough to do that. This first night put distance between us and Medorosa only because they had to sleep. Today, they will either catch up by horse, or will buy off a ship captain. Either will overtake this barge. We would be butchered trying to set into a port. Red Spire is the only place we can disembark safely.¡±

    ¡°But, we cannot assault the scholars!¡±

    ¡°We won¡¯t have to,¡± Lucius said. He grinned and turned back to the army he led. Rumors kept the men awake for the moment, but they would be rested before arrival. ¡°The Medini family has supplies for the taking in Red Spire. Merchants aren¡¯t scholars, now are they?¡±

    Lieutenant Tyrion found his own grin as well, for pillaging an enemy¡¯s supplies was far different than a civilian¡¯s life. ¡°No, no they are not.¡±

    <hr>

    (1) An earlier draft had the Goddess'' name much more crudely translated as Aquaria. The more poetic attribution will henceforth be used.

 1-10 - The Lost Shipment

    Aisha¡¯s hands trembled as she held onto her clay mug. It made the wine bounce and splatter as the elderly servant poured it for her. ¡°Sorry,¡± she said, forcing herself to smile at him.

    All present could hear the shouting of her brother on the other side of the estado. ¡°A headless corpse? This is what you bring me? What am I supposed to prove with this?¡±

    The old butler smiled and righted the amphora on the dining table. ¡°I understand. Would you like a bit of fruitbread?¡±

    ¡°Please,¡± she said.

    The servant bowed and left her alone for a time, among the halls of mosaics and in the light of golden sconces. Personally, I have my suspicions about the purity of the gold, but the structure had long since been pillaged by the time I returned to Puerto Faro. As the daughter of a merchant, and talented enough to be a treasured guest at many an event, she was no stranger to the plaster moldings, the artwork, the delicacies of food and drink. What struck her were the servants.

    They were old.

    Of course, any household of means tends to accumulate a cast of workers, for a great many things needs to be done to a large house. The food must be cooked, the linens washed, the candles trimmed, and so on. Naturally, some servants are particularly well suited to the task, even to the point of enjoying it, and they end up managing the others. That still leaves the majority to be, traditionally speaking at least, easy on the eyes. Pouring drinks and washing pots gives enough time to determine a better use for a servant.

    In Giordana, house slaves were also common.

    The Medini family had neither of these, but rather an aging cast of helpers that bespoke their shrinking influence. Still, they were quite attentive to the young girl there to speak about her brother¡¯s vendetta. Aisha was mulling her thoughts with a cup of wine in the early morning when Stella Medini finally met with her. Both of them could easily hear the ravings of her brother, all of a menial and bureaucratic nature. With blood still wet on the ground, the game of logistics had begun. To chase the Vassish meant hiring a ship or a caravan. Both cost money, and the ferocity of his men depended as often on their grievances as on the plunder he stood to gain.

    His anger haunted the halls, and yet the lady Medini strode in to meet with Aisha bearing a smile. She was a widower without children, which gave Aisha the illusion that they shared a kinship of sorts. ¡°Stella-ima,¡± she said. Aisha had the relieved smile of one who has found their rescue.

    ¡°Aisha, shouldn¡¯t you be back home in Tavina?¡± the blond merchant asked. Her hair was her most striking feature; a blond so bright it bordered on silver, as though all of its color had been sucked into her complexion. It would have served her well to appear sun-touched in the central plains, but it won her only distrust in Giordana. She at least had no fear of men eyeing her wealth; she had a guardian.

    A temple hound nearly four feet at the shoulder, by the name of Dune, shadowed her at all hours. With fur like fox and ears that never drooped, he still had a puppy look to him despite his age. His teeth could rip a man¡¯s arm from its socket; but, Aisha giggled and squealed when he trotted over to clean the sweat from her cheeks. ¡°Dune! Stop, stop. I¡¯m here to talk, not to play!¡±

    ¡°Dune, sit,¡± Stella ordered, and the furry beast complied, though he gave a disgruntled huff.

    Aisha composed herself and brushed her sticky hair back. ¡°Isn¡¯t it obvious?¡± she asked, but Stella didn¡¯t have the answer. ¡°Our family is ruined the moment word reaches back to Vassermark. Even if it weren¡¯t for the Vassish; most of our investment was lost in the southern continent. Medo will get only blood for all his anger.¡±

    As though in response, they heard Medorosa¡¯s barked order, ¡°Bring me the prisoner. I¡¯ll kill him myself!¡±

    The Medini family estado had few proper doorways, only secured rooms could be fastened shut. As such, both them and the servants could look across and see when the blue cloaked figure of a Vassish prisoner was dragged inside, sobbing. The sight made Aisha gasp, for she recognized the man from the night before. He had laid beside my pupil in the infirmary without the strength to even rise, sick with dysentery. The grief of his body having betrayed him painted his face as the Cynizia dragged him to his death.

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    There was nothing she could do about it. Her brother had not so much as consulted with her upon his return. No hope remained for that poor prisoner.

    Stella sighed and took the seat opposite Aisha. A servant immediately placed a cup of wine before her, and she sipped it. ¡°I told your brother the same thing two nights ago. Your family should have known the risks in dealing with the desert. That¡¯s how things are here, in Puerto Faro. The sailors gamble wages, the merchants gamble ships. His gamble lost. He should have been thankful that he hadn¡¯t lost his life.¡±

    Aisha bit her lip, but no answers came to her from her wine. ¡°I imagine he hated the idea of starting over from nothing.¡±

    The lady Medini smiled. ¡°I tried offering him a loan. He¡¯s a strong, ambitious young man. There are certain opportunities that you can¡¯t just offer anyone. Stealing Aillesterran tea seeds didn¡¯t have the same allure to him that violence had, and he didn¡¯t even wait to think it over.¡±

    Aisha scoffed. ¡°Of course; if he had waited no one would have joined his cause. What a perfect excuse to be impulsive, no?¡±

    Stella laughed. At the same time, the servant returned with a plate full of fresh baked breads and sliced fruits. Though they would never have seen the light before a nobleman in Vassermark, by the standards of Giordana it made for quite the pleasant breakfast. Both women filled their mouths with bites of the softly leavened bread and held bits of apple or fig as they continued.

    Stella said, ¡°It also forced my hand. That idiot Solhart attacked me because of it. My guards still haven¡¯t finished cleaning up the mess. I hope the smell didn¡¯t disturb your rest this morning.¡±

    The pyre of oil and corpses had fouled her room, but Aisha wasn¡¯t one to complain about something like that. ¡°Don¡¯t you think the Vassish will retaliate against you?¡±

    ¡°Perhaps,¡± Stella said. ¡°But that will be years from now, when they deem it worthwhile to send an army back here. It wasn¡¯t us who drove them out, but the cost of their shipping. And besides, I can buy them off.¡±

    Aisha arched an eyebrow. ¡°You can?¡±

    Stella smiled. ¡°Come with me. If you won¡¯t go back to Tavina, I imagine you¡¯ll be riding with your brother as soon as he goes to chase them down, yes? I could use a negotiator who knows what cards I have.¡±

    The two of them rose from the dining table, and passed through her gardens. Flowers and vegetables and sturdier sorts of plants turned her halls green with the dawn light, and the alluring scent of nectar filled the air. Even the most stubborn of vines had a beauty to them, spilling out of their pots and down the walls such that they begged for water with the promise of future fruit.

    Stella strode through all the garden halls and to one of the estado storehouses. Still secure within the walls, she waved off the near-dozing guard and let the Canta girl inside. Medorosa¡¯s shouts at last waned from their ears, filtered by the walls. The closing of the door behind her gave physical relief. Then her eyes revealed to her the contents of the room. ¡°Stone?¡± she asked, seeing nothing but piles upon piles of quarried rock the color of sandstone. The room was full of it, in all shapes and sizes, even some rough boulders dug free of the sand and carried in upon sleds. The barrels seemed to her to at least be something, but they too were filled with stone as rough as gravel or as fine as sand.

    ¡°Not stone,¡± Stella said. She walked over to the nearest barrel and took out a pebble. ¡°This is the treasure the Vassish sought.¡± She dropped the rock to the ground.

    It struck the masonry like a blacksmith¡¯s hammer and leapt back into the air, flying to the side, where it struck the wall. Again, a deafening hammer blow before it ricocheted into one of the boulders. Then the sound was more like a bovine falling on its side, and the sled it sat upon creaked from strain. The pebble tumbled to the floor, inert. Stella smiled, for she had proven it to the girl.

    Aisha¡¯s mouth gaped. ¡°Ley? You have their lost shipment?¡±

    ¡°Medorosa escaped with more than just his life,¡± she said. ¡°But, this too is a gamble. The Vassish are the only people in the world looking to buy this¡­ stuff. They¡¯re the market makers as it were, and if they decide that my little empire of connections is not worth this pile of rocks, then I have no bargaining leverage at all.¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t understand,¡± Aisha said. She pulled her hand away, afraid to even touch the reactive grit. ¡°Are you on my brother''s side, or are you not?¡±

    ¡°Do I look like a revolutionary to you? Giordana isn¡¯t a nation, we¡¯re not an empire, we¡¯re not even a theocracy. We¡¯re a tangle of self-interest bound in only the loosest of ways by laws older than humanity. Who am I to stand against Vassermark?¡± (1)

    ¡°You could care about what¡¯s right.¡±

    ¡°Only the strong get to care about what¡¯s right, rather than what must be. So, what will it be? Will you be my agent? I¡¯ll pay you well enough.¡±

    Aisha nodded. ¡°I¡¯ll do what I can.¡±

    That was the strongest thing she could say, for she too had been bound to her word into my conspiracy.

    <hr>

    <ol>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">An admirable statement of humility, but she believed those laws to come from the gods, because they were carved in pillars older than any recollection save my own. My people wrote those laws. Still, they were a good set of instructions, and they did well to abide by them.</li>

    </ol>

 1-11 - Living Off The Land

    The Red Spire Monastery had been chiseled out of rock in the Giordanan coast, or so the monks said. Of course, a good deal had been cut from the cliff, forming erratic valleys whose slopes were hovels and shops. The namesake lighthouse was no more than concrete, and a necessary growth at that, lest ships run ashore. That was where the monks were however, with their scrolls and their telescopes and cadavers and who knows what else. I had never paid much attention to the place historically, as they had little impact on heraldry and it wasn¡¯t until the ninth century that they produced a notable breakthrough. It was in flowers of all things. Even I can only imagine what kind of heartbreak that man went through to breed so many generations of flowers in a desert.

    The Vassish smuggled themselves into the city by throwing cargo tarps over themselves. They huddled beneath, listening to the growing crash of the shore and held onto one another lest someone¡¯s movements give the ruse up. Only Lucius stood revealed, and rode in at the prow of the ship to greet the guard. A good dozen soldiers, on a collective payroll of the various interested merchant families, lined up at the docks to see what the ship was about. They called Lucius off to answer their questioning, for they knew about the Vassish in the area secondhand.

    ¡°What brings you here m¡¯lord?¡± their representative asked. Communication was nearly constrained by a language barrier, and a pale-skinned, thin-limbed man stepped forward as the only one able to speak Vassish.

    Lucius ignored him. The captain of the guard could be identified well enough, and Lucius could speak Giordanan. Despite my best efforts, the boy never learned Altish, but that is not such a great fault. ¡°I¡¯m here to negotiate surrender.¡±

    The guards glanced at one another, and the captain gestured. Some went to board the barge. ¡°Whose?¡± the captain asked.

    ¡°Yours,¡± Lucius said. He straightened his back and bellowed, ¡°Men!¡±

    At once, two hundred and fifty Vassish soldiers threw off the tarps and drew steel.

    Against drunks and pickpockets, the guards of Red Spire could keep their confidence. Cutpurses and vagabonds were easily managed with gruff voices and stern attitudes. Larger dangers, such as determined bandits or a hungry army, forced them to rely on the protection of their goddess. Unbeknownst to them, that protection had already been bartered on their behalf. For their ignorance, they chose cowardice and compliance, which was correct in this case. They held up their hands and said, ¡°Alright then. We surrender.¡±

    Lucius called forward some of his auxiliaries. ¡°Take their weapons and detain them. We must strike quickly. Tyrion!¡±

    Due to the small size of the settlement, there were few roads to be concerned with, and the voluntaries split their forces into three to sweep. By luck, it was Tyrion himself who found the stone estate of the Medini family. No ambush awaited the Vassish this time. The cry went up and the echo reached Lucius¡¯ ears. Leaving some men to quell the populace on his street, Lucius ran to join the pillaging.

    Blood ran down the steps of the entrance. It trickled together as tributaries and pooled down the center, through which he marched. The Medini family had their own guards, four of which laid crumpled in the entrance hall, spear wounds feeding the red river. Servants and workers trembled on their knees, hands behind their heads. They cried and pleaded with steel held to their throats.

    ¡°Bring me the manager!¡± Lucius shouted, and the voluntaries produced the man. ¡°Are you him?¡±

    ¡°Yes, m¡¯lord,¡± the older man said. He was frail, and even that short of a sentence provoked a bloody cough. With his robes, he looked just like the scholars he sold to, but his loyalty was that of all merchants; to profit. ¡°Who are you?¡±

    ¡°Your enemy, courtesy of Stella Medini¡¯s affections for Medorosa Canta,¡± Lucius said, and watched as several men broke through the door to the warehouse. The Medini business burrowed through the stone in layers, with the shop front seated in front of their craft and preparation area, and beyond the storage, protected like a vault more precious than their own residences.

    The manager hadn¡¯t been put there just because of failing health. He caught on at once. ¡°You must be Lucius von Solhart then. These are Vassish blues if I¡¯ve ever seen them.¡±

    ¡°This isn¡¯t about the gambling debts, if that¡¯s what you¡¯re assuming. This is for giving aid to Medorosa Canta.¡±

    ¡°Canta? But he works for you!¡±

    ¡°He did until yesterday, when he swore a vendetta against us. You¡¯ll have to understand that we¡¯re in a tight situation here. We¡¯ll be taking your things,¡± Lucius said, and left the manager gritting his teeth at the ground.

    He marched through the shop front and to the inner workings of the business. For Red Spire Monastery, the Medini family traded in most every good, but they employed a number of seamstresses to work with the rolls of fabric, and so workbenches lined the buried hall. Rows of glass blocks in the roof let in more than enough light for work, or for plundering. Tyrion strode through the streaks of light to meet him, some blood splattered across his chest. With no sign of a limp or bandage, the blood could only be from his enemies. ¡°Some got out the back.¡±

    Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

    ¡°Workers?¡±

    ¡°Aye, they¡¯ll raise an alarm.¡±

    ¡°Doesn¡¯t matter. We¡¯ll be gone before they can do anything but chase us. How much food is there?¡± Lucius asked, and continued on to the storage room. The change in temperature was as dramatic as the change in lighting. Sconces hardly even colored the collection of barrels before him, and the stone sucked the desert heat away.

    ¡°Enough for a few days, but not enough to get to Lord Raymi,¡± Tyrion answered. One of the soldiers cracked open a barrel, spilling its contents of rice out and ashamedly tried to scoop it back in.

    ¡°It¡¯ll do for now,¡± Lucius said.

    ¡°What will it be then? You said we¡¯ll be gone?¡± Tyrion asked. He had enough experience to effectively give commands merely by glaring at the right people, in the right way.

    ¡°Medorosa will be here soon enough. This is no place to defend.¡±

    ¡°They outnumber us though.¡±

    ¡°For now,¡± Lucius said. ¡°The longer we deny them a fight, the more attrition of will they¡¯ll have.¡±

    The lieutenant shook his head. ¡°Do you mean to march through the desert in a chase? We must make for Lord Raymi or stand and fight.¡±

    My pupil laughed. ¡°What? You don¡¯t like two to one odds?¡±

    Tyrion¡¯s lips curled up. ¡°I¡¯ll take five to one odds against these southern barbarians without flinching, but a fight must be won before the first blood is drawn.¡±

    ¡°Come. I¡¯ll show you,¡± Lucius said, and left the men to the pillaging. Tyrion followed behind, and the two of them emerged from the Medini building, back to the crevice of city. After some inspection, and under the indignant gaze of locals, Lucius led the way up to the very top of the cliffs that the city had been carved from. The wind blasted across the two of them, blowing salt in across the sands of Giordana. ¡°This is the problem.¡±

    ¡°What?¡± Tyrion asked. ¡°No gambling arenas?¡±

    Having not actually lost any bets recently, the insult tested Lucius¡¯ composure. Had anyone been there to hear the insult, he would have had reason to cut the man down. Alas, he had to suffer the insult. It was meant at the original Lucius, and he knew that. ¡°No walls. If they come in by foot, they¡¯ll rain death upon us or starve us out. We¡¯d have to build our own palisades, and then we¡¯d still be up against the cliff¡¯s edge without retreat.¡±

    ¡°So we take the food and shove off west.¡±

    ¡°They¡¯d overtake us in a proper ship and sink us. I have no hatred of Aquaria, but I¡¯m not in a rush to meet her embrace.¡±

    ¡°Are you just going to degrade our options?¡±

    Lucius grinned and pointed behind him, to the weed spotted hills of the Giordanan desert. ¡°We just need to bring more allies to our side, and then we will outnumber them instead. Simple, isn¡¯t it?¡±

    This made the lieutenant frown and narrow his eyes, but he was wise enough to consider what wisdom Lucius was getting at.

    ¡°Within a day¡¯s march of here is a silver mine, filled to the brim with slaves. Debtors and prisoners; men who would happily turn their tools against their masters given the chance. We won¡¯t even need to take them in, merely bring them with us to the west and disperse them. All with a wagon train of silver for our trouble.¡±

    Hunger alit in Tyrion¡¯s mind, greed that had always been there and yet chained by proper behavior. What Lucius gave him was justification to revert to savagery and feel no shame about it. ¡°Are you sure about that? They like to hide their slave pits from us.¡±

    Lucius grinned. ¡°How else? The bookies told me all about it to try and get me to pay up my debts. They were quite confident they could get me there, never to breathe free air again.¡±

    Tyrion threw his head back and bellowed a laugh. ¡°Good, good! I¡¯ll rally the men to get a wagon train and see which of these Medini¡¯s will lead the way to keep me from gutting them.¡±

    The leader of the voluntaries descended back into the settlement, and left my pupil alone up there. With a stomach near empty, he would have loved nothing more than to descend to a popina cafe and gorge himself, to take for himself a fishmongers entire stall and fill his stomach with the fresh meat.

    He was still being watched though. If not by his own men, then by the people of Red Spire Monastery, and by the distant scrying of Golden. That bird had roosted upon the lighthouse, departing only to circle like a vulture, impatient for his meal. Lucius would have to provide that meal soon enough, for Golden still remembered the ancient days of sacrifice, when heretics and criminals were strung out across the streets in gibbets to be feasted upon. The succulent flavor of despair seasoning their meat so he could rip into their livers and hear their screams. Such delicacies were no longer permitted to the Divine Beast, at least not in public.

    The last warlord of Giordana, the Yellow King Hassa, abused the tradition to the point of terror, till entire cities were decorated with bones. Slums were plundered for people to butcher, and prisoners of war crucified across the roads into Giordana. That fool thought he could buy the favor of a goddess by bribing her agents, and in the end spent five years rotting from the inside due to poison. One organ after another decayed within him, eventually leaving him bedridden and crying for healing stigmata, but no blessing ever came to him.

    That man taught me a great deal, and I took wiser action than him. I did not seek the goddess¡¯ favor. Her emissary¡¯s assistance was all we needed, and that could clearly be bought. In much the same way a honeybee communicates with his brethren, Golden circled this way and that in the air, always returning to one direction off from North.

    The way to the slave pits where he had been promised fresh meat.

 1-12 - The Sand Snake

    The line of soldiers that Lucius led dragged behind him in the sinking sunlight. Under his orders, they had accumulated a wagon train, laden it with supplies, and set off north even without sight of Medorosa. The work had been slow and indignant, but as they set out and put reins to the donkeys, scouts returned with confirmation. The Cynizia were marching to Red Spire.

    Escaping north took them away from water though, the sea nothing more than a glimmer of color on the horizon that could have been mistaken for a mirage. Even with half the carts dedicated to pots of water, filled from the temple wells and sealed, a fear had set in. The soldiers feared collapsing in the sand never to rise. They feared that the only thing between them and mummification would be the feasting of scarabs on their withered flesh.

    For this malaise of the mind, Lucius chose to put himself at the front and march on foot.(1) He let Tyrion keep his horse, but used the lieutenant to circle around the line and fix problems. ¡°We¡¯re close,¡± Lucius said when the lieutenant rode back up to him. A waterskin was tossed to him and he caught it. After wetting his throat, he gestured at the Medini prisoner who nodded glumly. ¡°If we keep pace, we should arrive by sunset.¡±

    ¡°And then what? We attack?¡± the leader of the voluntaries asked.

    ¡°Yes, but first we will eat. Time is not our friend until we have some walls around us.¡±

    Tyrion turned his head south. The lighthouse could no longer be seen; a sand cloud from their own marching obscured it and perhaps hinted at a second cloud further on. ¡°The Canta boy would have to march double to catch us. We should have time.¡±

    ¡°We¡¯ll have to hope he doesn¡¯t know of better roads than us. Our heading can easily be tracked.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯d be worried if the Medini had been able to turn them into a cavalry force, but there are precious few horses in these lands,¡± Tyrion said, rubbing his hand along the thick neck of his steed.

    Lucius grinned. The march had taken a toll on him in the heat, as it had everyone. Within his armor, his gambeson stuck to his skin, heavy with trapped sweat. The unwashed smell of men was carried by every gust of wind, and he knew well enough what that could mean. ¡°Horses are a risky investment here.¡±

    Tyrion sidled the horse up alongside him, hooves clopping the sandstone. ¡°More so than anywhere else? And why is that?¡±

    ¡°Predators,¡± Lucius said, and surveyed the hills of sand that flanked them. Only the most insignificant of insects and lizards moved within his sight. There was more to the sand than what chose to reveal itself however.

    Hours later, when the train of soldiers pulled together to make a temporary camp, they circled the wagons and broke into the salted meats. So close to their destination, they could light no fires, so the cereal crops could not be cooked. Their conscripted guide came to him with a bold request. He had seemed a dandy while in Red Spire, but the days march through the heat could reduce anyone to fatigued tatters. Curly hair laid flat to his head, and the sun had burned his cheeks red. The impression would have ruined anyone¡¯s reputation in a tavern or at a festival, but as a prisoner made him pitiable.

    ¡°Might I borrow a sword?¡±

    Lucius at the time had been sitting with a squad of auxiliaries, two of which pointed their spears at the Giordanan man. He stopped them with a hand. ¡°Do you not understand your position here?¡±

    Their guide, who had fared much better in the heat as he wore only a linen shirt, wrung his hands. ¡°I do, Sir. You don¡¯t need to give me the sword. Someone else may do it just as easy. Your¡­ chefs are not very keen on the idea of feeding me just as they feed everyone else. It seems I am to go hungry. As such, I would simply like one of the sabr cut down for me.¡±

    Out of curiosity more than anything, Lucius ordered one of the auxiliaries to help the man out. He watched as the two approached the stubby mass of flesh and thorns that the local called a sabr plant. The auxiliary gave it a tentative chop, and when he found his sword bit into it easily and without chipping, he set about lopping off a limb. Cool juices sprang from the wound and it crashed to the sand so loud that they had begun to draw a crowd.

    This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

    Many in the voluntaries already knew of the secret of the defensive plant of the desert, but hearing of it and seeing it first hand were very different things. Seeing the soldier dig his knife in through the rind of the branch invigorated a curiosity. I should note that the flavor of sabr is always disappointing. It can sate a thirst, but leaves little in the stomach. Certain brewers can make excellent wine liqueur from the insides however.

    Only Lucius kept his wits about him as this went on. So when he ripped a spear from a soldier''s hand, the men panicked. They shouted and threw themselves to the sand or drew their own weapons. He was the one that took three steps forward, hefting it over his shoulder, and launched it into sand beyond the sabr. The metal tip sliced through the sand and stuck fast.

    The guide and soldier didn¡¯t have the time to shout at him, for at once, the creature burst out from hiding. Sand blew into the air. ¡°Move!¡± Lucius bellowed. Claws and fangs emerged from the cloud of sand. The thing had to clamber off the spear, landing just short of the Medini man.

    ¡°Sand snake!¡± He scrambled away, kicking up dust as he flailed his feet.

    The creature swung a slender head through the air, blinking alternate sets of eyelids over night-black eyes. Built like a salamander, but the size of a river crocodile, the sand snake could have ripped a grown man to the ground and made off with him across the dunes. The potent paralytic in its fangs spelled doom to any prey. Even after centuries of cohabitation with humans, the desert predator had only learned to fear fire, not men with shiny bits of rock in their hands.

    Lucius saw that it had set sights not on the Medini guide, but on the auxiliary holding the sabr. The poor soldier could only grab at his sword and try to pull it free. The sand snake lunged before he could; biting into the flesh of his arm and shredding his skin. The man howled and blood fell to the sand, vanishing beneath him as the predator bulled him over.

    Before it could flee, dragging prey like a panther, Lucius was upon it. He bellowed a war cry and down came his sword. Steel smashed into the scales of its articulate neck, and it bit through. The sinew and scale scraped and tore, treating his sword like a saw. He battered the beast''s head away, ripping the fangs from the arm of his troop. Such a wound would not be enough to slay a sand snake however; scar tissue took mere moments to clog the blood and restitch the muscle.

    He flipped his sword around and planted hand to pommel. The tip was to be a stake to drive through its chest and pierce it through. The beast spun and thrashed, in that peculiar fashion only reptiles can perform. The sand about its feet plumed and liquefied with air. Lucius¡¯ sword slammed down, but did not strike true. Again, he merely grazed the belly of the beast.

    The fat swimming tail it had spun about, knocking into his legs and throwing him to the ground. Then it was a blind scramble. Out came his dagger, fighting back against tooth and claw to find purchase within the beast. A hundred slices of pain adorned his body till his clothes were red tatters.

    He screamed in defiance.

    His men drove spears through it. First one, then two more and they forced it off of him. War cries empowered them as they threw their weight into it. Scales split, bones cracked. Each of them pushed their weapons not just through skin and fat, but through muscle, bone and organ. In the dying spasms of animal life, it struggled and beat the ground with its tail, but all its lifeblood poured out across the sand. It hissed and cracked, pink tongue fluttering in its mouth before the spark of life guttered out.

    The relief and gaiety of victory overwhelmed the men, and only after did they realize the venom coursed through their commander¡¯s veins. ¡°Commander Solhart! A hero!¡± They screamed with tears in their eyes. Some ran to fetch the doctor, but only knowing that the first man had been bitten. They didn¡¯t realize what had come of Lucius for his impulse. The price he paid for saving the life of his underling tightened his muscles stronger than the grip of death just on the cusp of battle with the slave pit.

    My pupil, the undying warrior, had fought without fear of death. Even poison and venom posed but momentary setbacks thanks to his stigmata; if he were able to activate his stigmata. The condition to activate his stigmata was to be dying; as which, paralysis did not qualify. A quick knife to his heart could have blasted the malaise from his body, but he could not do it himself. The only person who might have known was Sammy; who had yet to get the details.

    The apothecary surgeon arrived with water and bandages and a myriad of pilfered tinctures. With swift orders, both victims were laid out on the sand and treatment began. Lieutenant Tyrion arrived while wounds were still being cleaned and clotted with salves. He didn¡¯t need to ask what had happened; the beast corpse still laid beside them, oozing blood.

    ¡°Well then,¡± the older soldier said with a grin. ¡°A mighty hunt has transpired here. I shall have to hear all about it when we make safe camp. But, it seems that I will have to be the one to lead the attack, now won¡¯t I?¡±

    Lucius couldn''t even open his mouth to respond.

    <hr>

    <ol>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">The fields of Giordana were not all sand dunes, but more often a dry and unwelcoming loam or exposed rock. The travel is not much easier for it, but it at least alleviated the need to use dromedaries like parts of the wasteland call for.</li>

    </ol>

 1-13 - The Giant Slayer

    Medorosa Canta hadn¡¯t marched double, but he wasn¡¯t far behind either. Three hundred Cynizia men, including a score of light cavalry that ranged ahead to follow the sand laden tracks, then camped north of Red Spire Monastery. Dusk had just reached the Giordanan coast, and the men were yet restless. Had the Vassish turned about and assaulted them, they would have found a sun-weary rabble without lines or tents, let alone fortifications. The whole affair could have been ended with one decisive routing; but the Vassish as yet had no worthwhile scouts of their own, and had no inkling of their enemy¡¯s disarray.

    The appearance of the stars is an auspicious time for Giordanans. They hold little faith to the sun god, and hold less love for the blazing heat that kills their herd animals. The myriad images of twinkling lights that shifts and shines grips them with superstition older than their ability to sail the seas.

    Aisha had joined her brother in his departure from Puerto Faro, and had been given a droll, managerial role. The monks of the monastery had been forced to watch the Vassish pillaging with gritted teeth. While nothing of their own had been taken, they were wise enough men to understand their own, primitive economy. The destruction of an importer meant an impoverishment of their own welfare. Those men of scrolls couldn¡¯t fight, but when the Cynizia arrived, they were met with cheers and promises of supplies.

    A back-and-forth procession of animals stretched between their camp and Red Spire, creeping the provisions north like the crawling of a worm. At the head of the logistics train was the worm¡¯s teeth; the Cynizia fighters. They had found a piece of entertainment for the evening, and left her to herself. She was, as I mentioned, the one in the camp with her eyes turned upwards. Although she saw the omens, the blotting of light by distant clouds and the waning light of certain points, she didn¡¯t know whether they were good omens or bad, for she did not know whether she sought Medorosa¡¯s fate, or Lucius¡¯.(1)

    ¡°They¡¯re drinking too much.¡± The man beside her represented the monastery, though he was not much of a faithful man. Even temples need his caliber; the kind that can size a rogue up with a glance and act accordingly.

    Aisha lowered her gaze and looked to her unwanted companion. ¡°You¡¯re the one who brought it for them.¡±

    The representative, who¡¯s chosen name was Nim, had not been born with the look of Giordana to him. A repentant Aillesterran pirate, he had yet to absolve himself even many years later, well after the sun and the food had given him the local, swarthy look. Only his hair lingered of his past; black and bone straight to his shoulder blades. ¡°Ale has two uses in a march; to reward victory and to prepare the uninitiated to take a human life. This? This is immaturity.¡±

    A cheer erupted from the circle of men, which surely echoed far across the sands. The fire light of the silver mine sat upon the horizon, and yet the Cynizia played their game and drank their ale. Aisha sighed. ¡°They¡¯re boys heading out to become heroes. Why else would they party?¡±

    ¡°Killing doesn¡¯t make you a hero.¡±

    ¡°Have you ever heard the story of Emil the Giant Slayer?¡±

    Nim crossed his arms and glanced at her. ¡°That¡¯s a tavern song, isn¡¯t it?¡±

    She pulled her knees up to her chest and set her gaze on the ring of Cynizia. She could see her brother approaching it. ¡°It¡¯s not the kind of story you¡¯d hear in a temple or a castle, if that¡¯s what you mean. But it¡¯s the kind of story these men grew up on,¡± she said, and in a soft voice, she sang.

    In time before the rule of man,

    When gods and giants battled more,

    Can any say that he was greater than,

    The young hero, Emil, that I fell for.

    The Cynizia had lured in a sand snake by scattering the blood of a goat. A great sport for them; forming a circle and pushing it in with spear and sword. The moment it stepped onto exposed rock, the creature¡¯s fate had been sealed. Unable to swim through the dunes, the great, leaping strength of the beast had been sealed. Even a drunk rube had little to fear from the snapping jaws so long as he had a spear between him and it. They had cornered it between them all, and there was only one question.

    Which of them would go in to slay the beast?

    If they were to close the circle tighter, it would choose someone to lash out at; the weakest it could spot. But, that wasn¡¯t their sport. The ring of spears was to set the stage and to make an arena. Medorosa would have to do something to show his mettle to them; to spill blood in continuing proof of his vendetta. The Cynizia would have no less of him.

    Against the mountain king, twas but a man,

    Emil, the shepherd¡¯s son no more.

    Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

    Killer of men, he sought the giant Haidan.

    Breaker of homes, he fought for lost Andor.

    Firelight cast dancing shadows across the slaughterfield. Lamps swung and jostled in the hands of the Cynizia, while the moon rose as witness overhead. Into this vice was thrust not Medorosa, but another of the Vassish prisoners taken from Puerto Faro. Weak and stumbling, fated to die, he had Medorosa¡¯s honor blade plunged into his chest. Crimson streaked him from chest to groin.

    And yet, he lifted up a sword like the crescent moon.

    The sand snake cowed away from him, for deep instinct told it to flee and seek a meal elsewhere. The thorns of spears trapped it with the man. With flight cut off, it had no recourse but to fight with fang and claw. It hissed and spat, flinging that dreadful blight across the rock. Muscles coiled and buched, tightening as the Vassish drew close.

    The Cynizia jeered, but they too jumped and shouted when the sand snake lunged. A flash of scale and steel, the two met. Blood plumed and the snake fell. There was but a scratch through the lips. The Vassish had rolled away and sprang back to his feet. The sword danced from hand to hand, a line of red blood at the edge.

    He was a hero.

    With steel in hand

    He was a hero.

    With love in heart

    He was a hero for all

    Again, the two fighters clashed. The Vassish threw himself at the sand snake. He hacked at its body, rending through hide and fat. In turn, gashes of red bloomed across his body. The Cyniza shouted and scampered, some even ventured to take stabs at the writhing tail. The fate of the sand snake was set before the Vassish entered, but there was one possibility left to it; to bring a prey with it into the next life.

    The beast leaped high, and the Vassish gripped his sword with both hands. He drove it up and clean, ripping through the sand snake¡¯s chest. It fell dead, heart beating no more, lungs breathing no more. It died with its fangs ripped through the man¡¯s face, pumping death into him.

    The cynizia roared, and several skewered it anew with their spears. Only when it was surely dead did Medorosa pushed through the ring. They laughed and clapped him on the shoulders as he shoved the two corpses apart. The only thing he cared to do was bend down and rip his honor blade free from the chest of the Vassish soldier.

    He was a hero.

    With steel in hand

    ¡°What a disgusting stigmata,¡± Nim said.

    Aisha trailed off in her song. She stared at her brother as he laughed and drank with the others. ¡°Not very good for a merchant, is it?¡±

    ¡°Not very good at all.¡±

    ¡°He must think it¡¯s his fate to do something like this, with a stigmata like that,¡± she said.

    Medorosa turned his gaze north, to the fires of the slave pit, where the Vassish were bringing death and liberation in either hand. When he turned back to the Cynizia, he swept a hand through the air and quieted them all. ¡°Men! Bed down and rest your bodies, shut your eyes. We need only a few sentries, and soon enough we will be fighting once more. Rest! Prepare yourselves,¡± he ordered.

    The Cynizia cheered and threw arms around one another¡¯s shoulders. Their spears lifted up and the dispersed in groups of two or three. A few volunteer chefs scurried in to grab the sand snake¡¯s corpse, for they knew the ways of cooking and preparing it. They had a smoldering cook fire prepared, coals to cast it across, and by the time the men woke, there would be red meat to break their fasts with.

    Medorosa didn¡¯t bed himself down as he ordered his men to do. His eyes set upon his sister, and the leader of the Cynizia marched up the dune to her. ¡°Did you get a good view, sister?¡±

    She didn¡¯t lift her head. ¡°I saw everything,¡± she answered.

    Medorosa grinned. ¡°I¡¯m getting better at it, aren¡¯t I?¡±

    ¡°I wouldn¡¯t say good enough to brag about it yet. Enough for a show.¡±

    ¡°Good enough to give the Vassish a surprise,¡± he said. His hands went to his hips, and his smile became a scowl. ¡°I¡¯m glad I never told them about my stigmata.¡±

    Nim ventured to ask, ¡°What is your stigmata? Some form of hypnosis?¡±

    Medorosa barked a laugh. ¡°Wouldn¡¯t you like to know? I¡¯ve only told my brothers, and I don¡¯t intend to tell anyone else.¡±

    Aisha gave a coy smile. ¡°You told me. I could answer his question.¡±

    ¡°You could.¡± Medorosa pointed a finger at her. ¡°But, you¡¯d regret it.¡±

    She smiled without saying a word. The girl was dancing a line between allegiances. I had extracted from her a promise to tell Lucius the specifics of Medorosa¡¯s stigmata, should she reach him; and she had departed from me without telling me of his ability. My fool of a pupil hadn¡¯t thought to question her while he still could, though he excused himself later that bad information would have been worse than no information. There was some merit to that, for at the time, he had no reason to believe she would truly betray her own brother.

    ¡°I should get some rest myself.¡±

    ¡°Yes,¡± Medorosa said. ¡°You¡¯ll want to be well rested so you can see our victory tomorrow. I can¡¯t wait to hear the songs you¡¯ll compose.¡±

    She smiled and got to her feet, dusting her dress off. ¡°You know I hate composing.¡±

    ¡°Is that why father had to keep buying you paper so you could scribble your notes?¡±

    She strode past him. ¡°Medo, you wouldn¡¯t know a ballad from a sonnet if your life depended on it. If I wrote a song for you, you¡¯d just keep asking me to make you taller and stronger.¡±

    ¡°Would too!¡±

    ¡°Would not!¡±

    She left him there to make small talk with Nim, and retired to the quaint tent that had been pitched for her. Medorosa was right; she wanted to be rested for the fight. The only thing that stopped her was a prickle upon her neck. A pair of golden eyes watched her from the darkness. The words of her oath weighed more heavily upon her for a moment, under the gaze of Golden.

    She threw the flap of her tent shut.

    <hr>

    <ol>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">I would like to note that there are two types of fate in this world; things that will come to pass because the actions are already in motion, and things yet to be. The weather is the former, dice the latter. Obviously, one can be foretold and the other cannot.</li>

    </ol>

 1-14 - Betrayal

    ¡°Get me¡­ on my¡­ damn feet!¡±

    The sand fields of Giordana could be quite akin to the sea; they carried echoes easily. Laying there on but a blanket under the doctor¡¯s care, Lucius could hear the clang of metal and the shouts of fighting. The horn blasts to signal the voluntaries may as well have been beside him. Tyrion had taken the men north without him.

    When Sammy knelt beside him, Lucius mustered all his strength and grabbed the boy by the pants. ¡°Easy,¡± the doctor said, and cast a glance at the other injured man. Of course, they hadn¡¯t been left alone. The auxiliaries and the injured had been left as a so-called rear guard while the voluntaries captured the mine. ¡°This isn¡¯t exactly a private check-up.¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t care¡­ need fight.¡±

    Sammy sighed and folded his arms. ¡°You¡¯ll be in no shape to move for at least a day. Just leave the fighting to Tyrion. It¡¯s a commander¡¯s duty to let his subordinates get their share of the glory isn¡¯t it?¡± A true statement, but that form of generosity can only be indulged when the commander isn¡¯t in fear of usurpation.

    ¡°Counter¡­ poison.¡±

    Only an apothecary would have understood. Sammy stared down at him, and looked again at the sigil of his stigmata. ¡°Commander, I must advise you that forcing your body to overwhelm the venom will be extremely painful. You¡¯ll be vomiting blood for weeks!¡±

    Lucius tugged himself closer. He struggled to lift his head, fighting the locked muscles in his neck to get closer to the doctor. ¡°Do it.¡±

    Sammy sighed. ¡°I guess I can¡¯t just ignore the orders of my superior, now can I?¡± He fetched his bag and from it, produced a filtering contraption, along with a black, granular substance. He called for boiled water, and poured it through the substance three times, till the water ran black(1). ¡°Prepare yourself,¡± he said, using a metal instrument to pry Lucius¡¯ teeth apart.

    My pupil later described the taste as, ¡°Not pleasant.¡± In a letter he wrote to an internment camp some years later, he expounded,

    The logistics of war are taxing on all. The men go hungry as often as the prisoners. Do not let yourself be swayed by their pleas for food. Those barbarians chew Amphos Root. Their sense of taste must be as crippled as their morality. I doubt they¡¯d be able to taste it even if you smeared your own feces on their food.

    Lucius von Solhart, 742 CC

    The dueling poisons in his body got Lucius to his feet, even if every movement felt like he was shredding his body. Pain did not stop him. The auxiliaries looked at him as though a corpse had jumped to its feet and picked up his sword. ¡°Come on! We can¡¯t let them have all the glory, can we?¡±

    More than his words, the Vassish could see the glow on the southern horizon, the one that didn¡¯t align with Red Spire. Only a day later, the memory of Medorosa Canta hadn¡¯t faded. There was even a one-armed man, missing an eye, that threw his pack upon his back and followed his commander to get more distance between him and the Cynizia.

    Tyrion had departed from the temporary camp nearly half an hour prior, and no retreat had been sounded. While resistance was expected by the guards of the mine, leaving their supplies trailed out behind them with the so-called rear guard was akin to sticking one¡¯s arm into a lion¡¯s cage just because it''s asleep. Plenty of the Vassish soldiers were happy to make themselves useful moving carts and wrangling donkeys, with excuse to stay far away from the clash of steel.

    The mine itself had been cut through the side of a cliff, the kind of quarry that would have been a lake if not in a desert. The exposed veins had long ago been ripped free of the rock, giving the looming underside a scarred and tortured look. The tunnels burrowed in from the shadows at the very bottom of the cliff, surrounded by tents and stone mills. Nearly the entire perimeter of the encampment had waste rock piled up about as an embankment, with sand packed against the windward side.

    Tyrion had divided his force in three, sending the bulk to the main gates, and dispatching shield formations to the left and right. While they still lacked in archers, the Vassish were perfectly well equipped to fling spear and javelin over the slopes. The left hand side had the easiest scramble over sand and rock, and they poured in among the tents to slaughter the panicking defenders.

    This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

    Without a battering ram, it was unclear whether they¡¯d actually be able to break down the wooden gate¨C a reinforced palisade like one might find in a woodland fort¨C with but a few wood cutting axes. That never had to be put to the test, as the climbers came from within and pulled the gate open.

    Lucius arrived as the voluntaries were penning in the guards against the cliff wall. The two sides shouted at one another, victors in Vassish and prisoners in Giordanan. The command to drop weapons barely crossed the divide. From behind the ranks of men, Lucius barked out, ¡°On your knees and hands on your head. Cooperate and we won¡¯t kill you.¡±

    Lieutenant Tyrion came marching over to him, his armor sporting fresh scratches but no blood. ¡°On your feet already?¡±

    ¡°No time to be laying around. Gather their weapons, we¡¯ll need them,¡± Lucius ordered.

    Tyrion relayed it to his men, and Lucius barked out other orders. The supplies had to be brought in, the walls secured and manned, and scouts were needed for the Cynizia. He was pulled between speaking to the assembled rabble of slaves, and seeing to the sleep rotation of the soldiers, when Tyrion returned to him. ¡°Sir. If I understood your local tongue, you said we won¡¯t be killing the prisoners?¡±

    That stopped Lucius in all his work. The prisoners were grumbling, their wrists bound together with rope taken from the mine supplies. They kept whispering rumors between one another, mumbled in harsh dialects that he could hardly make out. Their confusion was evident. By the laws of Giordana, they weren¡¯t even criminals. From the moment they surrendered, they conducted themselves with the confused compliance of civilized men. Of course, their crime was against humanity, not the local laws.

    ¡°I said we won¡¯t,¡± Lucius answered, and returned to the guards. He raised his voice and told them, ¡°We can¡¯t release you all at once. Dire circumstance has forced us here. I will have you taken out in groups.¡± After the bloodshed, thirty of the guards remained alive and at his mercy. ¡°Every fifth man, step forward,¡± he ordered, splaying his fingers out.

    Waving one of the voluntaries over as six of the guards shuffled forward, he told the man, ¡°Bring them to the far side of the cliff here and see that they head west; away from us. Do not go after them.¡±

    The Vassish soldier nodded, his face pale and grave in the moonlight. He glanced to his lieutenant, and got a confirming nod. Soon, he had a companion for his task, and the two soldiers headed out with six eager Giordanans. Lucius watched them go, and watched as a black shadow leapt up from the peak of the cliff and took to the skies; how the thing circled round and followed as the defenseless men ran into the desert darkness alone. He had not broken his word; the Vassish did not kill those men. All the same, they never saw civilization again.

    ¡°Commander! Commander Tyrion! I must report!¡±

    The panic in the soldier¡¯s voice drew Lucius from his solemn vigil, though he knew not what sat wrong with him about it. The soldier came in bloody and panting. Sweat poured off the man¡¯s brow and he seemed about to topple over where he stood. Lucius didn¡¯t recognize him, but he assumed it was one of the scouts. ¡°What is it?¡±

    The soldier looked at him queerly. He squinted his eyes as though unsure what he was seeing. ¡°I need to report to the commander¡­¡±

    ¡°I am the commander,¡± Lucius shouted back at him. ¡°What is it? Are we under attack? Were you struck in the head? Are the Cynizia here?¡±

    ¡°Aye.¡± The soldier licked his lips. ¡°The Cynizia are here, in this very camp.¡±

    Lucius turned his head, peering at the shadows between tents. He looked to where the slaves were assembled and to where the guards knelt. His assumption was that the workers of the mine were already compromised, were already sympathetic to Medorosa¡¯s cause. He didn¡¯t look at the man before him, at the soldier who stepped towards him with a flash of steel.

    He felt a pinch in his chest; a shove to his side. Muscles spasmed and tore in growing pain. He knew the sensation all too well; the heat that squirted down his side and soiled his armor. A shiv of pointed brass had been slammed through his armor at the armpit and into his heart. He felt his heart thump and rip across the stake.

    He only had a moment to act. The betrayer sneered back at him, expecting panic and terror. Lucius did not give the satisfaction. Instead, he grabbed hold of the weapon and ripped it free. His blood sprayed out. He could only take one step, so he made it count. The traitor couldn''t even think to flee before Lucius grabbed hold of him by the shoulder and he slammed the shiv through the man¡¯s eye. The orbital socket cracked and the tip skewered the traitor¡¯s brain.

    Lieutenant Tyrion had seen it occur, and he bellowed out, ¡°Betrayer!¡± The words lit a fire in the voluntaries. A hundred armed men swarmed to the center of the mine; every last one that could be spared from the defense of the walls. They saw Lucius, bloody and dying, over the corpse of one of the auxiliaries.

    The commander coughed, and spat blood from his lungs out. He turned to Lieutenant Tyrion. Had his blood not still been burning with Amphos Root, he would have been on the ground beside the traitor. He coughed again, drooling blood down his lips, and as carefully as he could, said, ¡°Medorosa will be coming. That must have been his stigmata. Deploy¡­ the men before¡­ I drop.¡±

    Tyrion nodded. ¡°I want fires on the wall! Move in squads. Go! Go! Teams should be breaking these huts down for walls. We won¡¯t go down as easily as these Giordanans, will we?¡±

    Lucius¡¯ eyes rolled up in his head as vertigo claimed him. He collapsed to the sand as his stigmata tried to put him back together once more.

    <hr>

    1. While this compounding method has been used for drinks in recent years, it is merely an extraction method for aqueous chemicals. What the doctor used was powdered Amphos Root; a far more powerful substance than a mere stimulant. Certain tribes in Aillesterra have been known to use it as a means of spiritual liberation prior to combat; a berserker¡¯s brew.

 1-15 - Diamond In The Silver Mine

    ¡°Finally, a private moment.¡±

    Lucius didn¡¯t recognize the canvas overhead. He couldn¡¯t place the voice either. His mind was faded and groggy. The bloodloss was familiar to him though. He tried to right himself one elbow at a time, and was rewarded with a pint of beer to his lips.

    The man proferring it was Doctor Samson. He smiled when Lucius opened his mouth and drank the sludge-like brew without complaint. ¡°Half-fermented. It won¡¯t intoxicate you, but it will make you feel more human.¡±

    Lucius shook his head and spat the dregs from his mouth. They came out red with blood. ¡°I need meat. Gunna get anemic at this rate.¡±

    ¡°One of the auxiliaries is fetching you some.¡±

    ¡°Are we under attack?¡± Lucius sat himself up on the table he had been laid across. The pain through his arm and chest lingered, but as he stretched and flexed, his nerves eased.

    Sammy blinked. ¡°You¡¯re getting faster at coming back, for a man who only just got his stigmata last night.¡±

    ¡°Practice.¡±

    The doctor grinned. ¡°Relax, Commander. I¡¯m on your side. The bird put his geas on me. I¡¯m now more bound to my word than even Medorosa fancies himself.¡±

    Lucius didn¡¯t share the grin. ¡°How did you meet the bird?¡±

    Sammy huffed and put up his hands. ¡°How else? I met Amurabi. You think I would have escaped Puerto Faro without some kind of help? I had to choose between some skaldish guy knifing me, or walking hand and hand with you people to the end of the world.¡± He tried to read Lucius¡¯ face, but saw little. ¡°At least with one offer, I had something to gain in the meantime. No? Besides, are you really going to look a gift horse in the mouth like this? Did you think you could do this all on your own?¡±

    Lucius was prevented from answering by the arrival of two voluntaries. ¡°Doctor!¡± one of them shouted. He was holding the other up completely. A black feathered arrow shaft stuck from the man¡¯s collarbone, plunged in from above.

    ¡°So we are under attack. What are their numbers?¡± Lucius demanded as the wounded man was laid out on the ground.

    The doctor went to work. The soldier stood up and faced Lucius at attention. ¡°Sir, no mass of soldiers has been sighted. They are loosing arrows at us from the darkness. Not many, just one here and there. Svenson here wasn¡¯t paying attention and they got him.¡±

    Sammy groaned and wiped his hands off on the wounded man¡¯s cloak. ¡°It¡¯s too late for this one. He was dead before you got him to me.¡±

    The other soldier¡¯s face tightened and his eyes watered. ¡°Giordanan bastards. We should go out there and slaughter them!¡±

    Lucius shook his head. ¡°That¡¯s what they want. Use the prisoners instead. Make them march the walls for us. I want the soldiers watching them to always have helm and shield at the ready. Make it clear to the prisoners that if they don¡¯t warn us, we¡¯ll gut them all.¡±

    It took him a breath too long to unclench his jaw, but the soldier nodded. ¡°Aye, Sir.¡±

    Lucius took his gaze away from the soldier just in the nick of time. He shot his hand forward, grabbed Sammy by the collar of his shirt, and threw him backwards.

    The corpse had a knife in its hand, and eyes set on him.

    ¡°Not very dead, are you?¡±

    ¡°How are you alive?¡± the corpse asked. It got into a low crouch. ¡°That¡¯s three times now you should have been dead, you cockroach.¡±

    ¡°Spear!¡± Lucius bellowed, thrusting his hand out to the other voluntary.

    The soldier was too baffled to act. ¡°Sir, what is going on? Svenson! What are you doing?¡±

    Lucius¡¯ face colored as he roared. ¡°It¡¯s a stigmata!¡±

    Steel lashed forward. Unarmed, Lucius could only jump back. He backpedalled around the unfamiliar room, half his attention on avoiding the knife and the other half on scanning the room. Having only just awoken in it, he had yet to even identify it. The doctor had taken him into the foreman¡¯s office, and the moment he recognized that was the moment he found a chair.

    With his foot he kicked it up and flung it at the stigmata cursed corpse. As it was little more than sticks and cloth, the chair bounced off the assailant; but, it obstructed the knife for a moment. Lucius stepped back in, grabbing the leg of the chair. He shoved the man back with it, getting a slice across his forearm as he did so. The man was flung back to the wall nonetheless. Then there was space. He swung the chair like a club and smashed it into the man¡¯s skull. Half his scalp ripped off with the crack of wood and skull.

    This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

    ¡°Commander!¡± Sammy shouted, and tossed him his sword.

    Lucius caught it in the air and drew it just as the attacker stood back up like a tortured puppet. Medorosa¡¯s stigmata was powerful, but not enough to overcome the destruction of the body. The corpse movements were those of a defenseless drunk.

    Lucius decapitated it, and broke the spell.

    He panted for breath. The fresh burn of cuts, the trickle of blood, piece by piece it filtered into his mind. He turned back to the other soldier. The voluntary had fallen to the ground without even drawing his sword. ¡°What is the meaning of this?¡± the soldier asked, but he faced the ground, not his commander.

    ¡°Soldier!¡± Lucius barked. ¡°I gave you orders. Get to it. I don¡¯t want one more of our men struck by these arrows.¡±

    That put some spine back into the man. With purpose, he rose back up and charged from the building.

    Lucius turned on the doctor, still pressed to the far corner of the room. ¡°You; we need to assume these arrows are poisoned. Everyone who is struck must be quarantined.¡±

    Sammy gulped and fixed his hair. ¡°Wha-what kind of stigmata could do something like that?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t know,¡± my pupil said, and collected his things once more. He left the building and sought his second in command.

    Neither man at this time had been told the nature of Medorosa¡¯s stigmata, but neither had their foe learned of Lucius¡¯. It was a fair gambit between the two of them. I might have forced the information from Aisha before letting her go, but the flavor of his heroism would have been tainted. The soldiers beneath him would have been able to sense that something was off; that he knew too much about Medorosa. The last thing we wanted was the notion that we were conspiring with the enemy. Perhaps some lives of the Vassish could have been saved with the knowledge; but, as they say, that was a sacrifice I was willing to make.

    Back into the night, beneath the stars and with sand and blood in the wind, Lucius marched. ¡°Tyrion! Lieutenant Tyrion!¡± he shouted, and through a series of salutes and points from the soldiers, found his way to the man. For lack of accommodations, the mine itself had been turned into shelter for some of the voluntaries, as well as the mine¡¯s previous workforce. The initial room of the mine was not such a poor place for this function, for the tunnels extended outwards like so many roots into the rock, branching off from a central tap.

    The temperature beneath the cliff was shockingly cool; an envious retreat. I myself have some speculation that they may have touched upon a crack straight through the world, to beyond the veil. It would explain how deep they reached without dire concern of air, and would explain why it has since been abandoned. Of course, going down wasn¡¯t really the point of the mineIt was the tunnel that headed due west that was marked as collapsed.

    ¡°Solhart!¡± the older man said upon sighting him. The light of half a dozen oil lamps colored the man as he strode through the lattice of support pillars. He cast out a hand at the slaves. They were a motley crew of foreigners, still retaining vestiges of their homeland where dirt and burn had not marred their flesh. At once, hope of reinforcements from them withered. Perhaps once they had been hale and hearty, but their time in the mine had stripped the flesh from their bones. All that remained was skin and sinew. ¡°Look what these rotten Giordanans do. They just abduct any foreigner they find and pressgang him.¡±

    Lucius shook his head and held up a hand. ¡°I¡¯ll deal with it, Lieutenant. I need you to do something else.¡±

    Tyrion frowned and peered at him by the wane light of burning oil. ¡°Where are those cuts from?¡±

    ¡°The arrows. There¡¯s some kind of stigmata curse. A man struck down by them got up and attacked me.¡±

    ¡°Nonsense!¡± Tyrion bellowed.

    Lucius glared back at him. ¡°The alternative is turncloaks within your ranks.¡± That shut the man up good. ¡°That archer is still out there, in the night. If the whole of the Cynizia were here, our scouts would have found them. It must be just a few. I need you to ride out and run them down. You can do that, can¡¯t you?¡±

    ¡°On horse?¡±

    Lucius nodded.

    Tyrion pulled himself up, puffed his chest and grabbed hold of his belt. ¡°Aye, I can do that. We¡¯ve three horses now. I¡¯ll bring my best men with me and I¡¯ll gut them.¡± They had been able to liberate only two steeds from the Medini¡¯s in Red Spire, and walking past a full stables of horses belonging to the monastery had nearly been enough to make some men cry. A full cavalry would have left the Cynizia far behind them; but, that had not been the deal struck with the Divine Beast.

    The older man went to march off, but Lucius grabbed him by the elbow. ¡°Bring shields. They may well try to curse you on your charge. Do not let them.¡±

    Tyrion solemnly nodded, and left.

    Lucius found himself alone before the assembly of slaves. Fifty in all, though he doubted if even two dozen could still fight. He tried to not let it get to him; an army had more jobs than fighting. ¡°Hear me! We are no friends of the Giordanans. We are from Vassermark; a land where no man is a slave(1). As you can see, we are pursued by enemies. Should you join us, we will bring you to freedom. If you do not wish to fight, then you may stay here and hand yourselves over to your owners.¡±

    The reaction he gained for that was mixed. Some were shocked still. Others threw up their hands and roared. Those in the front knelt the way they had seen knights before their lords. One man stepped forward. He had the olive skin and dark hair of an Aillesterran, though he had clearly been worked to the brink. In broken Vassish, he said, ¡°Me Lord. Stigmata have I. Very good. You need. Yes?¡± The man tugged down the ragged neck of his shirt, exposing his gaunt chest and the sigil written upon it.

    Lucius, despite my years of tutelage, was no wizard. I had, however, forced through his skull the most rudimentary knowledge of identifying stigmata. He knew the difference between true complexity and faux complexity, whether it affected the person or the environment, and the most common templates. The Aillesterran slave had branded into his chest a mark of [Animal Friendship]; one that could turn even a donkey servile.

    Lucius had found a diamond in a silver mine.

    <hr>

    <ol>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">A lack of slavery was something of a legal fiction in Vassermark. An ostensible compliance to their goddess while still achieving much the same onerous control on those they called serfs.</li>

    </ol>

 1-16 - Desert Cavalry

    ¡°What do you mean you won¡¯t let me?¡±

    The man before Aisha remained stone faced. He had been paid off with the fatty cheek meat of the sand snake to bolster his subservience to Medorosa, and now he stood like a wall before her. ¡°The battlefield is no place for a woman.¡±

    She ground her teeth. The Cynizia around her were sprawled across cloaks and blankets, stomachs fat from beer and meat. They snored and let their mouths gape open like an invite to all the insects of the desert. She had been quarantined to one corner of the small camp, where the more trustworthy men still stayed up with pepper-leaf candles and whetstones to occupy their hands. They were old friends of her brother, and she knew most of them by name.

    Her guard was one of the few men with armor of his own, as it were. Many had plundered armor from the slain auxiliaries in Puerto Faro, but the combat damage and proper fitting gave most of the Cynizia a dishevelled look, even before the sun got to them. Travelling at night would have served them better, but the chase gave few options. To stave off the heat, her guard wore but a mesh of linked metal disks, like crude mail. The brass shone like mirrors, pushing the heat back off of him, while a small turban served as a helm; and to hide his balding.

    That did not mean she liked any of her brother¡¯s comrades. For years, she had felt their lingering gazes and watched as they supplicated to her brother and father to win their favor. To her eyes, they were as transparent with their lustful greed as the waters of the Tavina. ¡°Am I a prisoner here, or have I come of my own free will? This war is my brother¡¯s, you realize.¡±

    The man frowned. ¡°All who have sworn themselves to his cause may call the war their own. We will bring justice to the Vassish.¡±

    She leaned in and bared her teeth. ¡°And what part of that includes telling me where I can and can¡¯t go? I¡¯m not married to you, Almir.¡±

    The man¡¯s frown deepened and he sighed. ¡°No, and you¡¯ve rejected me three times over the years. I¡¯m well aware of that Aisha-ima. But, if your brother were here now, he would be telling you to stay put and get some sleep; and he does have the right to order you to do that. Does he not?¡±

    She wanted nothing more than to deny the truth of it, but that would have forced her hand too quickly. Instead, she pulled out the siege weapons. ¡°Almir, you can either get out of my way right now, or I will tell everyone how you were crying and clutching my dress the day before your eighteenth.¡±

    Almir¡¯s eyes opened, his sclera exposing his fear.

    She grinned. ¡°What were those things you were promising me? That you¡¯d climb the tallest peaks of the Ash Mountains to fetch for me the-¡±

    ¡°Aisha-ima!¡± he cut in, cheeks burning. ¡°That was years ago. Do not insinuate I still do such foolish things.¡±

    ¡°I was just going to let everyone know what you did in the past. Wasn¡¯t going to say anything at all about what you do nowadays.¡± She held up both of her palms, tilting from one side to the other like the scales of justice.

    Almir broke. ¡°We will go together then. I cannot let you go unattended.¡±

    She sighed. ¡°Fine.¡±

    The Vassish still had scouts hiding in the darkness. Their blue cloaks had been stained by the sand and let them move as shadows between the dunes. Almir came as vigil, with a hunting bow clasped in his hands. The thing was small; designed for felling migratory birds. It wouldn¡¯t pierce Vassish armor, but the sharpened tips could still rip through skin and flesh.

    With a protector at her side, some of the others watched them go but did not interfere. Aisha set her sights on the dwindling glow of the silver mine and set off down the tracks her brother had left behind. Rather than footsteps for the wind to consume, they had brought horse and cart, like the crudest sand chariot, and left deep ruts in their wake.

    Medorosa had good reason for this odd behavior. While using his stigmata, the leader of the Cynizia may as well have been dead to the world. He had about him his best warriors, but should they be stuck in place to protect his body, they would have stood no chance. Thus, his body was loaded to the cart like a hearse.

    Almir¡¯s hand gripped Aisha¡¯s arm and tore her to the ground. Surprise did not even let her shout before she hit the sand and felt the man¡¯s arm across her shoulders. She scrambled in the cold sand, thrashing as it got in her hair and within her dress. Almir hushed her and shoved her aside so that he could crawl forward. He left her behind and crept to the crest of the slope and peered over. Knocking an arrow, he locked his gaze on some distant shadow.

    ¡°They¡¯re gone.¡±

    Aisha hammered her fist into the back of his thigh. ¡°You could have used your words!¡±

    The man whined and clutched his cramping muscle. ¡°There was no time! They might have spotted you or heard me. Do you want to bring the Vassish down on us while our friends are so far behind?¡±

    Something crashed to the sand behind her with an explosion of wind. Her hair broke free of all restraint, flying in front of her face as her silk hairband fluttered away.

    Almir shouted, Vassish scouts forgotten, and twisted around to aim his arrow at the arrival.

    ¡°Pathetic,¡± Golden, the Divine Beast, said. The force of will imbued into that word struck Almir like chains. The bird preened as the bow was forced down, and then his blood-soaked maw turned to Aisha. ¡°And here I thought I had found two lost souls. Instead, I find an ambitious bard on the eve of battle, going ahead of her forces.¡±

    ¡°Bard?¡± Aisha asked, glaring back at the bird. ¡°Who says bard anymore? At least call me a poet.¡±

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    For a moment, Golden was shocked silent. With the blood of half a dozen mine guards still stuck to beak and feather, he drew himself up to his utmost height and said, ¡°Impudent girl. You should be blessed that you¡¯re even allowed to ply your trade. Poetry is the craft of men. Do not think so highly of yourself because you can sing the rhymes of your betters.¡±

    In defense of Golden; he was in fact several centuries old and by his nature, not a frequenter of festivals and taverns. His exposure to music and recitation was limited to what the temples put on for him, which were in turn shackled by tradition. Aisha, of course, had composed many a piece herself, and had been taught by women and men both. It had become fashionable in Giordana of the last hundred years that a woman¡¯s beauty could be enhanced by any beauty she could produce.

    Aisha didn¡¯t rise to the indignant provocation. ¡°You¡¯re the one that has been circling the skies, yes?¡±

    ¡°The divine bird!¡± Almir gasped out, and pressed his hands together. The faithful man shut his eyes and bent over till his forehead touched the sand. ¡°What a blessing.¡±

    ¡°Yes, I have been watching this performance between merchant and gambler; the pursuit of a debtor by his creditor, each paying with blood to buy honor.¡±

    ¡°Is that all the great emissary of the Shepherd has to say about that? It¡¯s your teachings my brother thinks he¡¯s following.¡±

    Golden settled himself back a degree. ¡°The Shepherd is not a war goddess. We do not teach the ways of violence. If Medorosa were following her teachings, then he would have travelled directly to King Arandall and brought his charges in writing. Something far older has gripped that boy; the demon known as hatred.¡±

    Almir lifted his head, the wrap of his headdress slipping as he gaped at the bird. ¡°This is a sworn vendetta! He bloodied himself with his honor blade. I watched it myself.¡±

    Golden tilted his head at the man. ¡°A custom of your people; not of my goddess¡¯ teachings. Do not thrust this upon me. By all means however, cut each other down. I will be here to see your souls return to the Shepherd¡¯s embrace.¡± Golden thought very highly of himself, though I suspect at the time, Shepherd had forgotten he even existed.

    Aisha felt a trembling like drums through the sand. It came from the direction of the silver mine, so close that she could hear the bark of orders between the Vassish. ¡°Horses.¡±

    ¡°A skirmish it seems. I wonder; who will live and who will die?¡± Golden mused, his gaze across the dunes to where Lieutenant Tyrion and his men charged.

    ¡°Won¡¯t you do something? If you do not approve of the fighting, then why don¡¯t you do something to stop it?¡± Aisha begged, for she had already perceived that the charge was against her brother; an attempt to end his life.

    Golden turned his gaze back to her. His motivation was a selfish one; the blood and meat of the slain given up to him. He had already been bought and would do no such thing. ¡°Why do you ask me that question? Shouldn¡¯t you ask yourself?¡± With that, he pumped his wings, against gusting sand and wind across the two of them. He took to the skies, vanishing among the stars.

    ¡°Come on. My brother needs us,¡± Aisha said, returning to her feet. She had a great many bracelets upon her wrist, one of which was leather which she tugged off and used to bind her hair once more.

    Almir got to his feet like a man just woken from a dream. While she was still brushing sand from her hair, he asked, ¡°Are you going to try to put a stop to this? Do you mean to break your brother¡¯s vendetta?¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t be stupid. You and I both know that won¡¯t happen. They¡¯re about to be attacked though. What if he gets injured.¡±

    She set off, and Almir followed behind. Upon the open desert surrounding the silver mine, they were able to see the chase between Lieutenant Tyrion--though she did not know who he was at the time--and her brother. Three horsemen charging between the dunes, giving chase to Medorosa¡¯s poor chariot. The Vassish on the sides could hardly urge their beasts forward, but their leader rode upon a proper warhorse. He had a shield in one hand, and a spear in the other.

    When Medorosa¡¯s bodyguards loosed arrows at them, they fell either in the sand, or struck the leader¡¯s shield. The noise was like the tapping of pebbles against a window, at the distance from which Aisha watched, but every shaft carried a flicker of death with it.

    ¡°Why do they not have bows of their own?¡±

    Almir stepped in behind her, the two of them sheltering within the shadow of an exposed rock. ¡°The archers were in their own division of Raymi¡¯s army. These men had been given leave from the fighting; a time in the city to rest and regain their strength. They are but swordsmen; which is why we will be able to crush them.¡±

    Aisha chewed her lip as she saw the cart-chariot wheel and turn away from the light oasis of the silver mine. ¡°If they had archers of their own, my brother would already be dead.¡±

    ¡°But, they do not,¡± Almir said.

    Her brother had brought five men with him. Small, and lightly armored, they were riding double on a pair of horses, the fifth on the cart with him. They lured the Vassish further and further into the dark, until the four on horseback stopped and turned to face them. The men at the back of the saddle dropped to their feet and drew steel. They had the advantage only barely, and needed to buy time for the slow cart to escape back to the Cynizia camp.

    ¡°They¡¯re going to die,¡± Aisha whispered.

    Almir shook his head. ¡°They would not have stayed if they thought they would die. They outnumber the Vassish.¡±

    Aisha knew better. The Cynizia loosed another volley of arrows at the charging Vassish. Bolts struck shields, but some struck the chests of the horses. The beasts cried out and faltered. The Cynizia cheered defiance. The leader of the Vassish was thrown free when his warhorse lost footing and fell, but he landed on his feet in a charge. Their cheers ended when he met them with the point of his spear.

    Aisha closed her eyes and turned away as Tyrion assaulted the Cynizia. She could hear the clash of steel, the screams of dying pain, and the panicked storming of hooves. She heard him scream, ¡°Medorosa!¡± When she opened her eyes again, the four Cynizia were dead, and the two seated Vassish were charging after her brother.

    Almir muttered a prayer, and jumped up from his hiding spot. He took aim and loosed an arrow at the approaching soldiers. The shaft struck one of them in the chest, catching the man by surprise. The Vassish faltered and shouted, taking gauge again of their distance to safety.

    ¡°Please, go back,¡± Aisha pleaded under her breath, and they did. The Vassish turned back and rode to their leader once more.

    ¡°Here!¡± Almir bellowed, and the cart with her brother shifted course.

    ¡°Get on, get on!¡± the driver shouted as he slowed beside them. ¡°That fucking monster isn¡¯t human!¡±

    Aisha and Almir jumped into the back, beside her brother. The man had been tied in place, lest he slip free of the cart. When she put her hand to his chest, his eyes opened. His lips snarled. ¡°Cockroach.¡± Then he saw his sister and her guard with him. ¡°What happened?¡±

    ¡°You¡¯ve underestimated them, brother. They have stigmata too. Don¡¯t you think you should reconsider this thing?¡±

    ¡°Just because they have stigmata doesn¡¯t mean they are undefeatable! I just have to figure out that commander¡¯s ability and I can beat it,¡± Medorosa shouted back.

    Aisha pounded him in the chest with her fist. Tears swelled in her eyes. ¡°You just got four of your friends killed! They died protecting you because you made them think they were a match for the Vassish!¡±

    Medorosa¡¯s response to her choked in his throat. The knot inside him strangled his words as Aisha began to sob. He pulled her into an embrace, but his gaze never strayed from the distant glow of the silver mine. ¡°Don¡¯t worry, Sis. I won¡¯t lose.¡±

 1-17 - Send In The Cavalry

    Lucius awoke to Tyrion¡¯s wailing. The lieutenant had made it back before the rays of dawn, dragging his wounded horse behind him. ¡°Laturi!¡± he screamed. ¡°My poor, poor Laturi, look what they¡¯ve done to you. Across half the world and you catch an arrow here!¡±

    My pupil¡¯s eyelids barely opened. They had been fastened shut by sand, sweat, and fatigue. Prying them open was like ripping paper, but laying down, wrapped in his cloak, would do nothing to shut the crying man up. On the doctor¡¯s orders, he had spent much of the night drinking and eating to replenish his blood, which had left his head pounding.

    No one else was going to soothe the man, or at least throw him headfirst in the donkey stie. Lucius got back to his aching feet and emerged from his commandeered tent. ¡°Are the Cynizia attacking us?¡±

    ¡°No!¡± Tyrion roared. He was redfaced not from exertion but from crying, and showed no shame for it. ¡°I cut them down myself. We left four corpses out there, but didn¡¯t get the Canta boy¡­ stole one of their horses though.¡±

    The stolen horse had been tied off to his underling¡¯s saddle. Tyrion¡¯s warhorse, Laturi, had barely walked back to the silver mine. With the sense of security from so many other Vassish, the beast fell to its knees and breathed hard. The arrow still protruded from its chest, blood oozing from it. He sighed and called for Sammy, as well as the Aillesterran slave with the stigmata.

    Not that any commander would say so to his men, a troupe¡¯s final warhorse, that is a strong and trained warhorse, was worth a great deal more than any individual soldier. Just as a wise commander would expend the lives of his men to protect their food supplies, so too would they do what they can to protect such an animal. Admitting to that reasoning would be another thing.

    ¡°We¡¯ll do what we can to save him,¡± Lucius said, clasping his hand onto Tyrion¡¯s shoulder.

    The man nodded, his lips pulled into a deep frown. He was immersed in the grief, not overcome by it, and replied, ¡°I thank you, and it is my sincere apologies that I could not bring Medorosa¡¯s head. I don¡¯t think they will have the gall to harry us again.¡±

    ¡°But they may besiege us.¡±

    ¡°Aye, I expect that is what they will do next.¡±

    ¡°Let them. The rest will help us more than it helps them,¡± Lucius said, and turned to see the two men approach, guided by a pair of fatigued soldiers. The doctor seemed to wobble on his feet, and yawned as he approached. After the fright of the attack, he had been unable to sleep, and it showed in the color around his eyes. The slave, Skoshi as he called himself though I have been unable to corroborate his identity, had changed little. Sleep had been fleeting for the slaves and the excitement changed little. ¡°You have a new patient. Larger than usual.¡±

    It took Sammy a moment to understand; until Skoshi said, ¡°I understand, my liberator.¡±

    The pieces fell into place for Sammy, and he saw the tear streaked face of the army¡¯s second in command. ¡°Ah, certainly. I can fix your horse-¡±

    ¡°Lutari,¡± Tyrion interjected.

    ¡°I can fix Lutari up. You won¡¯t be able to ride him any time soon however. I¡­ would advise you don¡¯t watch what I¡¯m going to do however. I¡¯m sure your bond is strong, but you won¡¯t want to be associated with this memory,¡± Sammy explained.

    For a moment, Tyrion glared at him, brewing up curses and threats within his mind. He spoke none of them however, and retired to rest. Lucius caught wind of his grumbling, ¡°Just give me one more chance at your throat, Canta.¡±

    Sammy¡¯s shoulders sank. ¡°A horse? Really?¡±

    ¡°Easy child. Animals better than humans at sick things,¡± Skoshi said as he walked past him.

    ¡°Child? I¡¯m an adult. Thank you very much.¡±

    Sammy¡¯s indignation did nothing to stop the Aillesterran from approaching the horse. Lucius had seen him work his magic earlier, but he had merely whipped the donkeys into attention with some chides and touches to their ears. Every stigmata has its own means of activation, and most people never discover the full extent of their capabilities. With Lutari, the man needed to be more careful, to exert more exact control over the animal until he had a grip even on its reflexes.

    He sang.

    Lucius couldn¡¯t place any of the words, which is a feat consider the linguistic trainings I had given him, but he could follow the rhythm. It¡¯s possible that the words meant nothing at all, for the recipient was a beast, not a man. Regardless, the hypnotic effect eased through the horse¡¯s mind and through its body. He touched it by the neck, stroking the hair and drawing himself closer.

    Nearly in an embrace with the horse, he had it breathing so deep it appeared asleep. Then he waved the doctor over. ¡°Pull it. No horse movement. Be quick,¡± he said. The words came as quick as his breath to continue the song.

    The doctor gripped the shaft and pulled it. Blood gushed, but the horse didn¡¯t budge. An insect bite would have provoked a greater reaction. Sammy shook his senses free of the disbelief and pulled out his suturing equipment. His needles dug in and tugged the skin back closed to stop the bleeding. When he was done, Skoshi patted it on the neck and led it to a ramshackle hut of wood and canvas that served the mine as a stables. Once he had it tied in place, he put the animal to sleep.

    ¡°Did that look like hypnosis to you?¡±

    Sammy turned drearily back to him, hands still working the clasps of his bag. ¡°What else would it look like? Do you think he seduced the animal or something?¡±

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    Lucius scratched his chin and waved the foreign slave back over. ¡°I¡¯m trying to think through how Medorosa¡¯s stigmata works. If he did something to hypnotize the men he shot, it should be similar to that¡­ shouldn¡¯t it be?¡±

    ¡°Hypnosis doesn¡¯t usually kill the person in question. At least not from what I¡¯ve heard.¡± The doctor sighed and found a bench to sit down on. The central area of the mine was multi-purposed. Everything from ore loading to entertaining the owners to disciplining the slaves had to go down square between the walls and within sights of the buildings. The bench was one such multi-functional amenity, though it was worn near to a polish by the flying sand. ¡°I¡¯m not a bard though, don¡¯t quote me.¡±

    ¡°Can I quote you that it killed them? Death stigmata are even rarer than hypnosis.¡±

    Sammy put his chin in his hands and looked up at him. ¡°You should watch who you say that to, Lucius. Studying foreign stigmata isn¡¯t exactly a common practice. Also it was the arrow that killed him, not the stigmata.¡±

    Lucius frowned, feeling like he was dragging his thoughts through water to piece things together. The headache returned, like a soft cough from a forgotten guest. ¡°I need to sleep more.¡±

    ¡°Yes, my liberator?¡± Skoshi asked. He stood beside Lucius, back straight and hands pressed to his thighs.

    For a moment, he considered dismissing the freed slave. He forced himself through it and asked, ¡°Your stigmata, is it verbal?¡±

    ¡°It¡­ can be. Or face, body, soul.¡±

    Lucius frowned, and very much wished to speak Allisterran back to the man, but that was a secret he had to keep to his chest. ¡°Any communication?¡± he asked, and chose to at most translate that word.

    Skoshi¡¯s face lit up. ¡°Yes, my liberator.¡±

    ¡°Thank you. Get some rest,¡± Lucius ordered, and he took his own advice. Just as the sun began to rise, he bedded back down into a shadow and closed his eyes. Thoughts of hypnosis and battle churned within his mind, but fatigue battled it down and brought it to submission.

    When he awoke, Tyrion had already departed to range about the mine and look for the Cynizia. Orders had been distributed to the men in a manner only veteran soldiers can manage. While in a foreign camp in a foreign land, they still knew how to cook food and prep their walls.

    Lucius took this and more in while walking through the camp. Some of the men commented under their breaths that they had never seen him do that before, but most of them hadn¡¯t seen him in an active engagement either. The two conflicting ideas of who Lucius Von Solhart was slowly mingled in their minds like a stew coming to a boil; and the Cynizia were that fire.

    For the whole day, nothing truly happened within the camp. Reports came in from Tyrion and his scouts that the Cynizia camp had been identified, that they were of about equal number, and that the group of them approached the mine. Lucius¡¯ orders to remain resting did not change, and for that day, everyone saw the sense in recuperating and eating.

    Sat for too long though, and worry would return. So Lucius began to meddle.

    Anyone he saw with idle hands was given a job of one sort or another. Scouring pots, cleaning rags to be turned into bandages, digging fresh latrines, instructing the ex-slaves in combat basics, anything he could conjure up that would make them more effective. When a pair of voluntaries backtalked his orders, he sent them to the piles of silver ore and ordered they sort the nuggets from the rubble, and stationed half a dozen men to make sure they did it.

    Naturally, this made them indignant, but it was of a natural sort; the kind of resentment underlings have for their leader who is using them well. It was not the indignation born from scorn and perceived incompetence.

    It also made them alert.

    The sun had set when the Cynizia tried to make their move. The three auxiliaires that had escorted the last of the mine guards out noticed the creeping caravan and ran back to raise the alarm.

    Lucius nodded when he got the news. ¡°Well then; it¡¯s time to put our stubborn cavalry to work.¡±

    Skoshi was summoned, and the two dozen donkeys they had used to haul the carts were assembled. The best riders of the whole troupe were selected, in addition to Tyrion and Lucius. They watched him work his stigmata, but even the sight of neatly ordered animals waiting to be mounted could not convince them it would work. Lucius had to be the first to climb aboard, and he was known to be only a middling rider, a fact true of my pupil as well. The lack of saddles was an equal concern for the men as merely getting it to go the direction they wanted to, but after much trepidation and encouragement from the Aillesterran, the soldiers mounted the donkeys. The animals did not buck or shake their heads, or even glare back at them.

    ¡°Come on,¡± Lucius said. ¡°Let¡¯s go take a bite out of the Cynizia.¡±

    The gate to the mine was opened, and they rode out beneath the stars. The Cynizia were not all clustered in one force, but distributed among several groups able to encircle the mine with force and pen the Vassish in. Medorosa had been salivating for a decisive victory; for prisoners to parade, and wanted no chance of prolonging the chase through the desert.

    Lucius knew that the Canta boy would have determined the extent of their horse power--only two left--and would plan accordingly. When the Vassish charged by donkey, they came upon a group of merely twenty men on foot. More than a match for a scouting pair, but far slower than the unconventional cavalry. The Giordanan fighters came up like prairie dogs to the sound of clopping hooves.

    They screamed, begging for support, to retreat, for the rest of the force to rescue them. Some stayed and loosed arrows, which found shield and armor alone. Others put their heels to the sand and scrambled for their leader¡¯s protection.

    ¡°Spread out and kill them! I want their bows!¡± Lucius bellowed, hefting his sword into the air.

    Lieutenant Tyrion put his sword up too and released a war cry. ¡°Vassa!¡± The other riders matched his call and crashed their steeds into the fleeing Cynizia. They trampled men. They cut off limbs and heads. They plunged spears through backs. Lucius himself set his visor and pointed his donkey at the man first to flee. Spear tips lunged at him from the side, and he battered them away with sword or armor, passing the fighters by until he could hack his sword down into the coward¡¯s back. Blood arced through the air, coloring his steel red.

    Some of the Cynizia fought back, plunging spears into the animals and bringing the men down to the ground. Soon there was a great mess of blood and panicking animals as Skoshi¡¯s spell wore off, but as the charge became a brawl, the advantage went to the true warriors.

    The Vassish cut them down, and in doing so, reduced the Cynizia¡¯s forces by a tenth without losing one man of their own. ¡°The bows! The bows!¡± Lucius shouted, whipping his men into a scavenge. He himself rode closer to the Cynizia host, and he could hear more shouts. The sand drummed with approaching feet and horns tooted out code through the night.

    Lucius did not stay to meet them. Their two dozen were not enough to break the Cynizia. Once the weapons had been stolen, he turned and led the charge back through the gates of the mine.

    And so, beyond mere escape, mere survival, Lucius had achieved his first victory against the Cynizia. He had bloodied them, and shored up the greatest weakness of the Vassish; a lack of artillery. The plundered weapons were distributed to all guarding the walls, and the two armies came to a staring match between one another again. Medorosa encircled their camp, but did not dare assault it that night.

    Eventually, both sides bedded down in position, waiting for the other to act. But, when the sun rose, the Vassish were nowhere to be seen.

 1-18 - The Walled City of Puerto Vida

    The robber baron of Giordana was not a merchant empire funneling silver and slaves through the hidden passages of the desert. It was not a rotten temple more interested in blood and honor than gold and prayer. Not even the memory of the Yellow King Hassa. The true tyrant was the Ash Fall Mountains that divided the lands of Giordana from Vassermark; the peaks of fire that shunted clouds to the north and deprived the southern coast of life.

    The further west Lucius took his men, after ferreting them through a mine tunnel that led beyond the ring of Cynizia, the drier the land got. For what it denied in water however, it made up for in the titular ash.

    The Vida River snaked through the desert, bringing water from the central plains and down to the southern sea, like a split of blood through burned skin. Rather than inflammation, it brought verdant life to the ash-enriched soil of the desert. When the Vassish arrived at it, the men flung themselves head first into the silty water. Discipline disintegrated as the forced march finally came to an end. The soldiers had hardly been given any rest, save for an hour at high noon to fill their stomachs, but it had earned them distance from the Cynizia.

    They were not alone however.

    Farmers watched from irrigated fields, clutching shovels and scythes while sending runners to the hamlets and beyond. The Vida River acted like a great road through the desert, connecting villages to towns. The towns in turn were connected to the dipole cities at port and headwater. Having emerged between the two, the Vassish had time to collect themselves before they could be attacked.

    My pupil¡¯s worries were to the south, to the port city, Puerto Vida. If reinforcements would come for the Cynizia, it would come in unmarked colors. A handful of demagogues and silver-tongued rogues would have been sent by ship to pave the way for him, and they had lingered long enough at the silver mine. Word could fly faster than any bird, but there was little he could do about it.

    The owner of the farm they had intruded upon arrived around the time the Vassish were turning a fallow acre into a camp. The man spoke Vassish well enough, and kept his temper with the perimeter guards, so Lucius was able to pull him aside. The owner had brought a cart down the dirt road beside the river, and a pair of servants sat down light chairs for the two men. They both crossed their arms and frowned at one another.

    The man was old enough to have grey in his hair, and a gold ring pierced his lip. The cloak about his shoulders was so thin it surely did nothing but deflect the light and billow in the breeze. There were no dirt stains on it, which was enough for Lucius to surmise the man was akin to nobility; that he hired others to work his land.

    ¡°You are depriving me of what is mine,¡± the man said.

    ¡°Are you asking for compensation?¡±

    The man huffed and turned up his nose. ¡°My name is Abdul Ibn Ekici.¡±

    When the man provided no context, my pupil answered in turn, ¡°I am Lucius von Solhart, commander of this army.¡±

    Abdul snorted and scratched his chin. ¡°This is not a name familiar to me. But you are Vassish, yes?¡±

    Lucius nodded.

    ¡°A man by the name of Raymi passed through Puerto Vida a little more than one week ago. I sold him nearly my whole harvest. Entire carts full of grain which¡­ came from the very dirt you now loiter upon.¡±

    ¡°Then we aren¡¯t standing on anything valuable, are we?¡±

    ¡°Only in the desert is land free, Lucius von Solhart.¡±

    Lucius stared back at him, reading the man¡¯s expression as best he could. One of the servants went so far as to pour them cups of wine while the silence percolated. ¡°So, have you come for compensation then?¡± he asked, and sipped the dry wine. He was, of course, not afraid of being poisoned.

    Abdul sipped his wine as well. ¡°If I said yes? You look like a man running for his life. Unless you stole something good¡­¡±

    Lucius smirked. ¡°Who says I didn¡¯t?¡± Though he would never say that what he had truly stolen was the name. ¡°I don¡¯t want to keep my men on your land any longer than I need to, Ekici-imo. You must own river ships, if you bring your crop to Puerto Vida, yes?¡±

    The man nodded. ¡°I do, but they are even more valuable than my dirt.¡±

    ¡°And my men¡¯s lives are more valuable than silver,¡± Lucius said, and that piqued the man¡¯s interest. ¡°If I can buy those ships to take my men south, then I won¡¯t be on your dirt anymore either.¡±

    ¡°That won¡¯t be cheap, and I am not in the business of giving letters of credit to foreigners,¡± Abdul said. This, in my opinion, showed considerable guts to say. Lucius could have just killed them all and taken the ships, but the man had the guts to gamble on Lucius¡¯ self image.

    A gamble which paid off.

    Lucius tossed him a pebble of raw silver, filched from the extracted ore of the silver mine. The purity was suspect, and Lucius had of course taken the largest chunk of it his soldiers had found, but the idea of the payment wormed into Abdul mind all the same.

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    In his mind, the merchant weighed his two futures against one another and tried to divine the true volume of metal the Vassish had brought with them. The more he thought, the more images of swords danced in his mind. ¡°On the morrow then,¡± he said with a smile. And so the deal was struck.

    The army slept with one ear to the ground, but the Cynizia did not reach them. After they breakfasted, Abdul had them brought to a river landing where his twin barges had been brought. The weary men filed on, grateful to travel without effort, and gratefully spread awnings between them and the sun. Netting had to be spread across the ship nearly as soon as they shoved off, for the insects on the Vida River were more like locusts than not.

    Before evening was reached, the river gates of Puerto Vida loomed overhead, with iron portcullis drawn down. The blue granite walls towered before them, like the rise of a wave. At the frothing crest were the march of guards, the bob of helms and the sway of spears.

    Lucius had to push through crowds of his soldiers to get to the prow of the ship. With no regard for him, they mumbled things like, ¡°I thought we already conquered this place.¡± Or, ¡°Think we¡¯ll get to actually pillage it this time?¡± and even, ¡°Solhart made a mistake.¡±

    The last one could not be tolerated.

    He found Abdul disembarking at a shoddy wooden bridge that appeared to be more rot than wood. It looked to be the kind of place that even children would be embarrassed to fish from. Still, he had to leap from the ship to land between the lillies and weed. ¡°Ekici-imo, what is the meaning of this?¡±

    The merchant, the sale of his crops was but a fraction of his revenue, put up his hands. ¡°Do I look like a mindreader to you?(1) I have to go to the gates myself to ask. Come along.¡±

    The men approached not the main gate, but the pedestrian gate so narrow that no cart could possibly be drawn through it. They didn¡¯t need to knock, the door was opened before they reached it and three men exited; an official and two guards. He was young, between Lucius¡¯ age and Abdul¡¯s, but dressed in clothes nearly as rich as the merchant. ¡°I am Francisco, secretary to the steward of Puerto Vida. I greet you.¡± His voice lacked the depth of manhood; something that had been denied to the eunuch.

    Abdul snarled. ¡°You know who I am Francisco. Who gave you the spine to shut your doors to me? It was my father that sold you these walls!¡±

    The passive eyes moved to Lucius, who answered, ¡°Lucius von Solhart, here on authority of King Arandell, returning to Lord Raymi in the west.¡±

    ¡°Vassish¡­¡± the secretary mused on that. ¡°The forces left behind by Raymi were extracted a week ago. You must not have been told. Bishop Jean di Jumeaux has come down the river and taken residence here for the time being.¡±

    Lucius crossed his arms. ¡°And that invalidates your treaties with Vassermark? Is that what you¡¯re saying? Treaties signed by all leaders of your city and signed in blood?¡±

    Francisco frowned without deigning to show even a hint of supplication. ¡°Those oaths did not invalidate our ties to Jumeaux. It was your lord Raymi that agreed to withdraw his troops. So why have you brought fresh soldiers here?¡±

    In Giordana, the older the oath, the more it binds like iron. ¡°We are on our way to join Raymi in Rackvidd. How else would we return to Vassermark if not through your city?¡±

    The secretary grinned and turned up his hands. ¡°You may walk along the coast and continue your journey, but the gates of Puerto Vida are closed to you. No foreign army may be allowed within our walls in place of the lady bishop. We are at her service; not yours.¡± When Abdul bared his teeth, the secretary quickly added, ¡°Ekici-imo, you and your workers are of course allowed inside.¡±

    The merchant grabbed Francisco by the shirt and jerked him closer. ¡°I¡¯ve struck a contract with these men, to see them into the city, not just to its front door. You expect me to hand back my pay and grovel because you people want to play games with oaths?¡±

    ¡°Easy,¡± Lucius said, putting a hand to the merchant¡¯s shoulder. ¡°This can be rectified by speaking with the bishop herself. I¡¯ll just tell the men to set up camp outside. Right about here should be fine. Surely your oath does not prevent a diplomat from entering?¡±

    Francisco¡¯s attitude waned as he looked at Lucius¡¯ smile. ¡°No, sir. It does not. I cannot promise you¡¯ll be able to meet with her.¡±

    ¡°Well, I should hope that she does so quickly. It¡¯ll be hard for people to use your gates with my men sitting in front of them, won¡¯t it?¡±

    Abdul burst out laughing as the secretary nodded. Some minutes later, Tyrion had taken charge of turning the road into a fortified camp. The locals had cultivated shade trees to either side of the cobblestone road, using the roots to solidify the ground and the leaves to block the heat. The Vassish happily chopped them down for fencing and fires.

    Nearly with tears in his eyes, Francisco guided Lucius and Abdul in through the pedestrian gate, and to the walled city of Puerto Vida.

    It is a common compulsion among men of half-learning to think of foreign places as drab and deprived of color. This is because they know so little of the place that they struggle to give it life within their minds. Puerto Vida sat at a trading crossroads between Vassermark, Giordana, and the various central kingdoms. Additionally, between the sheer distance as well as their walls, pirates did not trouble them over the years. With no need for constant repair, the city indulged in paint of all the most wondrous and saturated colors. They turned their walls red and blue, green and yellow. They hired artisans to cover walls with murals and they carved every exposed beam with memories or superstitious charms for good fortune.

    It was as though they wanted to cover up that the raw noise of people living would devour any minstrel¡¯s tune, and the trapped sewage of the city throttled the smell of bakers and chefs.

    After marching through the desert on a diet little better than rice and water, the port city still struck my pupil like a longed for oasis. His mind went back to that night in Puerto Faro, to the thousand silver talons he should have had in his pocket. Francisco had given him instructions to find the bishop, but his stomach held the reins of his mind, and steered him to the main road of the city. Finding it wasn¡¯t difficult, for the road acted like the city¡¯s cardiac vein; drawing people to the marketplace to free them from their money.

    There, a purse was tossed at his face. He caught it, feeling the heft of coins within.

    ¡°Hey, lover boy,¡± Leomund Tolzi said as he strode through the crowd of people. Our troupe of conspirators had beaten him to the city.

    <hr>

    <ol>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">Most stigmata have no correlation at all to a person¡¯s appearance. While you can spot someone with [Giganti] well enough, something like mindreading could never be surmised by appearance.</li>

    </ol>

 1-19 - First Foray Into Politics

    We got Lucius out of his armor and into a tailored suit before he met with the bishop. Fashion had taken a laggard route in Giordana, and the best we could procure for him sat somewhere between a robe and a coat, with buttons down to his knees. We were simply grateful it had structured shoulders to help puff him up. I had given the tailor his measurements, but the indolent bastard refused to actually finish the fit until he had seen Lucius. As such, we tossed the boy in one of the public baths to scrub himself clean while that was finished. Thankfully, the bath was for men only and we didn¡¯t have to deal with removing any embarrassment before sending him in.

    The hardest choice we had was whether to shave him or not. The tradition in both Giordana and Vassermark was to clad one¡¯s chin, but there was military justification in keeping a bare face. The last thing a fighter wants is his chin hairs grabbed hold of; but, I have my doubts about the authenticity of the origins of that belief. Regardless, we opted to remove his patchy stubble. Better to seem younger yet intentional, rather than only half-grown.

    Nikolai Tolzi, Leomund¡¯s aforementioned younger brother, was given the task of protecting Lucius, and we dressed him in the manner of the locals. It helped that his moustache was thick enough to hide his mouth if he didn¡¯t wax it, and he had enough brawn to rival a giant. By tradition, his shirt covered only half his chest, baring his sword arm and shoulder completely. While many tastes of the Yellow King Hassa had been buried, keeping strong men as servants may never go out of fashion along that coast.

    Bishop Jean di Jumeaux had taken residence in the southernmost villa, the White Halls. The main residence overlooked the port, and had two long flanks of housing that reached northward, surrounding a strip of garden. The outer windows seemed to have been squeezed shut, the stone pinching in around them and then strapped with iron to keep out any notion of intrusion. In contrast, the inner windows were often left open and gaping to the windows, with curtains billowing out and the chatter of people spilling through the flowering garden.

    Lucius entered her meeting room behind a brown robed servant of some years, who introduced him as, ¡°Commander Lucius von Solhart, leader of a number of Vassish soldiers outside the city right now.¡±

    It took him a moment to pick her out from the glare off the sea beyond her. Every wave wanted to blast light back across the exposed balcony, like the light of the sun itself was drawn to her. The white dress she wore had a glow to it that overpowered the marble accents of the room, and her blonde hair had a flair like a fiery corona about her head before cascading her shoulders.

    Bishop Jean di Jumeaux had nearly as much magic inside her body as a Divine Beast.

    Once he realized this, the charm was broken, for him anyway. Nikolai was smitten with her at once, so much so that he didn¡¯t even shadow behind Lucius like a proper manservant.

    She snapped shut a book she had been reading and set it aside. ¡°Thank you, you can leave us.¡± Her servant shuffled his feet to signal his disagreement with her being alone with the two men, but relented under her glare. She rose from her seat and stepped over to greet Lucius with a short bow. She grinned a schemer¡¯s grin and steepled her fingers together. ¡°It¡¯s a pleasure to meet you, student of Amurabi.¡±

    Her words shocked Lucius as much as her gold rimmed glasses. ¡°And you,

    Bishop Jean di-

    ¡°Just Jean!¡±

    Lucius wetted his lips and clasped his hands behind his back. ¡°A pleasure, Jean. I¡¯m unfamiliar with this Amurabi you speak of.¡±

    She pouted and balled her hands up. ¡°I¡¯ve already met him, you know! When I was a young girl he came to visit Jumeaux to inspect the ancient fish hatcheries. Did you know he was the one who designed them?(1) I¡¯d hardly be able to see without the help he provided to the glass makers!(2) I know he¡¯s somewhere in this city. I can sense it. It¡¯s like he¡¯s pulled together all these lines of magic in the world and they¡¯re slowly convening(3)... Also the other Skaldish man who came to announce your visit told me who you were.¡±

    The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

    ¡°Leomund?¡±

    ¡°Yes, that was the name he gave,¡± Jean said, and gestured back to the table. ¡°Please, have a seat.¡±

    Lucius sighed and dropped his hands to his side. He sat down across from her and said, ¡°My apologies that he couldn¡¯t be here in person for you to meet him.¡± Then he caught sight of the book, Redo Of A Merchant King(4). He recognized the title, and it brought a shift in his perception of her. True, she was the de facto ruler of the city-state Jumaeux, wielded more political power than some Dukes, and had been blessed with not just a stigmata but actual magic, but at the same time was just a young woman. Her hair was disheveled and barely tied up in a ponytail. She had no makeup or face paint at all. And the glasses she wore were so thick that they swelled her eyes up till they seemed to be hazel gems.

    To put it simply, she was a shut-in with hardly any idea what she was capable of.

    Lucius changed tactics. ¡°Jean, I¡¯m not sure what brought you to Puerto Vida, but I need to move my men through it and get to Rackvidd. Supplies are needed, a ship preferably.¡±

    ¡°Ah, I¡¯m sorry about that. The church is very cautious, you know. It took me years to get them to permit this indulgence of mine. They kept talking about having to prepare someone else to manage the city in my absence and how it was dangerous on the southern continent and so on¡­ Say, you and your men wouldn¡¯t be interested in working as mercenaries for me, would you?¡±

    ¡°To the southern continent?¡±

    ¡°Yes! It¡¯s sort of like a missionary expedition, but we won¡¯t be staying but a few months.¡±

    Lucius sighed and shook his head. ¡°Unfortunately, that¡¯s not an option. We have to return to Vassermark. If you were going there for the Saphiran(5) faith, it might be another matter, but the sun god only gets a little worship from us men of the west.¡±

    Jean pouted and twiddled her fingers in a way that made Nikolai¡¯s heart throb. ¡°I suppose it can¡¯t be helped then. Unfortunately, we¡¯ll be holed up here in Puerto Vida until we can hire enough guards to sail down there. So, I really can¡¯t just approve of a bunch of temperamental foreigners gobbling up all the supplies.¡± She wasn¡¯t a city ruler for nothing.

    ¡°Is that the same thing you told to Lord Raymi?¡±

    ¡°The older man in charge of you Vassish? I believe the only thing he was particularly concerned about was how his creditors among the merchants were too preoccupied with my arrival to think about getting their coin back. The debt is still out there though. I wonder whether they¡¯ll try to get you to pay in his place, or if they¡¯ll have to go all the way to your king with their letters of promise.¡±

    ¡°They would be very disappointed with my response.¡±

    Jean laughed softly. ¡°From what I¡¯ve heard, I imagine they would be.¡±

    ¡°Then, it seems that I will need to find another way of getting what I need.¡±

    Jean smiled and put her hands on the table. ¡°I¡¯m sure you¡¯re aware that there is an element within the city that would rather see you dead than walking, free, yes? They¡¯re quite the rabble, whipping up everyone who knows how to fight and trying to put swords in their hands to sate a blood oath.¡±

    Lucius nodded and leaned on the table with one elbow. ¡°I¡¯m sure those are men who would be better served working for you, yes?¡±

    ¡°He is very much getting in my way, yes. If you can¡¯t work for me yourself, perhaps you could at least help clear the way for me to recruit properly?¡±

    ¡°I should be able to take care of that problem.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯d be much obliged, and happy to help you on your way, so long as you swiftly pull this out by the root.¡±

    ¡°Before Medorosa catches up then.¡±

    ¡°I suppose that gives you just this one night then, doesn¡¯t it?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll have to get right on it.¡±

    <hr>

    <ol>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">I did not design them, I instructed the designer in the proper calculations he would need.</li>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">The trade secrets I brought over would have reached the city within a few years regardless. With the rise of prosperity in the central plains, the Giordanan artisans had long since begun immigrating.</li>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">Even a wizard cannot do something like this. This claim was but the musings of an immature girl.</li>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">Of all the things she could have credited me with, she missed the finer nuances of paper production that I accelerated. For an intellectual tart like her, with enough books to stone a man to death, I would have thought she could have seen the sociological power that a properly controlled newspaper could bring about, once enough of the population was accustomed to utilizing their literacy. I have been constantly disappointed with the books they choose to print and read.</li>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">Name updated from Aquarian</li>

    </ol>

 1-20 - Human Bait And A Game of Trireme

    Lucius was allowed to bring in two more men within the walls of Puerto Vida. He left Lieutenant Tyrion in charge of the camp. The man was one of the most competent fighters Lucius could call upon, but was needed there. Instead, he entered with the best fighter from the auxiliaries, and the best from the voluntaries, Tyrion notwithstanding.

    For a port city as large as Puerto Vida, finding one malcontent ringleader might have been hard. Once again, however, there were things he could do that no sane person could, such as using himself as the bait to draw them out. All he had to do was act the way the previous Lucius Von Solhart had, with but a single difference.

    By the time the sun set on Puerto Vida, and the rogues emerged into the shadows of night, Lucius had wrung dry no less than three merchants of their coin. Four more had been handed bags of silver talons and told to send their food supplies out to the army. The value of Vassish word had been deteriorating in the city, but silver needed no promises.

    And so, he found himself once more at a knife-nicked table that stank of ale and pepper-leaf candles. Coins were strewn about the surface, with as much money wagered in side bets as he had wagered against his opponent. The man claimed to own textile factories within the city, though Lucius suspected that seamstress was a euphemism for his true business. Whichever it was, it had brought the man to rich retirement without ever forcing him from the taverns of lesser men. He had white hair and wrinkles across every feature, wrinkles that smoothed out as he rubbed and tugged on his temples.

    They were playing a game of Trireme(1), though it would be more accurate to say Lucius was playing him. His opponent had severely underestimated him due to the difference in age, but had soon been reduced to a mere two ships out of eight. His surviving forces had escaped to an open area of the board to wheel about; but, Lucius had learned from the best; me.

    A hand touched his shoulder, pulling his thoughts from the brooding opponent. The voluntary didn¡¯t say anything, but signaled with his hand six; six men had come to find them. Lucius hadn¡¯t been playing slowly; the more games he won the more silver he could bring back to the soldiers, but the presence pushed him harder. The moment his opponent feebly pushed a ship out past the protection of an island, he ruthlessly rammed back the other to force it into a corner. The clack of the wooden piece to the board made some of the more inebriated watchers jump, and a line of perspiration slid down his opponent¡¯s face.

    ¡°This ale,¡± he said loudly, ¡°It¡¯s going right through me. I¡¯m doing too much thinking.¡± He had hardly dranken three pints, but the act was effective.

    His opponent tried to squeeze a mistake out of him, only to find his ship rammed and scuttled by one of Lucius¡¯ pieces he hadn¡¯t moved since the start of the game.

    He leaned in with a grin. ¡°I think that¡¯s game. Do you concede?¡±

    The man¡¯s lip quivered as he read the board over again. He turned the options this way and that, playing out what he could do with one measly ship against four. The most he could do was sit up straight and shake my pupil¡¯s hand.

    Lucius snatched the winnings and announced overtures of finding a latrine. He threw in a laugh to sell the lie, and stepped out into the darkness with the voluntary behind him. Then, he made himself look as vulnerable as possible, and pulled down his trousers to relieve himself against a wall in the dark.

    This goaded the Cynizia assassin¡¯s into action. Three of them rose up from the rooftops with short bows. They stood with their feet wrapped in cotton rags, which not only muffled their steps, but protected the terracotta shingles from shattering beneath their weight.

    Lucius improvised himself a shield by throwing open a window shutter. The slats of wood exploded as an arrowhead pierced through it, stopping short of his head. The voluntary spun and interposed his shield between the other two.

    The rest of the attackers revealed themselves with a cry of ¡°Sangue vult!¡±, and came charging with swords. The brawl began there in the alley, squeezed between the back of a tavern and an unmarked warehouse. There was just enough room for them to swing their stout blades, hacking at one another, but the Cynizia were met by Lucius¡¯ own. With little more than moonlight to see the edge of their swords, he fought with them; but, he had forsaken the greatest advantage the Vassish had over the Cynizia, his armor. While it was normal for his guard to be clad in steel, they might not have shown up if he had been so dressed.

    The blood flew as their swords ripped his clothes and shredded his flesh. He didn¡¯t shout though, he didn¡¯t flinch in pain. Even when his clothes turned red and clung to his skin, he pushed back against the swordsmen till he drove the tip of his sword through one¡¯s mouth. Then it was single combat. The other soon lost an arm and fell.

    Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

    Arrows should have been striking him, but the archers were hardly at liberty. The auxiliary he had brought, smaller than the voluntary and thus given the task, had joined them on the roof and run one through with his spear. The unexpected chaos and Lucius¡¯s refusal to die broke their will. They turned and fled as Lucius slashed through the back of the last swordsman, the one engaged with the voluntary.

    ¡°Follow them!¡± Lucius barked, and they all scrambled up to the roofs to give chase. The clay tiles shattered beneath their pounding feet, crumbling and scattering across the ground. Lucius was in a race against blood loss, and every step twinged a different cut, but he knew he just had to make it there before dying.

    Unfortunately, the two men split up, which forced the three Vassish to split up as well. Lucius went by himself and sent his guards after the other. His chase led from shingle peaks, to flat warehouses and through rooftop gardens. It took nearly the whole length of the city for him to finally force the Cynizia onto the streets once more, but his goal wasn¡¯t to catch the man.

    The Cynizia man wasn¡¯t so dimwitted as to go into a dark alley however, not where Lucius might cut him down and be done with it. Instead, he ended up in one of the city¡¯s pleasure parks. The place was like a beer garden one might find in the north, but with soft sand to stand upon, and a larger emphasis upon a thrown ball game called Boko. At that hour of the night, no one was tossing the stones, but plenty were still lingering and they were the sort of men who responded to a cry for help from a local.

    It certainly helped that the apparent aggressor appeared to be one step from falling over dead.

    ¡°Which of you is Medorosa¡¯s lackey?¡± he asked, holding his blade up limply. He swung it around slowly, pointing at one man than the next as they rose and surrounded him. ¡°Because the rest of you who fight me are going to die here.¡±

    The locals laughed. Some drew swords, others cracked knuckles and picked up walking sticks to use as clubs. None of them stepped forward as the man he wanted, plenty stepped in to put a blade through his back. It was the Cynizia who ordered them forward. ¡°Sangue vult. Bring me his head. You all have heard what the Vassish did! Kill him!¡±

    Lucius sighed. He could feel the state of his body, the growing tension between death and life. His head pounded with a throbbing rush of blood that fought back against the void. ¡°You all could surrender. I¡¯m not trying to stay here, I¡¯m trying to leave, and you people insist on attacking me with your sense of justice. You could just-¡±

    A sword rammed through his back, slipping between his ribs and through his lung before bursting from his breast.

    ¡°Well then,¡± he said, his voice barely audible, for he couldn¡¯t even breathe properly. Then he reversed his sword grip and stabbed it behind himself, slicing through the attacker¡¯s throat. Blood showered him, and the butchery began.

    Some hours later, his subordinates woke him up by pouring a bucket of water onto him. The stone and sand turned red with the blood, pouring in rivers down the cobblestone roads. The moment his eyes opened, his hand closed around his sword once more. Both soldiers jumped back and shouted.

    ¡°Sorry, sorry. I¡¯m fine. I¡¯m back,¡± Lucius said, and wiped some of the bloody hair from his face. The fine suit coat we had procured for him was unrecognizable; nothing more than a few rags hanging from his wrists and waist. He tore those off and took a thin cloak from one of the corpses, of which there were many.

    No less than fifteen men laid dead across that sand garden, many cut apart in a press to flee through the alley out. They laid piled atop one another, faces twisted in pain and shock. Only the first to flee had gotten away.

    Lucius had been cut nearly as many times as those he had cut down, but the wounds were healed and, after the water, the blood was but the faintest streaks back to the phantom scars. The power of his new stigmata pressed itself into the minds of his subordinates, it awed them in ways deeper than words could manage.

    ¡°Did you get him?¡±

    ¡°Yes, Sir,¡± the auxiliary said. He straightened up to attention and stamped the butt of his spear on the ground. It too was flecked with blood, but the soldier had only minor scrapes. ¡°The guards have him in the public square, on their honor.¡±

    ¡°The guards?¡± Lucius asked. ¡°The ones who didn¡¯t come break up this mess?¡±

    His subordinates frowned. The voluntary said, ¡°Yes, Sir. I think they knew it was you.¡±

    ¡°The Bishop must have gotten to them¡­ right then, time to send a message.¡±

    <hr>

    <ol>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">The rules to Trireme were slightly more variable then, compared to today. Prior to the cultural expansion of Vassermark, every region had their own twist on the strategy game. The Giordanan variety was slower than Vassish style, or Blitz Trireme as it came to be known, most of the other rules were the same however. The start still consisted of the two players casting stones to the board to randomly mark islands in the sea. Sometimes as few as four, others as many as sixteen. Then, each player would array their eight ships along the backline, or in the next closest spot if one of their spaces is occupied by an island. At the time, a trapped ship, that is a ship unable to move from the backline due to surrounding islands, was considered instantly defeated and a severe disadvantage for the unlucky player. To eliminate a ship requires ramming your ship into the enemy¡¯s flank, not their prow. Prow ramming would simply move the target backwards a single space. Any ship could be moved orthogonally a single space and end facing their direction of travel, but if the ship was moved forward, Giordanan rules allowed for at most three spaces of movement, whereas Blitz allows the full board length. Victory requires sinking all of their ships, or having more ships than the other when an obligatory repetition begins. Most players came to prefer Blitz Trireme, but there was sufficient depth to Giordanan Trireme that those with wits could comfortably wager upon it.</li>

    </ol>

 1-21 - A Division In The Cynizia

    Aisha knew the man all the Cynizia were looking at. Humberto had been a thug all his life, working ship bets in Puerto Faro. He had been the one who had placed Lucius¡¯ bet that her brother had survived. Under the pressure of his employer, he had escaped to join the Cynizia, and had been entrusted to journey on ahead to Puerto Vida.

    A face like broken pottery put back together, that could never smile quite right and yet he tried. It was slack jawed, staring out across the sea, watching the ships come and go from the harbor. No body supported it beneath the neck. It sat upon a spike above the main road.

    ¡°Why haven¡¯t they taken that down? The Vassish have already left,¡± she asked.

    Her brother didn¡¯t take his gaze from it. He was cracking hazelnuts between his molars, spitting the shells back into his hand to pick at the meat. ¡°Because it¡¯s good for us,¡± he said.

    She turned on him. ¡°How?¡± The Cynizia had waned after the loss at the silver mine. Without the proper fight and the death of so many regardless, desertion had begun to afflict their ranks. Less than two hundred arrived at Puerto Vida, expecting a raucous welcome and reinforcements. All they got was quiet stares.

    ¡°Because those that join us now will be true fighters,¡± he said, and left her beneath the decapitated head of his friend.

    The city managed to get on with life, but she thought it was perhaps a bit quieter than it should have been. People kept their heads down too much, or walked too quickly. They barely wanted to answer her trivial questions as she sought out the Medini Family store. What she found had not been plundered, but would be of fleeting use regardless. The Medini¡¯s had entered into a co-ownership contract with another merchant group, both making use of the same storefront one block from the main road. The main business of the establishment was the coordination of ships back to Puerto Faro, and a mere token amount of goods to be bought and sold. Some jewelry, some spice samples, nothing a war effort needed.

    When she left the store, shoulder¡¯s heavy and eyes downcast, two of the city guard stopped her. The younger of the two had a broader stature, and a white cape pinned to his brass chest piece. He asked, ¡°Are you Aisha Canta-ima?¡±

    She frowned and put a hand to her hip. ¡°I wasn¡¯t aware anyone here knew me.¡±

    ¡°The lady Bishop Jean di Jumeaux had requested your presence.¡±

    Aisha had been to Jumeaux once with her father. She knew who the bishop was. It wasn¡¯t until her assigned manservant arrived that she let the tension in her relax though. Nikolai Tolzi had joined her for the time being. He nearly begged me to let him stay and take on the duty. Aisha recognized him from our fleeting night in Puerto Faro, and let him fall in behind her upon stepping through the doors of the White Halls. They were led to a small waiting room that overlooked the inner courtyard, and the white caped guard asked them to wait a moment, before leaving them there.

    Aisha dropped onto the sofa, a hard thing with not half as much cushion as it appeared to have, and picked at the dry cookies set upon the table for them. ¡°So the robed guy is here too?¡± she asked, and broke off one of the treats. A very underwhelming description of me.

    ¡°No,¡± Nikolai said, and studied the door. Certain the guard wouldn¡¯t return so soon, he walked over and got himself a cookie as well. ¡°Amurabi has already gone ahead to Rackvidd.¡±

    ¡°Confident, isn¡¯t he.¡± She leaned on the arm of the sofa, pulling herself away from the sunlight and to the welcoming shade.

    Nikolai returned to his post at the door. ¡°The towns between here and there do not matter much. It will be competing marches, and the final confrontation will be in the Ash Fall Mountains. He can do more from Rackvidd than from here.¡±

    ¡°So you mean to drag it out to the very last.¡±

    Nikolai nodded, but did not speak. A few stifling minutes passed, and a knock finally arrived. Without announcement, the door was then opened by one of the acolytes, and the Bishop entered. She had elected to change into a black dress to note the previous night¡¯s blood shed, but without a veil it simply drew the eye to her more. ¡°You must be the Canta girl.¡±

    Aisha rose and gave a feminine bow. ¡°Aisha Canta, yes. You must be Bishop Jean di Jumeaux.¡±

    ¡°Please, just Jean is fine. Is Amurabi not with you?¡±

    Aisha grimaced and glanced at Nikolai. When he gave her a short nod, she answered, ¡°No, I¡¯m afraid he is not.¡±

    The amiable smile vanished from Jean¡¯s face and she abruptly sat down. ¡°So you¡¯re merely here to play both sides?¡±

    Aisha pressed her lips into a flat line. ¡°I¡¯m on my own side, which coincides with Amurabi¡¯s. I¡¯m simply a greedy girl.¡±

    ¡°Greedy for your idiot brother? He¡¯s no better than the locust swarms.¡±

    Aisha glanced at Nikolai. The skaldish man had little insight for her, but his eyebrow had arched as he listened to her. The difference in attitude between the previous day and then was quite stark. ¡°I think a better analogy would be a spark of fire. The spark doesn¡¯t do much if there isn¡¯t already deadfall and kindling to catch.¡±

    Jean frowned and picked up one of the cookies. She broke it off and chewed it. Only after she swallowed, did she admit, ¡°I suppose you might be right. Even if he wins and drives out all the Vassish, never to be seen again, he won¡¯t have gained anything. Won¡¯t have gotten fat from the spoils. Nobody is going to make him king. He¡¯ll have changed nothing at all, except inviting the Aillesterrans back.¡±

    ¡°Jean, may I inquire why you summoned me here?¡±

    ¡°Because you¡¯re playing both sides, like I said. And because you¡¯re greedy,¡± Jean answered.

    ¡°I just said-¡±

    ¡°I need someone who knows these Cynizia to help me poach some,¡± Jean said, speaking right over Aisha. ¡°Plenty are fine fighters, but are wasted upon Medorosa. I wish to bring them into a higher calling. My calling.¡±

    This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

    ¡°For your expedition south?¡±

    ¡°Precisely. I need fighters for when the cannibals get irritated with me. While I could deal with one or two on my own, that would simply be imprudent. I¡¯m paying good coin and we might be able to save hundreds of lost souls¡­ eventually anyways.¡±

    ¡°I can¡¯t imagine anyone would stop you from making an appeal to hire the men following my brother.¡±

    ¡°Not me,¡± Jean said, her smile renewed. ¡°I¡¯d like you to make the appeal. You¡¯re the one they know. If you can peel off enough of his support, this little insurrection will fizzle out of its own accord.¡±

    Jean didn¡¯t require an answer from her, nor a commitment like I had. In fact, after a few more pleasantries and an offer to give her a room for the night in the White Halls, Aisha was soon shown the door. The bishop had a number of official duties to see to, by means of letter back up the Vida River to Jumeaux. The offer lingered with her all evening. It sat inside her mind and grew stronger as she waited in the Blue Rock Tavern that the Cynizia had occupied.

    The proprietor was an awful man, and his wife never showed her face. No matter where she sat, she could hear the arguments from his teenaged sons about whether they could join the Cynizia. The place stank more of sweat than of pepper-leaf, and the food looked too burned to be eaten.

    When Almir sat down across from her, she jumped a little. ¡°No singing tonight, Aisha-ima?¡±

    ¡°Humberto¡¯s face is haunting me a bit,¡± she said, and her smile looked more like a wince. ¡°I know I should put on a smile for everyone, but I don¡¯t think I can. Not tonight. It¡¯s been a long journey already.¡±

    Almir crossed his arms and frowned. ¡°That doesn¡¯t sound like you at all, Aisha-ima. Normally, it is your songs that lift everyone else¡¯s spirits. The men here, they looked at the corpses two nights past, and they saw their own faces looking back at them. Now? We came to what should have been a stronghold, and find it already pierced by the Vassish. Rather than ahead of them, we are chasing after their trail once more, except now we are even further from home. Even if we turn back now, it¡¯s a long way back to Tavina.¡±

    Aisha looked up at him and her shoulders wilted. ¡°You don¡¯t have to. It¡¯s not one or the other.¡±

    ¡°What do you mean? We fight or we retreat. What else is there?¡±

    ¡°Join the bishop. She needs fighters to protect her in the southern lands. It¡¯s good and honorable, and-¡±

    Almir burst out laughing. ¡°You expect us to go back to that god forsaken land? That¡¯s the whole reason we we turned our swords against the Vassish! Aisha-ima, I don¡¯t think you understand just how hostile that land is. Centuries ago, there used to be cities there. It used to be prosperous. Those demon worshippers destroyed it all. Not even grass remains.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s what Bishop Jean wants to change!¡±

    The door to the tavern flew open. Dozens of men grabbed for their swords before a cry of ¡°Medorosa!¡± went up. Her brother marched in among everyone.

    He held up a hand and the room quieted. Once the door was shut again, he turned in a circle to grin at all the Cynizia gathered. ¡°I have good news!¡±

    Aisha felt the change in fate grip her by the soul, before the words even left her brother¡¯s lips.

    ¡°That bastard Solhart may have dealt us a blow here, but he was a little too hasty. He marched his men onwards the moment he had been bribed off with food. West, always going west. He wants to get to his lord, Von Raymi, as fast as possible and hide behind that betrayer¡¯s army. We¡¯ll have to deal with them too, of course, eventually. But, from what I learned today, we don¡¯t have to concern ourselves with Solhart making it to him.¡±

    The Cynizia glanced at once another and rumors began to mumble from one mouth to the next ear. Someone eventually raised his voice and brazenly asked, ¡°Did he get lost or something?¡±

    Medorosa grinned even more, scanning his eyes for the man who had asked. ¡°Or something indeed. He thought he would be crafty and use the north road instead of the coast road. Thought it might throw us off his trail. I guess he didn¡¯t realize the north road was buried by a landslide last year! It¡¯s impossible to bring a cart through there. You can barely walk across it. He¡¯s marching his men right into a death trap if we just catch up with him!¡±

    The tavern erupted. Men threw their fists into the air, ale sloshed, and Medorosa couldn¡¯t be heard for minutes. He stood there, hand up and waiting. When it died down, he continued, ¡°I have already sent riders to every town between here and Rackvidd. The Vassish are even more hated here than they were in Puerto Faro, a discontent they held at arm¡¯s length while they sailed past. The people of the mountains have not forgotten that Rackvidd was theirs not so long ago. And they want it back.¡±

    Almir rose from the table and stepped forward, entering the ring of attention Medorosa had built around himself. ¡°Are we to deal with Solhart first, or Rackvidd?¡±

    Medorosa paced the room. ¡°Almir, I¡¯m glad you asked. Both. The answer is both. Most of you here will continue after Solhart and crush him. I, and a small host, will rally the men of the mountains and march on Rackvidd. I¡¯ll need someone else to take command while I¡¯m away. Then, we¡¯ll be able to line the walls of Rackvidd with the heads of Solhart and his men.¡±

    ¡°Brother!¡± Aisha shouted and pushed past Almir. ¡°What demon has possessed you that you think you can do this?¡±

    Medorosa¡¯s smile vanished. He stepped close and dropped his voice. ¡°Sister, now is not the time.¡±

    She shoved him in the chest. ¡°You and your frenzy, this is exactly the time! When else would I stop you from getting everyone slaughtered! If you try to take Rackvidd, you¡¯ll bring their whole army back to burn you alive.¡±

    Her brother snarled. ¡°Then we will fight them too! When we prove that we are a force to be reckoned with, others will come to support us. We won¡¯t be beholden to the whims of foreigners any longer. If they want the ley stone, they¡¯ll have to buy it from us, not march in and take it!¡±

    ¡°If you have eyes set on the wastelands, then shouldn¡¯t you be working with the bishop? She¡¯s trying to reclaim the land and could use your help,¡± Aisha said

    Something cold struck her in the side of the neck, no thicker than a necklace, but it wrapped around and locked in place. The loop of iron jerked her down, ripping her by the throat like a leash. She cried out in pain and fell hard, hitting the ground with her hip as she grabbed at the loop of metal that had fastened around her throat.

    Medorosa¡¯s anger came out in a cool simmer. His eyes rose to someone behind Aisha. ¡°What do you think you¡¯re doing?¡±

    A man she didn¡¯t recognize held the other end of the iron rod that had been bent around her throat, somewhat like a cane, but with no gap for her throat to escape. The man himself was older, blind in one eye, and wore a jack-plate coat as though the Giordanan heat couldn¡¯t even touch him. With his curly hair done up in two enormous plumes rising from either side of his head, he looked like a devil holding onto her leash. ¡°Just shutting up an annoying bitch. Who wants to hear that kind of barking at a time like this?¡± he said.

    ¡°She¡¯s my sister.¡±

    ¡°Oh?¡± The man whistled and grinned. ¡°I figured this wasn¡¯t a place to bring family. My apologies, dear leader,¡± he said, and did something to the metal. He gave it a flick, a shake that sent a ripple through it. Like he had turned it into rope, the rod flicked free of her throat and he snapped it back up to loop around his hand. He grinned and slipped it into a deep pocket in his coat.

    ¡°You should show better prudence in the future,¡± Medorosa said.

    ¡°Decisiveness is why you brought me aboard, isn¡¯t it?¡±

    Aisha rubbed her throat. ¡°Brother, who is this?¡±

    Medorosa shook his head and held up a hand to point at the newcomer. ¡°Men, meet Dhib, the pirate hunter. He¡¯ll be replacing me for the attack on Solhart.¡±

    Almir scowled. ¡°You would bring in someone new to lead us? Just because he¡¯s a bit famous?¡±

    Medorosa¡¯s hand clapped onto Almir¡¯s shoulder. ¡°No! No, of course not. Almir, my friend, you¡¯ll be leading them. Dhib is your asset. Use him well.¡±

    Dhib gave the stunned man a bow, and grinned at Aisha.

    As soon as she could, she fled the tavern.

 1-22 - Dead End

    Tyrion had killed a shepherd.

    Lucius didn¡¯t blame him.

    Three days of marching had brought them up from the desert and into a horrid wave of hills and rocks. The plants were plentiful, but even the flowering ones cracked at the lightest touch. Everything was withered and gnarled and offensive to look at. The towns most of all.

    The north road they had followed splintered and fragmented, like they were marching upstream on a river. Dozens of tributaries darted out to stony enclaves that looked down upon them. Walls weren¡¯t needed, the jagged landscape made the thought of assault a nightmare for the Vassish. After three days though, that nightmare had been contesting with the thinning supplies. Puerto Vida had not been as lucrative as they might have hoped.

    Which brought them to the slaughter of an innocent shepherd.

    ¡°We should bury him,¡± Lucius said, looking down at the frowning corpse.

    Soldiers had ignored their moral restraints and hurried on to the herd of goats to pull the ornery animals away. Men rejoiced at the idea of fresh roasted meat, and as dry as the foothills were, there was no lack of firewood.

    ¡°Do they bury their dead here? I thought they did that sky burial thing; let the birds eat them,¡± Tyrion said as he wiped the blood from his sword.

    Lucius shook his head. ¡°That¡¯s on the western slopes. The eastern side abandoned that because of Yellow King Hassa. Some sects do cremation, but burial will do him fine. His goddess will find him either way.¡±

    ¡°Or the wolves.¡±

    ¡°Have him buried deep. You should put the headstone yourself.¡±

    Lieutenant Tyrion sheathed his sword and nodded. ¡°Fair enough.¡± He summoned a few other voluntaries and they got to the work of digging a hole. They chose a spot between the boulders that dotted the hills, and found the soil soft and rich. The ash from the volcanoes had piled up over the centuries, and yielded easily. They placed the grave marker just as cuts of meat were brought to them for dinner.

    Lucius watched it all from a hilltop nearby. A tree topped the crest, a half-thick canopy granting a scrap of shade. While he kept his eyes on the effort, his mind wandered and turned over ideas. He couldn¡¯t say for certain without seeing the stars, which had yet to emerge, but the certainty was arising that the north road was not taking him to Rackvidd.

    ¡°M¡¯lord,¡± one of his subordinate¡¯s said. The man had on full gear, which implied he was from the scouting group. The memory of the internal attacks in the silver mine made Lucius slide his hand closer to his blade, but the soldier said, ¡°We¡¯ve seen signs of the Cynizia approaching. We couldn¡¯t count their numbers, but I trust my eyes to understand those dust clouds.¡±

    ¡°How far off?¡±

    ¡°A day still, I would think. Skal stayed behind to watch for their fires. They would have to march through the night to catch us.¡±

    Lucius nodded and turned his gaze west, to the higher mountains. The road led them that way, to where cliffs rose, jagged and broken. The fiery teeth of the world awaited them, and Rackvidd beyond. ¡°We have no time to waste in the morning then,¡± he said, and dismissed the man.

    Soon, the sun set, and they could only see by the moon and by the embers of their cook fires. The cold winds of the foothills had replaced the scorching winds of the desert, and the soldiers took to huddling against one another. Lucius was able to turn his gaze to the stars, and scratched out some arithmetic in the sand. With only his memory to reference, he had to resort to estimates and guesses, eventually arriving at calculations impossible to place them. Had he been allowed some resources, placing their longitude would have been trivial, but he had only the things Lucius von Solhart would have had.

    The young doctor approached him. The trip had been rough on him, turning his clothes haggard and dirty, rendering his long hair a jagged mess. Scratches had appeared on his glasses, that wouldn¡¯t wipe away no matter how often he cleaned them. ¡°You do have a plan, right?¡±

    ¡°Continue into the mountains until we find a choke point. Kill enough of the Cynizia to force them to retreat, then we escape.¡±

    ¡°Sounds simple enough.¡±

    ¡°If we don¡¯t get bombarded by the hill tribes.¡± He sighed and squatted down next to his numbers once more. He knew they were wrong, so he dashed the work away and scratched his head. His gaze went back to the world around him, to the shadows and darkness of nature. No sign from the gods presented itself; he knew that no such thing would happen too, but childhood habits die hard.

    Sammy sighed. ¡°If I may, why hasn¡¯t Amurabi joined us? Wouldn¡¯t he be useful here? Or at least that Skaldish man.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯ll see them again, soon enough. There¡¯s no choice to be made tonight. May as well sleep,¡± Lucius declared, and ended the conversation by retiring to his tent.

    The next day, after their march, he did get a sign from the gods. Golden stared back at him from a clifftop aerie as they stared at the landslide Medorosa had gloated so much about. To their north, the mountain looked like a great scoop had been removed from it, and grass had only just reclaimed the dirt. The huge mass of the slope had collapsed into the valley and the rains had cut the ash into chasms of granite laced with obsidian.

    No road led through it. No bridges spanned the gaps. The landscape belonged to the goats alone.

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    Lieutenant Tyrion rode up to him, back atop his horse Laturi. The animal had healed well enough to let him ride it, but not to charge. The leader of the voluntaries had been using it to add to his height. He reigned up between Lucius and the sun, frowning at the young leader. ¡°What do you propose we do now? We can¡¯t march over that.¡±

    ¡°No, we can¡¯t,¡± Lucius said, and his gaze searched across the cliffs.

    ¡°The Cynizia are on the road behind us. Every town is hostile. Those goats won¡¯t last us forever.¡±

    Lucius rose and turned to face east, to the distant sand cloud. ¡°We¡¯ll have to dig in.¡±

    ¡°What?¡± Tyrion demanded, and Laturi stamped its hooves. ¡°Those goats won¡¯t last us forever. This terrain is treacherous at best. You¡¯d have to be mad to dig in here.¡±

    ¡°Yeah, and they know that too,¡± Lucius said. He nodded and planted his hands on his hips.

    Tyrion scoffed and pulled his helm from his head. ¡°Listen, Solhart. I don¡¯t know what you were taught by your father about war, but this is different from leading a march away. I¡¯ll concede that you had a good trick back at the mine, but being clever about getting away from a fight is different from knowing when and how to pick one. If we turn around here, we¡¯ll be slaughtered. They¡¯ll starve us, and they¡¯ll crush us.¡±

    ¡°Is that your official advice, on your honor, Lieutenant Tyrion?¡± Lucius asked, staring up at the man.

    Tyrion puffed up his chest. ¡°Yes, it is. Is it not my duty to inform you when you are committing a blunder? An error that will get us all killed?¡±

    Lucius nodded. ¡°Your objection is noted. Now go build me a wall to hide behind. This may take a while.¡±

    ¡°This? What this?¡±

    ¡°Negotiations,¡± Lucius answered, and began walking back down the road. He called over his shoulder, ¡°It takes a lot longer to talk someone to death than it does to stab them to death. So make sure the wall is nice and tall. I don¡¯t want them staring at the men while we¡¯re talking.¡±

    Tyrion¡¯s face went red. ¡°Lucius! Have you gone mad? Has getting killed so many times driven you insane? This is not a plan, this is suicide!¡± His roar echoed between the cliff walls, loud enough that even Golden took flight with the birds, and soared off to more pleasant hunting grounds. The soldiers heard too. Dozens of men turned to watch the leadership fight that had been brewing ever since the flight from Puerto Faro.

    Lucius stopped his casual walk and turned back to the man. ¡°Tyrion Reed, you need to watch your tongue. You¡¯re right, you don¡¯t know what I was taught about waging war; but at least I was taught. You¡¯re a violent son of a merchant. Your success is because of your stigmata alone. Your advice has been noted. Now, I have given you an order.¡±

    ¡°Because of my stigmata alone?¡± Tyrion roared. He leapt down from his horse, his armor crashing hard as he hit the ground. ¡°I know more about leading armies than a child like you could imagine. You were only given the command because of noble nepotism, and look what you did with it? Got half the men slaughtered in an ambush and only survived because of your own stigmata.¡±

    Lucius gritted his teeth. He knew there was little he could say to that, it was all part of the role he had stolen. His only recourse was to say, ¡°I suggest you retract your words Tyrion, or honor will force my hand.¡±

    The older man snarled. ¡°What do you know about honor?¡±

    ¡°I know I can¡¯t lead these men, can¡¯t save any of them, if I¡¯m being undermined by my second-in-command.¡±

    ¡°Then maybe you should be second-in-command instead. Or better yet, handed over to the Giordanans as an apology.¡±

    Lucius drew his blade. ¡°Last chance. If you think you¡¯re too valuable for me to lose, you need to think again.¡±

    That got the attention of all the soldiers in the area. It of course was perfectly legal for a commander to take capital punishment for insubordination, and it was obvious that commanding someone else to imprison him wasn¡¯t an option. None of them knew what to do about the conflict, let alone tried to stop it. They merely gathered and watched.

    ¡°Same goes to you, Solhart,¡± Tyrion declared, and drew his own sword. ¡°You don''t get to order men to their deaths like this. We need to march, we need to cut our way through one of these towns at the least.¡±

    ¡°My orders were clear. We will fortify this pass, and it is here that we will crush the Cynizia. I for one am tired of fleeing, and as you can see, we¡¯re at the end of the road anyways.¡±

    ¡°This is a death trap just like the Medini¡¯s!¡± Tyrion shouted back.

    ¡°Enough!¡± Lucius bellowed.

    With that, there had been enough verbal foreplay, and an unfair bout began. Neither of them had their shields ready, and both held matching short blades. Tyrion had a hand¡¯s span of height over the boy, and about twenty pounds too. Lucius was forced to use a high overhead guard as the larger soldier savagely rained blows down upon him. Every swing drew out more of his berserker stigmata, inflaming and engorging his muscles.

    It would be false to think that my pupil had nothing to fear from being cut down, thanks to his stigmata. Had Tyrion struck true and severed his soul from his body, it would still take the boy moments to recover; more than enough time to lop off his head and then he would surely awake to the mercy of the Cynizia. For him, being put on a spike atop city walls would be an unending torture.

    Worse yet, if he had to kill Tyrion, not only would he be losing a war asset, but he would have to do it such that no grudge would remain within the hearts of the men he had to lead.

    One of the lieutenant¡¯s blows slipped through his guard, crashing down onto his right collarbone like a sledge hammer. Lucius stepped in the moment he realized the guard and failed, taking the blow short on Tyrion¡¯s blade, close to the man¡¯s hand. At the same time, he whipped his own blade in an arc, wheeling it for the man¡¯s head. He aimed right for the ear, but the berserker¡¯s reflexes pulled him back with only a nick to the brow.

    The throb of pain passed through his arm, like a slow poison that sapped his strength. Lucius had to take a dive, rolling to the side as Tyrion redoubled. He put a cut through the man¡¯s trousers right below the hem of his tunic.

    A regular man would have shrieked in pain, but Tryion retaliated. His sword cut, quick and up through his foe¡¯s face.

    Lucius roared, feeling the ringing pain of broken teeth and the eruption of blood through his ripped nose. He knew that Tyrion had felt it too though; a blow that would end any normal man. For a moment, all his berserker might was but dross in the mind, for Tyrion thought he had won. A slave to memory. Lucius slashed him deep through the thigh, enough to rip the tendons to his knee.

    Tyrion bellowed as his leg buckled.

    Lucius, nearly blind through the blood, brought his blade up overhead and cleaved down, cutting through Tyrion¡¯s elbow and lopping off his shield arm.

    The soldier raged, binding down his anger into strength. Even maimed as he was, he refused to go down. He drove the tip of his blade up through the segments of Lucius¡¯ armor, forcing it in and through and skewering his foe.

    Of course, that meant both of them would bleed out.

    Which meant all Lucius had to do was step away and die on his feet. ¡°Get the doctor,¡± he ordered, and ripped Tyrion¡¯s swords from his gut. Blood poured down his legs and the wound across his face turned his words to spittle; but, it was Lieutenant Tyrion who fell to the ground and could not rise.

    Lucius had taken control of the whole army, at the price of his best warrior.

 1-23 - The Lord of the Black Keep

    In the Ash Fall Mountains, every villa was a fortress, every lord a king. The Black Keep was the oldest and largest of them all, with halls and chambers carved deep through the rock. The place had changed hands a dozen times and had collapsed on itself nearly as often, following the tectonic upheaval of eruptions, but the locals always reclaimed it. They had a genetic line of stigmata that let them tear up and reform the stone, else it would have never been feasible to stay there so long.

    There was of course an allure to the place, which Aisha had heard of and never trusted before. Her place in the main hall, that is she stood along one of the support walls, in light of the main braziers and able to speak up if needed, had her right beside one of the clay pipe heaters. Warm steam billowed up, carrying a trace of sulfur, but also of trickling water. The Black Keep had a natural hot spring sequestered away even more safely than their treasures.

    ¡°Where is this Medorosa? I granted this audience because your leader was supposed to be here himself. And what? I get his sister? And you¡­ what? His manservant? Why am I treating with you two instead of Medorosa?¡±

    The lord of the Black Keep, Erdro Karakale, sat upon a stone throne with silk cushions. As old as her father, but still in fighting shape, he looked every bit the cast of a mountain man. Woolen hair streaked with grey that ran past his shoulders, and a certain roughness to his skin like leather. He sat slouched in his chair, squeezing the arm of his throne with such strength that it might have crushed had it been made of wood.

    His oldest wife, first of three, shook her head and said, ¡°Did he think our hospitality was free merely because we put up one lone rider that sold promises?¡±

    Her brother¡¯s spokesman wrung his hands and supplicated with smiles and bows. ¡°Please, my apologies dear Sir¡­ madams,¡± he said with glances to the younger wives as well. The youngest was heavy with child and, as far as Aisha had seen that night, had never looked up from her lap.

    Erdro¡¯s wives were the only other women in the hall beside Aisha. His ten sons, biological and by marriage, stood leaning against the walls up and down the hall, each with their own servant to see to them. Some had brought warrior brutes, while others had brought young waifs that left Aisha speculating about either their interests, or whose family they had been taken from as ward. The number of mountain men was enough to make the hall suffocating for her nevertheless.

    Medorosa¡¯s sycophant continued, ¡°He has merely been delayed by bringing you a proper tribute. It will be worth the wait!¡±

    Erdro grunted and pounded his fist on his throne. ¡°Then shouldn¡¯t you at least be entertaining me as we sit here waiting? Your silence makes me want to rip your teeth out.¡±

    The sycophant visibly cringed, the sort of deflective posture that saved one from a bully, even when the bully was a grown man.

    ¡°You there,¡± Erdro said when his gaze fell on Aisha. ¡°I¡¯ve been told you¡¯re a songstress. If that¡¯s not false, why don¡¯t you show us your talents?¡±

    One of his sons, with the protection of shadows to hide him, said, ¡°There should be at least one thing her mouth is good for,¡± and his younger brothers chuckled.

    Erdro didn¡¯t so much as crack a smile, else she would not have answered, ¡°How about a poem? Have you heard the story of The Wolf Who Hunted The Moon?¡±(1)

    Erdro nodded. ¡°You¡¯ll have to speak up more, lass, if you expect these boys to hear you. I¡¯d prefer music, but I don¡¯t even have a harp to hand you.¡±

    Aisha grimaced and stepped forward. She flicked her coppery hair back over her shoulder, as though she were once again in a tavern night, and began in a melodious falsetto.

    Beneath the trees and in the mud,

    Between the hills where the cold wind blew,

    The wolf did hunt before the morning dew.

    ¡®Twas heaven¡¯s light that awaited the blood.

    At once the sycophant leapt back in, grabbing for her arm and saying, ¡°Aisha-ima, please, you don¡¯t have to. This delay is entirely my fault and it is my responsibility to-¡±

    Erdro¡¯s voice exploded in the hall. ¡°Who told you to stop her? Was I talking to you?¡± The man bowed his head, and would have grovelled if it wouldn''t have interfered with the recitement further.

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    Aisha cleared her throat and resumed.

    From broken hunted hare it did flood.

    One life snuffed for another who

    prowled alone, soon to hunger anew.

    Its grey fur soiled, marked with blood.

    The doors to the hall were shoved open before she could reach the third stanza. A horrible scraping of timber against sand and stone as one man pushed through the gates. An introduction came from the lips of Erdro¡¯s youngest son, the one closest to the door. ¡°Horsebreaker! What is the meaning of this?¡±

    Horsebreaker, the bandit lord of a nearby mountain pass that was still accessible after the eruption, marched in through the middle, despite a dozen men drawing steel around him. He had a limp in one leg, which made his bead and silver laden hair sway. It also made his shirt of brass mail rattle against his body. He had a face worse than looking at a rotting corpse, and yet he didn¡¯t do more than glance at Aisha as he walked up to Erdro.

    Horsebreaker was a monster of a man who invented all manner of ways to murder to entertain himself. He disemboweled prisoners and sewed their guts back up with coals. He played games of ripping the lungs out of his prey and counting how long it took for them to die. He kept a record tally of how many cuts he could inflict or peels of skin he could remove before the man died. And all of that was done to people who thought they could surrender their goods and be spared.

    ¡°What is the meaning of this?¡± he asked.

    Horsebreaker pulled out a dagger that Aisha at once recognized as her brother¡¯s honor blade. ¡°This!¡± the man declared, slurring his words somewhat. He had stopped a fair distance from Erdro¡¯s throne, enough that his sons didn¡¯t charge at him for showing bare steel. ¡°Is the gift that Medorosa Canta has prepared for you.¡±

    Then the man plunged the knife through his own throat. He ripped his own jugular and held up the bloody knife in a salute. His life blood shot out through the air, splattering the ground in four massive pumps of his heart before he collapsed dead.

    The desired effect was manifested at once, for Erdro Karakale leapt to his feet with mouth agape. He stared at the corpse, and only when it didn¡¯t leap back up. The only thing that moved besides himself, was the creeping pool of blood that spread across the stone floor of the hall. No one seemed to know what to do, let alone whether they still needed the swords in their hands.

    Eventually, their attention returned to the door that Horsebreaker had come from, and they saw Medorosa Canta strolling in with a grin on his face. ¡°I suppose I should apologize for the mess. I figured you would like the gift though.¡±

    ¡°Gift?¡± Erdro asked, though he had heard it all himself well enough.

    ¡°Yes, the mountain pass, the head of your enemy, is it not a good gift? I thought I should demonstrate my worth,¡± Medorosa said. He walked in, hands open and empty for all to see, before he picked up his honor blade from the corpse of Horsebreaker.

    Erdro caught on that it had been the work of a stigmata, for little else could reconcile the bandit¡¯s actions. That put a grin on the man¡¯s face, grander than any trifling smirk from the evening. As he stroked his beard, he said, ¡°I can understand now why you were delayed. Just as a proper feast cannot be rushed, something so succulent for the ambition must take the time it needs.¡±

    Medorosa returned the smile and vanished the bloody knife into his sash. Of course, he didn¡¯t sheathe it; but, everyone who¡¯s had a blade in their hand for long enough knows that there are reasons you cover up a knife¡¯s edge. So quiet compromises had been made to his honor. He said, ¡°Still, I apologize it took so long to arrange. I trust my friend and my sister kept you well enough company.¡±

    Erdro nodded. ¡°Well enough. It merely built anticipation in me; which I see has been worth the wait.¡±

    Her brother again spread his arms. ¡°Oh, but I have so much more for you. I have come to offer you, Rackvidd!¡±

    Some of the youths laughed, for they thought it impossible. Erdro did not laugh. He turned his gaze to the corpse of Horsebreaker and back to Medorosa. ¡°All my life I have kept that dream inside me; a gem too hard to grasp and yet I coveted it from afar. A man like me,¡± he said, gesturing to his arrayed family, ¡°I have a dozen problems to keep me occupied and some as bad as the rest put together.¡±

    Aisha tried to spot who he was looking at when he said that, but could only guess between the three men who had their hair short and styled up with some kind of wax.

    ¡°Then join me,¡± Medorosa said. ¡°Together we can break the Vassish foothold. Just today I received word that my men have captured some two hundred of their soldiers; pinned them into a pass with no escape. They have sued for peace! Surrender, to us men of Giordana! Can you believe it? But this is the reality I am offering!¡±

    Aisha¡¯s stomach leapt in her chest. She stepped closer. ¡°Solhart has surrendered?¡±

    Medorosa¡¯s grin turned to her. ¡°Or soon enough if not already. LIke I said, Sister, he took the North Road and didn¡¯t know his way. He marched right to the collapse and realized he was trapped. I¡¯m sure Almir will be riding down with his head for me soon.¡±

    Erdro bellowed, slapping his hand on his belly. ¡°Wine!¡± he barked, turning on his second wife. The woman vanished down a hall, and he shouted after her. ¡°This is now a celebration, you hear me, woman? Bring out a whole barrel, and let us see what dreams this man can conjure up for us.¡±

    Their hands slapped together and squeezed, and in doing so, the strength of the Cynizia doubled. The sight of it made Aisha faint, and she stumbled away, returning to her shadowed wall to rest against the steam vent. And yet, engraved in her soul by the binding power of the Divine Beast, her contract still bound her, for Lucius had not been slain.

    She slid down and sat on the floor, chewing her thumbnail as Medorosa¡¯s subordinates joined everyone in the hall. Chatter and boasting and cheers swallowed the hall with noise. She didn¡¯t even notice the approach of the woman until a hand tapped her on the shoulder. Erdro¡¯s youngest wife offered a hand and a smile. ¡°We can retire. You look like you need a bath.¡±

    Aisha again let herself fantasize about what lay beneath, and pushed out the worries. ¡°Thank you,¡± she said, and took the woman¡¯s hand. She needed time to think.

    She needed time to figure out how to get into Rackvidd and find me.

 Appendix 1 - Act 1 Map + The Wolf Who Hunted The Moon

    <hr>

    The Wolf Who Hunted the Moon

    (From ch23 Act 1)

    Beneath the trees and in the mud,

    Between the hills where the cold wind blew,

    The wolf did hunt before the morning dew.

    ¡®Twas heaven¡¯s light that awaited the blood.

    From broken hunted hare it did flood.

    One life snuffed for another who

    Prowled alone, soon to hunger anew.

    Its grey fur soiled, marked with blood.

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    Night by night the prey of the woods was culled,

    By tooth and claw, a hare he slew.

    Always, for his hunger to renew.

    ¡®Twas heaven¡¯s light that showed the blood.

    The wolf sat alone amid the mud.

    Beneath the moon, silver-blue,

    A silent judge who

    Watched grey fur wet with blood.

    Wherever he went, it followed and judged.

    Whatever life he snuffed, it knew.

    A dreadful pair, those two.

    For the wolf hated the hunger, the blood.

    One night, under the moon¡¯s shining flood,

    From the wolf all prey flew

    And more than hunger grew.

    Anger swelled up, unquenched by blood.

    With an empty belly, the wolf succumbed.

    On that night, more than howls carried through.

    From dirt to tree to sky he flew.

    He bared fangs at that which had no blood.

    Alas, the moon had only judged

    That the wolf was a wolf true

    And had bit more than it could chew.

    In the heavens, there was only the wolf¡¯s blood.

 1-24 - Duel With The Pirate Killer

    Conducting a surrender does not need to be a terribly complicated affair. Indeed, in the years to come, my pupil would do everything from throw parades to neglect to do anything at all. It varied as the situation went. The pomp and circus could matter just as much as the deal struck, and that very fact had the Cynizia so twisted about with their own notions of proper behavior that they may as well have been his prisoners.

    The two of them sat on a pair of canvas stools, the kind of camping seats common to a merchant caravan. Scant other supplies had been set between the arrayed forces; the Vassish walls above and the Cynizia horde below. Lucius had emerged from the camp alone, to speak on behalf of the Vassish, while the other negotiator had brought his second-in-command. Lucius¡¯ second in command obviously was not fit to speak.

    They handed him a dark brew, steeped and steaming. ¡°What is this? Alcoholic? Why does it smell like Amphos Root?¡±

    The man across from him, Almir, said, ¡°Everything smells like Amphos Root to a man who has just had Amphos Root. It¡¯s double black tea. A pleasantry.¡±

    Lucius drank it, and kept his face stone while choking down the bitter drink. ¡°You should try to get some honey. Must be expensive down here though.¡±

    Almir swirled his drink and sipped it. ¡°We import some from Aillesterra. I am not such a wealthy man.¡±

    ¡°Pirating bastards. I bet they overcharge. I should spread the word when I get back to Vassermark that there¡¯s money to be made. I hear there¡¯s a superstition that honey barrels will sink in a storm though.¡±

    ¡°Nonsense. The men who think honey is profitable know just as little about good ships.¡±

    ¡°Well, perhaps there will be a bright and sugary future for Giordana. I once had a syrupy treat of honey and fried dough. Absolutely delicious,¡± Lucius said, and drank more of the tea.

    Eventually, their talk broke down the patience of the other man. He had been grinding his teeth for some time, drumming fingers on the metal cladding his arms, and glaring at Lucius the whole time. He had his hair swept up from his head like the froth wake behind a sailboat, and my pupil had been wary of what would come from the man¡¯s lips. ¡°Enough of this. This isn¡¯t a tea party, it¡¯s negotiations. We have you trapped, Solhart!¡±

    Almir nodded in agreement. ¡°Dhib is correct. We do have you trapped here, unless you feel like walking your men through the black sands. Your boots will wear out to sandals, and those will rip apart and leave your feet ragged and bleeding. It is a horrid place where you cannot even gather the rain, for the land sucks it up and denies it even from running. What¡¯s more, you have cliffs to your left and your right, and we are behind you.¡±

    ¡°Yes, all that is true, but, you see,¡± Lucius said, and twisted around to point at the Vassish forces. ¡°I have a wall, and you don¡¯t. You don¡¯t seem very eager to crawl in and attack us, now do you?¡±

    Dhib snarled. ¡°We don¡¯t have to. We can starve you out.¡±

    ¡°We have food,¡± Lucius stated.

    ¡°We have time,¡± Almir countered.

    That made him grin. It was the kind of smug grin that a lesser, trapped force should never be able to put on, and it gravely bothered the two Giordanans. ¡°How much time do you have, exactly? Your leader Medorosa must be off doing something else if he isn¡¯t doing the talking here himself. So your forces have been split.¡±

    Dhib spat on the ground and glanced back. ¡°We still outnumber you, Vassish. You¡¯re the one who asked for surrender. Stop dragging this out.¡±

    Lucius laughed. ¡°Why would I stop that? Time is on my side as I see it. You have to sit here and wait until my men are so weakened with hunger that you can risk attacking us. What will that do to Medorosa, I wonder? I imagine he¡¯s on his way to Rackvidd as we speak. That big, juicy trade port is just barely within his reach and he wants it bad. What will he do if Lord Raymi sights him and you lot are sitting here on your asses?¡±

    ¡°Or,¡± Dhib said, ¡°We break your fucking wall and slaughter the lot of you.¡±

    Almir held up a hand to stop the more aggressive man. ¡°You know we have the power to beat you, Solhart. We both know it would cost us some lives. That¡¯s why we have agreed to hear you out. Why don¡¯t you tell us what you are willing to offer?¡±

    ¡°The withdrawal from Puerto Faro for starters. You¡¯re the ones that have been chasing us halfway around the world. The city was conceded when we fled. It¡¯s not like we¡¯ve been pillaging and burning the land on our way out, either.¡±

    Almir frowned. ¡°You¡¯ve been attacking and destroying merchant families as you see fit; plundering their supplies.¡±

    Lucius shrugged. ¡°The Medini¡¯s and slavers. We had the right. Did you expect us to lay down and die or something?¡±

    ¡°The point is,¡± Dhib said, ¡°you¡¯ll have to offer something better than that for your lives. We¡¯ve forced you here. You didn¡¯t choose it, so it¡¯s not something you¡¯ve given.¡±

    ¡°Then how about your lives?¡± Lucius said. He finished his drink as the two men glared at him, and set the cup aside.

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    Almir said, ¡°Avoiding combat is why we are here to talk, it isn¡¯t enough. If you are going to be like this¡­ it is only natural that the failure of a commander should offer his own life to the victors.¡±

    ¡°My life? You expect me to give my life? Sorry, but that¡¯s just not something I can part with. I¡¯ve been stabbed and butchered so many times I¡¯ve lost track now, and I¡¯ve still got my life.¡±

    ¡°Your weapons and armor,¡± Dhib said. ¡°Surrendering forces should deliver their weapons to show that they aren¡¯t a threat anymore.¡±

    ¡°What? You would make us walk back to Vassermark with nothing to defend ourselves? I wouldn¡¯t wish that even on criminals. There are bandits out here, you know.¡±

    The older man roared. ¡°Yes! Your weapons, your armor, your horses, everything, and we might spare you!¡±

    Lucius scratched his chin and looked like he was considering it. Something he had been denied on the journey was a good shave, and after the bath in Puerto Vida, he had peach fuzz again, just enough to color his jaw some. ¡°How about, I make the same offer to you. You give me your weapons, your armor, your horse, and I might spare your lives?¡±

    Then, he held up his hand and snapped his fingers. The men watching for it of course couldn¡¯t hear the noise, but the gesture was easy enough to recognize. A moment later, three brown cloaked bodies came flying down the cliff¡¯s edge. Cynizia scouts hit the ground with wet splats that kicked up clouds of sand.

    It took Almir and Dhib a moment to realize what had happened, what it meant. More so than the divide between them and Medorosa, they had again split their forces to send contingents through the delicate mountain routes and take hold of the cliffs above them. A great deal of their confidence in the negotiations had been because they thought they held the high ground, and that the Vassish had no means of reaching it.

    Once again however, the skills of Skoshi had come into play. While most of the men had been occupied with the harvesting and fashioning of wood, some had worked with the donkeys and wrapped their hooves in leather. It made for a tremendously clumsy beast, but combined with the stigmata, they were willing and able to walk across the fields of obsidian. Such carried, some fifty men of the voluntaries had climbed up the cliffs and returned to the impasse. And of course, fifty vassish soldiers could make quick work of some few dozen Cynizia.

    ¡°Rotten bastard! Attacking during talks?¡± Almir roared, spittle flying as he jumped to his feet.

    Lucius only shrugged. ¡°Technically, I believe those men were killed shortly before I sat down. The signal was to drop the bodies, not to make them. I¡¯d say I¡¯ve done nothing more than show you my hand. You¡¯re a card player, aren¡¯t you?¡±

    Dhib dropped pretenses and produced from the back of his belt a thing like a spring coil of steel. ¡°Never should have trusted a Vassish. I should have learned that lesson when I went dragoneering in the mist sea.¡±

    Lucius took it to be a weapon of some sort, and jumped to his feet. Out came his own blade. ¡°I told you, didn¡¯t I? I was negotiating for your lives. Surrender and I might just be happy with your supplies.¡±

    Dhib grabbed Almir by the shoulder and shoved him down the road. ¡°Go! We¡¯re under attack you bloody fool. The fight is now!¡± As he shouted, a great mass of missiles began to rain upon the Cynizia. The Vassish had brought their stolen bows up the cliffs, but there was no need to expend valuable arrows. From their height, only rocks were needed and they had a tremendous amount of the sharpest sort of rock a soldier could desire. Black stones fell down and caved skulls, shattered shields, flattened helms, cracked collarbones.

    Lucius held up his sword in a guard between him and Dhib. ¡°I¡¯m the only one who call it off. What will you do? Storm our camp where we can continue this? Or will you flee and abandon everything you have?¡±

    ¡°Not without your head, Vassish!¡± Dhib shouted, and grabbed a handle of the coiled steel. He gave it a flick, uncoiling the huge mass of sharpened metal. It swirled around him as he swung overhead, glittering like a metal ribbon. He gave it a flick, as though cast a fishing lure, and the lash of steel shot forward. The tip lanced at Lucius¡¯ unarmored chest, forcing him to leap back.

    My pupil found himself at a loss for words, watching the sword whip spin and swirl, dancing in a storm about the man. He had only his infantry blade, and was happy for it.

    Dhib laughed and broadened his stance, working the handle overhead as he stomped closer. ¡°I¡¯m Dhib the pirate killer! I¡¯ve slaughtered raiders for twenty years boy, longer than you¡¯ve been alive. My stigmata is unstoppable!¡± He flicked the weapon at Lucius once more, swinging it around the side.

    Lucius interposed his weapon, and the whip bent around regardless, the tip crashing in around the guard like the head of a flail. It bit him in the arm, drawing a line of blood, then recoiled back to the dance of steel. ¡°You sure about that?¡± he asked, and the moment the tip started to flow away from him, he darted in.

    The weapon was fluid, which had certain advantages, but it could only work in tension and rotation. The moment it moved away from him, there was no amount of explosive force Dhib could exert that would let him make it into an attack; not for that instant.

    Lucius gripped his sword in both hands, lunging forward with a cleave that slammed into the metal ribbon.

    The two weapons sparked, and Lucius¡¯ blade stopped an inch from Dhib¡¯s body. ¡°Weren¡¯t expecting that, were you?¡± the Giordanan asked, having reverted the steel to its normal rigidness. It spiraled around him like a bird cage, bowing against the force. However, he wasn¡¯t on a swaying deck, where the rock of waves made every step difficult to push through. Nor was he with allies ready to force Lucius away.

    The only reason Dhib even got the words out of his mouth was because Lucius took the time to plant his offhand on the pommel of his blade as he lifted it up. Then he slammed it through the man¡¯s chest. No slash would have ever gotten through the defense of steel, but the spiraling bands were not welded together or anything of the sort.

    Now, I might take the pleasure of applauding my pupil, for he was familiar with a sword whip prior to meeting Dhib. Not that he saw anyone ever use the thing, but it was kept as a relic in a certain monastery we visited years prior. It had ceremonial value, but even the monks said that it was a stupid weapon more likely to cut the user than the enemy, and one trivialized by a long enough spear.

    Lucius ran the man¡¯s chest through, cutting straight through the stigmata he had so preened himself with. When he held up his bloody sword after, a great war cry arose from his camp, and a hundred and fifty soldiers came charging through the gates and down the road to rout the Cynizia. Their foes turned tail and fled. Chaos chased them and they escaped with hardly more than the clothes on their backs and the weapons in their hands.

    But, they did escape with their lives by and large. Some were taken prisoner, and Lucius had them released with broken thumbs on their right hands and stripped to their trousers. They would surely skulk back to the Cynizia, but would be months before they were fit to fight, and by then Lucius would be gone. Such is the way of fighting wars; you can hardly ever make a man stand his ground and die. Much better to get them to surrender to you, if you have the advantage over them.

 1-25 - Lines of Credit

    When Medorosa heard the news and took in the scale of the loss that had occured on the north road, he sat with his head in his hands for a long time. The majority of the routed Cynizia had arrived along the southern coast a day starved and unfit to fight. When he finally lifted his head, he told everyone in his tent, what passed for a war council, ¡°Send the ships back to Puerto Vida and get more food.¡±

    After joining with Erdro Karakale, the Cynizia had evolved, taking on the appearance of a proper army. They still lacked uniforms, but the men had been stratified into ranks, and Medorosa had hand picked his sub-unit leaders. Now they, namely the defeated Almir and the representative he had used to meet with Erdro, surrounded a table with a map rolled out across it, carved pieces of wood representing various forces and speculations.

    The sycophant Medorosa had used at the Black Keep, whom Aisha had learned was named Omar, spoke up to ask, ¡°With what funds?¡±

    Medorosa rubbed his brow. Trickles of sweat were growing on him. ¡°Didn¡¯t we get a reward for recapturing that silver mine?¡±

    Omar nodded, ¡°Which we used to charter these ships to siege the port.¡±

    ¡°Then go to the slavers and negotiate a line of credit.¡±

    ¡°With what collateral?¡±

    ¡°Priority to buy the Vassish slaves we capture.¡±

    ¡°Medo-imo¡­¡± Almir said. The man¡¯s spirit had been crushed and he could no longer stand upright. ¡°The Vassish would never forgive something like that. If they knew their countrymen were slaves in our land. The war would never end.¡±

    Medorosa pulled his honor blade from his sash and slammed it into the wooden table. ¡°That is an issue we will have to face in the future! If we capture their treasury, we can pay off the credit without the need for slaves. I¡¯ll burn down their temple to the water goddess and take her coffers if I must!¡±

    Aisha unclenched her teeth and stepped forward. ¡°When did you become so stupid, Brother? You¡¯d bring the wrath of a goddess down on us for something so offensive! Vassermark is one thing, but Saphira(1) herself? I guess this is what you get for avoiding the temples like the plague growing up.¡±

    Medorosa threw up his hands at her. ¡°A foreign goddess! Shepherd will protect us. This is a problem for the future. We will cross that bridge when we reach it.¡±

    Omar said, ¡°If we reach it at all. Medorosa, if we send the ships back to get supplies, then how will we besiege Rackvidd? If they can simply ship in more food, we would never be able to pressure them.¡±

    Again, Medorosa threw his hands up. ¡°We always expected them to sail out, didn¡¯t we? I never said we¡¯d put them all to the sword. That would enrage their king at least as much as enslaving them, wouldn¡¯t it?¡±

    Omar rubbed the back of his neck and glanced to Almir for support, but found none. He even ventured to look at Aisha; but, she would have sooner bit his head off. ¡°Medo-imo, I am not so worried about them bringing food as I am that they will bring in another army. For as long as they hold the port, the most dangerous part of transporting troops is trivial. They can disembark drunk for all it will matter. With those walls up around the city, what do they have to fear?¡±

    Medorosa smiled and leaned back till he rested against one of the tent¡¯s support beams. ¡°Oh, Omar, don¡¯t you know we have nothing to fear about the walls? Why do you think I went to all that trouble to get Erdro? Trust me, if we want to get in through the walls, we will be able to. Now, do as I have said. Send the ships back, and we will march on Rackvidd. If we¡¯re lucky, we can catch a few foolish merchants on the way in.¡±

    Almir asked, ¡°What about Solhart? He can¡¯t cross the north road, he¡¯ll have to come here after us.¡±

    Again, her brother sat with elbows to knees. ¡°We¡¯ll have to do something about that. I can¡¯t imagine they¡¯ll want an open fight on the path, but we can¡¯t let them follow us all the way to the city. Raymi would just ride out and crush us¡­ I¡¯ll have to ask Erdro to block the way when we find the right chance. A bridge maybe¡­¡±

    Aisha took a deep breath to steady herself, and she asked, ¡°Brother, do you really think you can do this? Haven¡¯t you gotten your nose bloodied enough times to know better?¡±

    He scratched his chin and grinned. ¡°Aisha, I¡¯m the son of a merchant who simply knows how to fight, and I¡¯ve forced an empire into a corner. Every time we clash, I learn a little bit more and that makes the odds that much better every time. When you¡¯re on a hot streak, you don¡¯t stop.¡±

    ¡°No,¡± she said. ¡°You don¡¯t stop until you¡¯ve risked it all and lost it all, do you?¡±

    Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

    She didn¡¯t give him the opportunity to respond. She spun on her heels and left the tent. Her departure dissolved the meeting, as her brother had already given the orders. Along the coast of the South Sea, and in the foothills of the Ash Fall Mountains, the land was green and lush with palms and grass. The men had easily piled great heaps of fronds to revel in campfire blazes larger than themselves. It illumined the camp like orange daylight, with oily smoke belching to the skies. It blotted out the stars, hid from her the false signs of omens.

    ¡°Aisha-ima! Where are you going?¡± Almir called out as he came chasing after her. He grabbed her by the arm and spun her about so he could lean in and hiss, ¡°The Kalekare men can¡¯t be trusted. You need to stay on our side of the camp.¡±

    ¡°Let go,¡± she ordered, and ripped her arm free of him. ¡°Didn¡¯t you hear my brother? The ships have to depart. I¡¯m going to the ships. I can¡¯t think of a single reason for me to stay put here!¡±

    He scowled and waved his hand at the coast where ships and barges bobbed, moored to the rocks. ¡°Oh? So you can be at the mercy of mercenaries of the seas? These ships are one step away from the pirates they fight. All it takes is a change in the winds and they sniff their fortunes elsewhere. Why your brother trusts them is beyond me. It¡¯s a trust of coercion.¡±

    ¡°Stop acting like you control me, Almir. You are not my keeper.¡±

    The man sighed and his arms drooped to his sides. ¡°Aisha-ima, you know I¡¯m just trying to help.¡±

    She stepped in to speak directly to his face. ¡°Then you should have talked my brother out of this farce in the first place; before he had dreams of a fucking crown on his head. Now he thinks he can grab the reins of power, beyond anything a merchant could have ever done. He¡¯s reaching into a fire!¡±

    Almir frowned and straightened up to reassert his height over her. ¡°Sometimes a righteous man must.¡±

    He wasn¡¯t listening to her, wouldn¡¯t listen to her no matter what she said. That is a common facet of the human psyche; the last thing a person wants to do is admit they were wrong, that risks they took were undue. Almir had done as much to throw his lot in with Medorosa¡¯s dream as her brother had, and was committed. His own actions tied him to the journey like chains.

    She shoved him back and left him there in the camp. On to the beach she went, and for the smallest ship in the fleet. It was a fishing vessel dubbed The Sandskipper, though I¡¯ve never been able to figure out just what bird a sandskipper is supposed to be. As best as I can gather, it was a generic term for a number of small, migratory birds and the sailors didn¡¯t bother to differentiate between them. All that mattered was these so-called sandskippers had an eye for where fish schools were.

    ¡°Who¡¯s the captain here?¡±

    An older man, missing a few fingers apparently from bites, held up a smoldering pipe and said, ¡°That be me.¡±

    ¡°I am Aisha Canta, Medorosa¡¯s sister. How long will you be to ready for sail? I must depart at once.¡±

    The captain kicked his first mate awake. The fat man had fallen asleep next to the fire, drooling and inviting insects into his mouth like an oasis if they could avoid the smoke. ¡°Set sail for what?¡± the captain asked as the younger man awoke. ¡°You don¡¯t look like you¡¯re going to try your hand at fighting. I doubt Medorosa would stoop to assassinations or something, so¡­¡±

    ¡°Trade negotiations,¡± she said as the first mate rubbed his eyes and sat up.

    The captain puffed on his pipe a few times, stoking the tobacco to a yellow ember. ¡°We¡¯re not very large, you know. Can¡¯t bring much by way of supplies back.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s fine. We won¡¯t be the ones bringing anything back. That¡¯s part of the negotiations. When can we leave? I don¡¯t know if you noticed this, but our army just doubled in size and they need food.¡±

    The first mate scratched his head, fighting with knots in his curly hair as he read the captain¡¯s expression. ¡°Less than a candle¡¯s time,¡± he answered.

    ¡°Well, let¡¯s not keep the lady waiting,¡± the captain said and rose to start untying the ship. A candle¡¯s time turned out to be about a quarter of an hour, for they bought supremely cheap candles to see by. It wasn¡¯t long at all before she was wading across the rocky depths to clamber aboard.

    All the while, Erdro Karakale watched from afar. The ships stretched across the shore, from the Cynizia in the east, to the mountain men in the west, and he had put his tent right at the boundary. A bold move, but also protective; the Cynizia would not be able to quarrel with his men without first quarreling with him.

    He didn¡¯t stop her flight. What lured him from his seat was the arrival of her brother shortly after, and he was the one to calmly inform Medorosa of where she had gone, much to his amusement.

    For, as soon as The Sandskipper, was out to sea in the dark, drifting across placid water and out to the open sky, she told the captain, ¡°take me to Rackvidd.¡±

    The ship was both small, and slow. They could have unfurled more sail, but in the dark of night with only the moon to see by, the captain knew better than to fly across the sea. From his seat at the rudder, he scratched his white whiskers and asked, ¡°Rackvidd? You sure this isn¡¯t an assassination trip?¡±

    Aisha took a seat near the middle of the ship, leaning against the railing and folding her arms while she waited for the bottom of her dress to dry out. ¡°What you think it is doesn¡¯t matter. I¡¯ll make sure you¡¯re compensated. Now are you going to continue prying into strategy?¡±

    ¡°No, I suppose I won¡¯t. Rackvidd¡¯s not going to turn me away, so long as we get there before the rest of this gaggle of ships.¡±

    The first mate collapsed onto the prow, almost dangling off the front as he watched the reflected moonlight dance. ¡°Going to be a long night getting there though.¡±

    ¡°Just don¡¯t crash, alright?¡±

    ¡°We won¡¯t,¡± the captain said, and he didn¡¯t look back as Medorosa began to scream.

    <hr>

    1. Name updated from Aquaria

 1-26 - The Godling Of The Crypt

    Lucius found Medorosa¡¯s delaying strategy half a week after his victory on the north road. Scouts had ranged forward and brought the news back already, but he had to ride out and see it for himself to believe it. The coastal road had not been planned so much as it had evolved. Without any master architect¡¯s hand, at times it looped around meager foothills and other times it cleaved into solid stone. Occasionally, it ran right through a pinch between cliff and the water below with hardly room to drive a carriage.

    Medorosa¡¯s men had managed to collapse the entire road like a landslide, smashing the stone down to the waters below and leaving nothing but the most jagged of cracked rocks in a useless slope down to a wet demise. The gap was longer than an animal barn, far too wide to be circumvented. He didn¡¯t dismount, he merely bowed his head and closed his eyes as he turned over the facts and options.

    A regular man would have been bested here, for there were not so many passes through the Ash Fall Mountains as one might have liked. To go into the wilderness risked more than treading over volcanic glass, but to fall through the ground itself; into sinkholes or oozing lava but half-cooled. That presumes as well that one could keep their direction without getting lost.

    Regular men were not educated personally by me however.

    Fortunately for him however, he was not alone. True, he had maimed his second-in-command, and Tyrion lapsed in and out of consciousness as he rode atop his horse. He had better allies than the Vassish though.

    While he was trying to take measurements of the gap to construct a rope bridge, salvation came to him, of a kind. Lucky too; had he made his bridge, he would have been cursed with confusion and suspicion as to how he had known the construction of such a bridge. His plight had already been espied by the one watching over him and salivating. Fat with Giordanan corpses left out for him, Golden had been more than happy to give some extra effort, and flown ahead.

    A priest emerged on the far side of the gap. Head to toe in grey robes and his head shaved, he held up a walking stick and called out to Lucius by saying, ¡°You must be the ones they tried to stop!¡±

    Lucius turned to face the man, shading his eyes from the midday sun. Behind him, the soldiers had begun to prep food and eat. He had yet to give any form of order about where to march, so they had all figured to get to boiling their rice and chewing strips of jerky and so on. It almost gave him privacy as he called back, ¡°If it was a bunch of scoundrels calling themselves the Cynizia, then yeah. Who might you be?¡±

    The man scowled and gestured at the damage with his staff. ¡°Was the king o¡¯ the Black Keep that did this, but he might have been with your Cynizia. Never seen so many armed men at once. The name¡¯s Charles, I¡¯m something like a groundskeeper you might say. Looks to me like you could use some help though.¡±

    ¡°Are you able to get us across?¡±

    The man shrugged and nodded. ¡°I reckon I can get some of the young ones to hang a bridge down off the side here. Good trees up top to tie off against. Maybe it won¡¯t be the biggest bridge, but it¡¯ll do. For a price.¡±

    ¡°And what price would that be?¡±

    ¡°Come on over and I¡¯ll tell you.¡±

    Lucius had little enough choice in the matter, and the cliff route wasn¡¯t impossible for a lone man to get across, so he summoned some of his subordinates and delegated their responsibilities while he would be away. Entrenchment began by habit, and some fortifications were put down at the rear of the line while he clambered over the slope. It was slow and tedious, and it cut his fingers to pieces. More than once, a stone broke free beneath his foot and went crashing to the sea; he never went with it though.

    The old man offered him a hand up as he swung a foot up onto the road. The grip, though his hand was withered and wrinkled, met him strong as iron. He flopped onto the road, panting for breath and glistening with sweat. Before he could regain himself, the man told him, ¡°The name¡¯s Charles¡­ Charles the Crypt Keeper. I have been told that you¡¯re not afraid of the old magics in this world.¡±

    The ensuing offer trapped Lucius as surely as the cliff chasm had. I shant go into some of the details, for reasons which will become obvious in due time; but, Charles was a priest of a very old sect belonging to the Shepherd, and he had long since been charged with the safeguarding of a certain crypt in a certain mountain valley. The means of finding it, I will not pen here, nor anywhere.

    While a clever reader might think they can locate where that road collapse was, and in doing so determine that the crypt had to have been within a day¡¯s journey thereof, let me assure you in the last century, every exposed cliff on the coastal road has been destroyed and rebuilt. Sometimes it was volcanic collapse, others it was determined bombardment from sea. And those that survived incidental causes, I destroyed myself.

    This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

    Regardless, Lucius knew he had to get to Rackvidd faster than Medorosa could account for, and the only outstretched hand was of the crypt keeper¡¯s, so he clasped it and marched into that darkness alone. Charles took him away from the Vassish army, through the natural obscurement and into the faux mausoleum. I say faux, not because the bodies were fake, but because the bodies had been interred there to disguise the truth of the matter. Beyond all that, the priests had taken down a false wall and exposed the staircase down to the root of the mountain.

    Now, I shall endeavor to make up for my omitted detail, for if someone has made it this far in their thieving quest, there¡¯s little else to confound them.

    Steam. What characterized those depths the most was the steam. Lucius had descended well below the level of the sea floor, but the cavern had not flooded. Any water that intruded through the aquifers had to contend with the volcanic heat that gripped the stone. All the moisture was driven to a gaseous state, whereupon it blasted up through cracks and fissures no larger than a piece of hair, baking the dark chamber.

    When they took the false wall down, cold, by comparison, air began to flow in and gave the surface a chill. Soon, beads of water ran down to the floor like the walls themselves sweated. A great stench of sulfur was disturbed by this process, giving such revolt that my pupil nearly had to stop and retch. It was his fortune that the only smell was sulfur; that the stench of rotting corpses had ended some centuries ago.

    The room he entered was nothing other than a mausoleum, just as the falsehood above. The bodies were of my race however; the soliedar. Very few remnants of them survived the great scouring the divines wrought upon us, and had that mausoleum been in any territory but Shepherd¡¯s, it too would have been crushed to dust. As I have earlier mentioned; she is the least odious of the divines.

    Two other things had residence within those sacred walls, one of which was why Lucius¡¯ help had been so desired. Even as he ventured in, one creeping step after the next and with lantern in his left hand, sword in his right, the priests had already begun their side of the deal. The workers were casting down ropes and fashioning boards and securing the makings of a bridge. Some few of the Vassish fancied themselves engineers, and they were hoisted up to cooperate with the affair while the more nimble men crossed over the gap to start a camp. The process was slow, but not stopped merely because of Lucius¡¯ absence.

    He had to pass through several phases of construction to find the problem. At the foot of the steps, the stone had been crudely carved out. Hacked away with pickaxes such that cracks and fissures spiderwebbed the whole structure. Space had been of utmost importance, and every inch taken up by golden urns too heavy to be moved. Robbers would have rejoiced and dashed the contents across the floor to get at the gilding, and likely not given a second thought to the bones inside.

    Lucius passed that all by. The door to the next region was as the priest Charles had described; a splintered thing of fragile wood jammed in the frame. He put his shoulder to it and forced his way inside. This was where the keep had been intentional, though not always intended for bodies. The stone had been smoothed and polished. Pillars of stone had been fashioned into the middle of rooms and prevented the crush of stone from flattening it all. There had once been an effort to carve the stone filigree, but it had not been completed. Left behind were crude transitions from stone knotwork to raw marble.

    Burial urns filled the space here as well, stacked upon one another and covering up the ancient tapestries and mosaics. The centuries of steam had bleached the color from the threads, but the mosaics retained their vibrancy. Beautiful depictions of the cities of the soliedar were down there, along with historical accounts and scientific principles.

    Sadly, my pupil had not the liberty to inspect them, not while his foe sat within the treasure vault. The last door of the mausoleum was primarily of iron, but coated with gold to protect against metallic decay. There had been a locking mechanism to it, but the friction of pins and gears had worn through that shell and exposed the inner material. No amount of repair¨C not from any engineer they could find¨C would have been able to restore it once damaged, so the caretakers had long ago opted to leave the door unlocked. Thus, Lucius was able to cover his hands with his cape to protect them, and shove it open.

    Therein, he stepped foot into the treasure room of the ages. He was not confronted by gold, for such petty wealth had been in abundance in those days. Indeed, he had been surrounded by it already. It was not some secret of science nor magic, for such things were always shared openly. What the ancient soliedar had hidden away from the world, from even the gods, was nothing other than the core of the mountain.

    The crystalized heart of a giant sat upon its pedestal. As large as a carriage and all through the glistening color of ruby. It soaked in the heat of the geyser fissures, drawing the water from the air and returning it in streams that puddled around mossy masses, grown thick with the very same elements that enriched the ash soil above.

    In the right hands, such as my own, that gem could have torn apart the world.

    Had it been so empowered however, the light would have blinded Lucius the moment he opened the door. No, what he found was diminished, emaciated, a shadow of greatness.

    A leech sat upon it, suckling the stone and drinking the water. It gnawed at it with needle-like teeth that shattered with every bite. Blood dribbled from its worm-like mouth, and barely a speck of damage would be inflicted from its bite. And yet, that was enough for it to steal some of its power; enough to heal itself and bite again.

    For the second time in his life, Lucius had to confront a godling without my help.

 1-27 - First Arrival In Rackvidd

    ¡°Fish! What¡¯s it bloody look like to you?¡± Captain Ayaz, the captain of the Sandskipper, said. He spat as he spoke, throwing his hands between the dock official and the measly pile of seaweed they had hauled out of the sea that morning. There were some fish in there, technically, but nothing more than bait fish he should have been ashamed to show.

    The morning sun had barely warmed the water, though many other fishermen were already returning to toss their wares to the market like coal to a fire. The docks of Rackvidd has a peculiar smell of half-decayed fish guts to them at all times, and the sailors just trampled through it without a thought.

    The official frowned. He had a trimmed moustache he kept waxed into a perpetual frown. He was Vassish too, so in a way it looked like he had painted his face up and was supposed to be in a Giordanan circus rather than checking customs and collecting tax. ¡°Not quite enough fish to make a living on though, is it? I doubt you could even get a flagon of wine.¡±

    ¡°Is it a crime in Rackvidd to be bad at throwing nets? If so, you¡¯d have to lock up half these salt bladders!¡±

    The official shook his head. ¡°There¡¯s no hull in this ship, is there?¡± He peered around, looking for somewhere an illicit parcel might be hidden. Very little was forbidden from being brought into Rackvidd, but there was a list. A few drugs from foreign countries made the cut, intentionally transporting parasites, and of course; weapons. Rackvidd, being an occupied city, took the threat of revolt quite seriously and if a citizen wanted to own their own sword, the governor would have them on a list for it.

    ¡°Hold, you¡¯re asking if there¡¯s a hold, you northern idiot! Hulls are the walls, and of course I¡¯ve got that. I¡¯d be sunk without them. Who put you in charge? Eh? Let me guess, a piece of paper from someone who¡¯s never been here and has never met you!¡±

    His eyes rolled. ¡°Oh for Saphira¡¯s(1) sake. Pay your talon and get away, would you? Who are these two anyways?¡± he asked, and gestured at Aisha and the first mate. Then, he produced a ledger, licked his grimy finger to flip to the right page, and went to write it down.

    Ayaz turned to the two of them. ¡°That¡¯s my son, Hamza¡± he said when he pointed at the first mate. ¡°And this is my niece, Emra, come to use the libraries they say you¡¯ve got here.¡±

    ¡°Libraries?¡± the man asked, pausing in his scribbling.

    Ayaz shrugged. ¡°The water goddess is about her mysteries and sciences, isn¡¯t she? I was told that teaching is in her commandments.¡±

    The official stroked his moustache out of habit, the waxed thing certainly didn¡¯t need it. ¡°She is the goddess of wisdom, yes; a good deal more useful than death.¡±

    Hamza spoke under his breath, ¡°She¡¯s also the goddess of contracts and keeping your word.¡± He had intended it to be only loud enough for Aisha to hear, but the sneer on the man said otherwise.

    ¡°Have you put us down or what?¡± Ayaz demanded.

    The official snapped his ledger shut. ¡°Your talon.¡± A coin went spinning through the air, and the man snatched it. After a moment to inspect the size, he nodded and put it into his purse. After, he let them off and moved to the next ship, which may well have been smugglers.

    ¡°Thank you,¡± Aisha said, putting her hand to Ayaz¡¯s arm as much to steady herself as she disembarked as to convey her feelings. Unfortunately for her, the wooden dock was queasy and poorly constructed. It moved nearly as much as a ship under her feet.

    ¡°Aye, Emra,¡± he said with a wink. ¡°We¡¯ll be here¡­ gathering intelligence as it were. Figure we can slip off when the time is right. Or when you show up and say the time is now.¡±

    ¡°If things get hairy, think of yourselves first,¡± Aisha said.

    The man scoffed. ¡°I couldn''t dream of doing that to ya, and you know that.¡±

    She pressed her lips tight, hung her head, and left the two sailors at the docks. She headed into the heart of Rackvidd; the gateway to the southern sea. Unfortunately for her, she missed the grand sight of the rising sun hitting the great bulwark along the east of the city. If one is at just the right angle, the hidden mosaic of a dragon comes out in the stonework of the wall to dance and threaten any approaching fleet. The stones, having been quarried from adjacent mountains, are only of the slightest hue different, and the pattern can hardly be seen after tea time.

    She was instead confronted by the thriving throngs of merchants and workers, by the handover of food and goods as voluminous as the riptide back to the ships to send them out across the world. Plenty of visitors deemed those roads as unfit for a woman, but that of course is willful blindness to the women filling the streets. Housewives and kitchen scullions were the most plentiful purchasers, be it of textiles or imported foodstuffs; but, there were maids and spoiled merchant wives too. Those drew grifters to them like flies to shit, and necessitated at least one strong guard by their side, which of course only contributed more to the suffocating press of bodies.

    All this applied to the merchant streets, where stalls could be put up, blankets put down, and where the lust for silver was strongest. This of course was surrounded by cutthroat alleys like so many cracks from a fissure. Aisha knew better than to push through that tide. Even if she made it to the temples, or to the palace proper, she¡¯d do so missing more than just her purse.

    This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

    There was another road, arguably with worse company. Just two years prior, the Vassish had completed a military asset. By torch and axe, they had demolished every building in the way of a highway from palace to docks, and another from palace to the main gate. The stones had been cut and set, like bands of white bolted across the chaotic city, but one fringed by black ash still.

    Due to it being a military road, it had a military patrol. The blue-cloaked men of Felix von Raymi took their turns marching up and down those paths, thumping their spears and spitting tobacco into the gutter. They weren¡¯t the only ones on the road, some of the locals used it to traverse the city. To Aisha, she could only assume they were locals, for they had the pale faces of Vassish themselves, despite not being soldiers. A great mass of common folk from the north went about their lives with but a few exchanges of nods with the peacekeepers.

    It only took a block for her to be stopped. Two thick and scarred men boxed her in and looked her over. One had taken a blow to the head and developed a lazy eye that stared only at the inside of his helm, while the other man seemed to have war paint tattooed across his face in the manner of Skaldish barbarians. The tattooed man took charge of speaking, and said, ¡°Alright, you¡¯ll have to move along. This is a respectable part of town. No place for vagrants and tramps, woman or not.¡±

    Aisha drew herself up to look down her nose at them as she crossed her arms. ¡°I have business at the palace. Is this not the best way to get there? Would you force me to go down among that rabble?¡±

    That gave them a laugh, and the guard said, ¡°Slim chance of that. If you¡¯re going to lie, you should at least choose something believable.¡±

    The one with the lazy eye grinned. ¡°Well, they do say the more audacious the lie, the more likely you are to dupe someone with it. Don¡¯tcha know?¡±

    ¡°Oh, who says that? You¡¯re making it up as much as she is!¡±

    Aisha cut in. ¡°Bards say that. Bards and poets like myself. I¡¯m a temple trained singer. Now, I must be going. Time is of the essence, and I lost enough of it on that creeping raft he called a boat. Get out of my way.¡±

    The tattooed man sneered and scratched his chin. ¡°Lord Raymi is in no need of maids nor scullions. You go to the palace, dirty as you are, you¡¯ll get laughed at. Now come on, get out of here!¡±

    Aisha¡¯s facade of haughtiness transitioned to anger. ¡°I am not a maid! I am not looking for work! I have business there you fucking idiot. Now are you going to let me pass or am I going to have to scream that two Vassish invaders are taking advantage of me? Then we¡¯ll see what happens, won¡¯t we?¡±

    Both guards made a show of looking around. Some bystanders watched, but none of the three of them could spot a single Giordanan. He had just turned back to her with an exaggerated shrug, when a distant bell began banging out a rhythm. It seemed vaguely musical, but the message within the code was clear enough to the guards. Their heads shot up like dogs hearing a whistle. ¡°Fleet on the horizon.¡±

    The guard with the lazy eye shoved the other forward. ¡°I¡¯ll report back, you report forward. Go!¡± Aisha forgotten entirely, the guards scattered down the road, one back to the palace and other to the guardhouse nearest the docks.

    She kept her head down and picked up her pace. The more that people heard the alarm, the quicker people seemed to move. Some poured out of doors and windows, squinting in the direction of the noise, while others clutched their goods to their chest and went running home to bolt their doors shut. She heard cries of ¡°Pirates!¡± and ¡°Aillesterran dogs!¡±, ¡°Foreign, money-grubbing carp!¡±, ¡°They think they can run us out of here!¡±, and ¡°This is our city! We¡¯ll damn well keep it!¡±

    The words clumped together inside her, forming a knot that grew tighter with every person who assumed it was some run of the mill raid. She knew who it was, and that she had been the one to bring them there; the Cynizia.

    Unfortunately for her, the steps of the palace were as inhospitable to her presence as the road had been. The political heart of Rackvidd looked like a great brick had been sat in the middle, with pinched windows no bigger than arrow slits, and all the decorations shoved up to the roof. Statues of people and gargoyles loomed out from every ledge, backed by fanciful shingles of colored clay and at times brass. The architects had taken an artistic approach to protecting the walls, and surrounded it with interconnected stone walls no higher than a man¡¯s waist, with strips of grass between. There were enough steps and slopes to make it easy to walk over the squat fortifications, but impossible to roll a battering ram up to. Sadly, technology would soon make the inconvenience worthless.

    Armor clad soldiers were marshaling into ranks amid the blaring of horns. Some other division of them circled the perimeter, but the differentiation was lost on Aisha. All she understood was half a dozen of them swarmed on her the moment she set foot in the courtyard. One of them barked at her, ¡°This is no time for visiting the palace. Begone with you!¡±

    ¡°I need to speak with Felix von Raymi!¡± she protested, and over their iron shoulders she saw the main gates of the palace swing open and a great procession emerged to join the army.

    The guard sneered. ¡°Can¡¯t you hear the alarms? Now ain¡¯t the time, wench. Come back tomorrow, if we ain¡¯t at war.¡±

    She tried to press forward, and was shoved back. ¡°It¡¯s about the war you thickskulled idiot!¡±

    Lord Raymi¡¯s voice boomed across the courtyard, far beyond the capacity of human lungs. ¡°Men! Today you¡¯re earning your pay. Marshall to the walls! We¡¯re going to put that battery to the test!¡±

    Some three hundred soldiers stamped their spears, and shouted back, ¡°Aye, Sir!¡±

    The guards shoved her off to the side, to the stoop of some merchant¡¯s house across from the palace. The soldiers began to march south to the port, but this was not enough to stop Aisha. When the chance came, when he was close enough, she shouted, ¡°Lord Raymi, I have news from Solhart!¡±

    His head snapped over and the moment he saw her red hair, he tugged on the reins of his horse to trot over. He had given some quick commands to his underlings, and came to peer at Aisha.

    The guard who had been holding her back bent to one knee. ¡°My apologies m¡¯lord. She showed up just now. We¡¯re moving her along.¡±

    Lord Raymi held up his hand to silence the man. ¡°I know you; you¡¯re the Canta boy¡¯s sister. My condolences for your loss.¡±

    ¡°My brother isn¡¯t dead. He made it back, and now he has an army coming here!¡±

    Lord Raymi took a moment to think, and ordered, ¡°Bring her with me, and tie her hands.¡±

    <hr>

    1. Name updated from Aquaria

 1-28 - A Lesson In Betrayal

    I loathe godlings.

    I despise them the way a shepherd despises wolves.

    They aren¡¯t the most dangerous things one can encounter from the other side. Indeed, when they first arrive they are quite pathetic creatures, the same way only an ant or a worm can fit through a crack in a wall. But, once inside they gorge, and they grow, and then they can become true monsters.

    The aberrant salamander Lucius encountered would have grown, perhaps as much as the dragons of old that could raze entire cities to the ground. The age of men might well have seen a clash between the divines had it gone unchecked. But it had made the mistake of lodging itself somewhere it had been noticed. It had the misfortune of meeting my pupil, who was already wise to the ways of those from the other side.

    There, in that forgotten vault with arches of stone like ribs overhead and the glowing heart of a giant in the center, the godling knew it had been caught. There was no escape for it, for when it had squirmed in through the fissures in the ground, down through the very world itself, it had been little more than the nucleus of an idea. Now it was fat and filled with fangs that hungered.

    It lunged off the arcane rock and dove for Lucius.

    He dropped his lantern, the light was hardly needed, and pulled his shield off his back. The engagement had been long, and the leap great, enough for him to evade. The godling pounced on the ground he had stood upon, and whirled to catch him.

    Lucius sliced, cutting through the thing¡¯s lips. Blood splattered as it recoiled and shook its serpentine head. It arched its back, making ivory quills dance. When he hacked once more, his steel bit into the godling¡¯s forelimb; an enormous and wrinkled limb as though an elephant had a human¡¯s arm. It didn¡¯t screech in pain, but blood dribbled free when Lucius jumped back.

    It stomped knuckles on the ground, sounding like a crash of rock on rock. Years of gripping the giant¡¯s heart had mutated the graspers into dull claws, but each limb had the strength of an ox. A dozen sets of eyes blinked open along its neck; onyx orbs with no iris nor pupil. The roar it let out was akin to an orchestra suddenly snapping their strings and subsequently murdering their conductor.

    Then they were in a brawl.

    A brute hammering of fist to shield and body, sword to arm and belly. Lucius sliced three eyes blind. It burst his shield in kind. He broke its fangs and split its jaw. It ripped his armor with horrid claw.

    Blood blackened ancient moss and sand. For every blow he dealt, he took one too. For every wound he healed, the godling did too. The magic of the beast was thick through its body, and loathe to change. It held onto its form as a boulder holds onto its place.

    But Lucius kept pushing, for he knew it would tip. Even when it bit onto his hand and swallowed his arm, flaying the skin and the flesh down to the bone, he stabbed it through and through. He pierced the vestigial organs and ripped the half-formed lungs until the beast¡¯s blood flowed like burning tar over him.

    It fell off of him, twitching and screeching, unable to fight back until it had healed. So too did Lucius have to heal. His stigmata had been stoked into a frenzy by the godling¡¯s blood, like pure air forced into a furnace. Without even losing consciousness, the muscles and sinew of his flesh grew down his bones and returned him his arm.

    The godling began to panic for it had never imagined it would meet a human such as him. It was not out of options however. With a second set of arms, which it had kept couched to its belly and could hardly hold up a rock, it grabbed hold of the long spine quills emerging from its hind flesh and ripped two free. And then the beast too was armed, holding them like spears.

    To think of those quills as mere ivory would be a shortcoming of imagination. The pygmy elephants of Aillesterra have polluted the public perception of what ivory is capable of, for their handlers grind away the tips to blunt caps. What the godling produced was more akin to a porcupine¡¯s defenses, but thicker than a man¡¯s arm.

    Lucius had to dance around the vault, leaping and jumping back as he tried to parry the thrusts away. The heat had begun to put a delirium into him barely kept in check by his stigmata. His ability was nothing more than a bilge pump on a ship, fighting a storm, and there were limits to what it could do.

    This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

    He had always been sharp with his mind though; something he developed as a cripple and never lost.

    The beast had a weakness yet. Half-formed as it was, it had only been so fast by virtue of using its arms. Its legs were stubby and required the support of its serpentine tail to balance it. With both spines pointed at him, he could hardly close the gap, but he had another plan.

    Working his way back round the vault, he returned to the iron gate entrance, and there he snatched up the fallen lantern once more. The burning cage of oil was flung at it. The weapons were interposed, but the lantern shattered regardless; spraying it with a film of oil.

    The fire soon chased after it.

    The conflagration blinded the creature and seared skin and eyes. It thrashed so wildly that it broke the stone it stood upon; but it did not see Lucius¡¯s approach.

    He leapt up with sword in both hands and stabbed it into the godling¡¯s throat. With his weight and his strength both, he dragged the steel down, down through neck and shoulders, chest and gut. The burning oil scattered across him, searing his flesh as the godling¡¯s boiling blood splattered across him.

    His screams of agony echoed out through the halls.

    The crypt keeper and his subordinates heard it and prayed for salvation, but no other scream came. Not Lucius¡¯ death, nor the conquest of the godling.

    Golden preened himself and departed shortly before the priests worked up the courage to descend. The most ghastly of corpses greeted them. Skin burned away entirely. Eyes sticking out like opals. The beating of his heart could be seen by the throbbing of his arteries as he laid next to the corpse of the godling.

    ¡°Water¡­ no, make that wine,¡± he asked, his voice cracking through his exposed teeth.

    Charles the crypt keeper broke down in tears and held his hands up to shout prayers to his goddess.

    By Your mercy we pray not for strength but for the descent of your disciple. For every flock needs a guard dog.(1)

    Lucius snarled, as much as his burnt face would move. ¡°For a heretic, you sure like your scripture. Don¡¯t call me a dog.¡±

    The priest, who by orthodoxy should have confessed the location of the tomb, grabbed hold of his chest. ¡°You were delivered to us by an emissary of our goddess. How could you say you were not sent to us in our time of need? And your pay! What a pittance; a day of honest labor to build something anew. My friend, my savior, this is a wondrous day.¡±

    ¡°I want your wine, not your praise.¡±

    The old man laughed. ¡°Yes, yes of course. You shall eat and drink till your stomach bursts.¡± And so, he put his shawl around Lucius¡¯ chest and picked him up. He had shrivelled; much of his bodily water boiled off till his muscles were like ligaments. As the two of them exited the mausoleum of the soliedar, a pair of masons leapt to patch the false wall anew and hide it in the shadows.

    A veritable festival collected around him from the scant hamlet that lived on the slopes about that forgotten keep. All manner of luxuries--as they saw them--were given up to him. Bottles of wine collected from half the world. Dried figs and oranges and delicate slices of fatty sarkuteri. Objectively speaking, it was a meager feast for a Vassish nobleman, but even in my years, it is rare to taste praises so freely and honestly given.

    T¡¯was a shame for him that it should be so soon spoiled.

    He was back on his feet before he returned to the Vassish encampment, his body rejuvenated and restored, Not even a scar spoke to his troubles, just the fatigue in his eyes.

    What awaited him was but half, and the sickly half at that. The auxiliaries and the freed slaves, and a contingent of voluntaries to hold the road. The sickly Lieutenant Alf, aforementioned and afore-ignored, met him on the western side of the chasm. His counterpart, Tyrion, had not perished by Lucius¡¯ hand, but it had become a toss up of who was less fit to command. Alf could hardly speak, constantly interrupted by coughs, gags, and slurring. The man fought terribly with his decaying body and mind, and forced from his lips the words, ¡°Lieutenant Tyrion has taken command in your absence and gone to harry the Cynizia. He took the veterans and means to crush them like a hammer against the walls of Rackvidd.¡±

    Lucius immediately regretted leaving the insubordinate man alive.

    <hr>

    1. Liturgy of the Wolf

    On the journey from our birth to Your embrace, we can but tread the stone to dirt and from the dirt wring sustenance. In the shadows of giants, we seek Your light as the measure of our actions.

    We know however that this is not Your path, but ours. That this is the journey of mortality. The shadows of the world hold evil, made by man and more. We know that every flock of sheep draws in the wolves.

    And so we tarry on our path, we labor with the stone and fashion spears. On this journey, ¡®tis better a sword than a cloak, for we may suffer the cold but will not suffer the foe.

    Lo! But beware the great wolves, the fallen kin of Roma that eat the light. By Your mercy we pray not for strength but for the descent of your disciple. For every flock needs a guard dog.

 1-29 - The Battery

    ¡°This is absurd!¡± Aisha declared, though no one listened to her. The moment ropes had been fastened about her wrists and a lead put to the hands of a soldier, she had ceased to be a civilian, let alone a valuable informant. She was a prisoner. Worse than that, she was a Giordanan prisoner, and Giordanans were attacking. Naturally, none of the Vassish wanted to listen to her.

    I do not mean to give the impression that Lord Raymi was a dumb or careless man. We had in fact determined him to be one of the shrewdest officers Vassermark had to offer, and also conveniently dispatched when we went looking for a target. The problem was his age. A recent grandfather, some fifty years of age, he had gray in his hair, and too many decades of discipline to pivot quickly with new information. Not without first securing himself the way he knew how.

    That day, securing himself meant getting to the sea bulwark and ascertaining the situation himself, and he went straight to the battery to do so. Nothing Aisha could say to him would change him from that course, so he paid her no heed save to have her brought into the network of tents that had been quietly set atop the walls. The canvas has been colored just the same as the stone, hard to make out from the sea, and housed the greatest expense of King Arandall¡¯s coffers.

    Sixteen Ley Cannons, each handmade by confidential artisans, sat between the crenelations of the bulwark. Between every pair, a barrel of lead shot. Behind every crosshairs, a fresh quiver of bolts. Here is not appropriate for the full explanation of their function, as it is enough to know that their effective range for penetrating hulls was over three hundred feet.(1)

    They were the hidden spears of Rackvidd, pointed at the arrayed armada. ¡°Seems they¡¯re keeping their distance,¡± Lord Raymi said as one of his subordinates ran a small telescope over to him. ¡°They don¡¯t look Aillesterran.¡±

    Aisha needed no ocular aid to identify them. ¡°I told you,¡± she said, trying to get her head over the shoulder of her guard to make eye contact with the commander. ¡°That¡¯s my brother. He¡¯s started an uprising. He threw the garrison out of Puerto Faro and has come here!¡±

    Raymi frowned and stared into her eyes, judging her truthfulness, until another of his subordinates threw open the flap of the battery tent and saluted, fist to heart. ¡°Sir, some of their ships are mingling with the fishermen.¡±

    ¡°Raise the chain,¡± he ordered, then thought better of it. He stuck his head out between the crenelations and bellowed with the might of his stigmata, ¡°Raise the chain! Seal the harbor!¡±

    Aisha tried to step forward, but was stopped by the mailed hand of her guard. ¡°You have to quarantine those fishermen. They¡¯ll have hidden themselves among them.¡±

    Lord Raymi stepped back and curled up his white mustache into a scowl. ¡°She makes a good point unfortunately. You there, centurion, gather your men and secure the harbor. I don¡¯t want any of them to get into the city.¡±

    ¡°At once, sir,¡± the man said, snapping to attention with a click of his heels and a pounded fist to his chest. It was as perfect as a machine. I couldn¡¯t help but laugh.

    All the men of the tent spun, eyes searching for me as hands went to swords and to spears. I had to hold up my hands submissively and say, ¡°My apologies, Lord Raymi. I should have introduced myself to you first.¡± I had taken a seat at the far side of the tent, beyond the furthest cannon and within the flickering shadows. I had been simply a step outside of their realm of perception, and wrapped up as I was in my robes, I hadn¡¯t been particularly noticeable.

    ¡°Who is this man?¡± Raymi barked out, and the artillery sergeant leapt to the front. ¡°Sir, he introduced himself as one of the King¡¯s engineers! Engineer Al.¡± I liked the artillery sergeant. He wasn¡¯t a traditional soldier, but a scholar given command of the weapons. Of course, any simpleton could eventually work out a parabolic trajectory, but he was smart enough to do it on the fly in his head. His calculations were like magic to the soldiers underneath him, and it made up for his pot belly and the cowardice that literally sweated through his palms.

    Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

    The answer did not satisfy Lord Raymi, and I feared punishment would arise for the poor man, so I reached into my robe and produced my talisman, that is, I revealed my badge of office as one of King Arandall¡¯s engineers. It was an old thing, rubbed smooth by the passage of years on the road, but the bronze casting could still be made out. As always, I had an inkling fear I had grabbed the wrong badge, it would be very bad indeed to show my identity as an Aillesterran while Aillesterran pirates were attacking, but I tossed it over to the soldier.

    Raymi snatched it from the air. ¡°What kind of heirloom relic is this?¡± he asked with a sneer.

    ¡°Not an heirloom,¡± I said, ¡°Those kinds of badges get hunted down and melted after death. It¡¯s mine. I just got it a very long time ago,¡± I said, and pulled from my hood a lock of gray hair. ¡°I should think securing the harbor is still your priority though?¡±

    Raymi spun on the centurion, who saluted once more and ran out of the tent.

    ¡°He can tell you,¡± Aisha said, though it seemed to pain her to say it. ¡°He was there at Puerto Faro when the revolt happened.¡±

    Raymi swung a hand through the air and marched over to me. ¡°Revolt or pirates, it doesn¡¯t matter. Rackvidd will not fall under my watch. I¡¯ll be damned if even a single civilian is killed.¡±

    I sighed. ¡°With all due respect, if they have already made it inside the walls, then it is too late for that. That girl there is walking proof that Rackvidd has already been infiltrated. She¡¯s right too; you¡¯re facing a revolt that has moved nearly as quickly as news of its existence has moved. How would a city such as Rackvidd know to close its gates to the locals in that case?¡±

    ¡°Impossible. She said it was her brother leading this so-called revolt. I saw him die with my own eyes. I watched his mercenaries lay down their lives to protect his corpse.¡±

    ¡°Sir!¡± one of the cannoneers shouted. ¡°The armada is encircling us. It looks like they¡¯re trying to blockade the western passage.¡± That maneuver was more of an insult than a tactic. Vassermark communicated largely by carrier pigeon, and had more than a few stashed away within the fortress keep to call for aid. Cutting off sea access did nothing to silence the Vassish; but Medorosa understood the importance to morale for fighters to be doing things.

    Especially things that didn¡¯t involve getting them killed. It was the naval equivalent of capturing a hill and sitting on it.

    Aisha swallowed the knot in her throat, shut her eyes, and declared, ¡°You didn¡¯t see him die, you saw him use his stigmata!¡±

    Her voice, young and quavering as it was, from the lips of a young girl surrounded by old men, ripped the words from everyone else¡¯s lips. She cast the tent into silence as they all turned to her.

    Raymi spoke first. ¡°Ridiculous. Why would he hide a stigmata from us? We were allied!¡±

    Aisha fought with herself, feeling the next words like a bile upon her tongue. She could see the sea though, could see the fleet of Cynizia arrayed against Rackvidd. ¡°Because it lets him control other people. Would you trust somebody like that?¡±

    Before the commander of the Vassish could bring himself to an answer, another blast of horns echoed through the city. A complicated tune, encoding the message within. Nonsense to Aisha, crude to me, but it struck fear into Raymi.

    ¡°The harbor is under attack!¡± he declared. ¡°Artillery sergeant, I leave this to you. If a single ship comes within range, sink it!¡±

    The poor man quailled. ¡°But sir, without a warning shot?¡±

    Raymi spun on him, and grabbed one of the mighty sledge hammers stationed beside the ley cannon. He spun, swinging it overhead, and smashed it down upon the firing head of the nearest weapon. Stone smashed tight together within and then burst outward. The thump of the flung shot ripped the air from the wind and punched through the sky.

    ¡°There is your warning shot!¡± Raymi bellowed above the ringing in everyone¡¯s ears, and he dashed the hammer upon the ground. ¡°To the harbor, and bring her,¡± he ordered, with a finger jabbed at Aisha as the shot finally fell to the waves so far below.

    <hr>

    <ol>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">Ley is not an explosive substance, like people traditionally believed. One can hardly blame them, when one examines how a dropped piece of ley behaves. Ley is one of the arcane materials present in this world, and its physical properties change depending upon its state of charge. When it has been allowed to rest and replenish, it swells and becomes soft. When compressed, the energy within it is thrust out into the world, and imparted upon whatever it hits. The peculiarities of elasticity, in addition to the fact that it swells like bread in water, made designing machines with it near impossible. There are however, certain geometries, a mismatched cup and ball of a sort, wherein force can be transferred linearly through a series of rods, exponentially increasing in energy until it is at last imparted to the lead shot, which is blasted forth. The limits of this technology lie in the ultimate structural strength of Ley, as well as the maximum energy density, but Vassermark was the world pioneer in this militaristic field.</li>

    </ol>

 1-30 - Flesh Scarecrows

    Lieutenant Tyrion had left sign of his passing in the traditional way: crucifixion.

    The coastal road to Rackvidd was littered with the flesh scarecrows made by his men, one after the next like signposts. Lucius stood looking at them with a scowl and crossed arms. He had to march his troops past them, and he couldn¡¯t tell whether it heartened them to see victory, or beat them down with mortality. The march slowed either way.

    He was certain that the combat would delay Lieutenant Tyrion a good deal every time an engagement was found, but the difference in troop quality seemed to make up for the time. Despite this, it seemed that the ailing Lieutenant could still push himself like a draft horse despite his wounds, with the tenacity of a dying man grasping at valor and propped up by loyal soldiers. Which left Lucius unable to catch up with the separated Vassish.

    Sammy strolled up to him. The march had gone quite terribly for the young doctor by this point. Frays in the lacing of his clothes had become tears, and his hair no longer obeyed anything resembling fashion. The one thing still proper about him was the slender glasses, and those had a fog of scratches upon them. ¡°This is a good thing, right? Tell me that this is a good thing.¡±

    Lucius shook his head. ¡°It¡¯s not much of anything, I figure. You don¡¯t win a war by killing deserters and stragglers. They only matter as numbers, to embolden the true warriors. You could kill legions of them and still lose the fight that matters.¡±

    Sammy turned to look at the men marching on Lucius¡¯ orders. They weren¡¯t deserters, but they were stragglers. ¡°Then why go to the effort? Do you mean to tell me that Lieutenant Tyrion likes the smell or something?¡±

    The smell had only just begun to begin. The slaughtered Cynizia had all fouled themselves, giving a most unpleasant smell to the seaside air. The Vassish had arrived before rot could set in, before flesh ran like tar across the sands. The decomposing, black bloat that turned bodies into sacks of filth that watered eyes and burned noses. Neither man was a stranger to the stench. Neither wanted to wait long enough to smell it once more.

    ¡°I guess he felt a need to make a display. What do you think are the chances that his amputation has gotten infected?¡±

    Sammy closed his eyes and rubbed his chin. ¡°Impaired judgment, rashness, no proper medical treatment¡­ I¡¯d say he at least thinks it¡¯s infected.¡±

    ¡°Perception is all that really matters. We have to catch up with him before Rackvidd. I¡¯ll be damned if he goes charging to his death for a scrap of valor,¡± Lucius said. That valor was his for the seizing, and the thought of Tyrion taking it made his teeth grit. What he knew of the man¡¯s past though, made his gut sting with the impression of hypocrisy. Both he and the insubordinate lieutenant had been born low and now each could taste martial glory for the taking.

    ¡°What impresses me most is that for all his charging, he hasn¡¯t caught the tail of the Cynizia yet,¡± Sammy said, his gaze westward.

    ¡°Like wolves nipping at a herd.¡±

    ¡°Or he¡¯s getting dragged into a trap? Is that possible?¡±

    ¡°Anything is possible. Won¡¯t know till we make it there. Let¡¯s keep moving.¡± Lucius turned to the line, nearly at the end of it for his musings. The weakest of the lot, those who had gotten cuts and wounds fighting in Puerto Faro or at the Red Spire Monastery, those who had picked up one illness or another while struggling with the desert. They saw him puff his chest up with breath and shouted, ¡°Come on! Let¡¯s see some movement. Are one of you planning to go home and tell your family that you did nothing to crush these betrayers?¡±

    He took off running down the line.

    The spurred march did not last long, only a few more miles. Lucius lacked one of the most important parts of an army; the sargeants to keep the men in line, to keep them as part of a whole. There is an art to forceful command, and just as not every man makes a good father, not every soldier makes for a good sergeant. Lieutenant Tyrion had robbed the stragglers of that particular talent. It made them weak in morale. Hunger developed new teeth that bit into their psyches, dragging their feet to a crawl.

    With no solution apparent, Lucius could only lead the march from the front.

    The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

    Respite for the contingent came when they arrived at the most extravagant display yet, left in the wake of the voluntaries. It was the gutted, burned husk of a ship. Lucius called for rest to be taken and descended upon the wreckage with a dozen soldiers. A Vassish face greeted him, eyes wary but hands empty. ¡°Friend! Friend. I am friend,¡± the old man said as he clambered out of the corpse of the ship.

    ¡°Who are you?¡±

    ¡°You can call me Abe. I¡¯m just something like a local. Got a wife and kids north o¡¯ here in the mountains,¡± he said, doing his best to smile and keep his hands where they could be seen.

    Lucius exchanged a few looks with his men. ¡°Scavenging?¡± A common practice the world over.

    The man smiled a bit more broadly and shrugged. ¡°If I¡¯m lucky, it¡¯s free money¡­ ain¡¯t it?¡±

    Lucius shook his head. ¡°Tell us what you know of what has happened here,¡± he ordered.

    Under the stern gaze of several armed men, Abe put his hands together and faced Lucius. He cleared his throat and said, ¡°First it was the fleet. A huge mass of the things, ships like an armada. Looked like he had stolen every ship from Puerto Vida all at once. Most weren¡¯t even fit for staying at sea. But all of them, one, two, three, ten, tens of them, all like scarabs running across the sea to get to Rackvidd. I saw that by their lights in the night. I was up in the hills a bit more, trying to trade for a stud sheep(1) when I saw them. Saved my life most like, because what came the next day was mountain men. A whole swarm of them. Two hundred I¡¯d say. Flags like a forest, but the Black Keep was at the front; Erdro Karekale leading them. That¡¯s how I knew it was war of some sort. I stayed the night(2) and yesterday came a hundred or so Vassish men. They marched down the road, chasing after the mountain men. That¡¯s when they caught this ship here. Just a little engagement was all. Some scouts ahead of the Vassish gutted the men and tossed their corpses to the fish. Looked to me like they unloaded some barrels of grain and took it from themselves, then torched this. Big rush they were in¡­ thought they might have left something good.¡±

    The information was more useful than Lucius could have hoped for, but it could do nothing beyond confirming his predictions. He then returned the favor of the man¡¯s words by having him stripped of his ill-gotten goods and sent on his way penniless. The spoils were offered as reward to the first soldier to spot Rackvidd, and Lucius took the lead once more.

    Stepping in front of a hundred tired soldiers, he looked them each in the eyes. ¡°The revolt of the Giordanans, the Cynizia, has all come to this battle. They mean to cast out our foothold on their land. They would force Vassermark from Rackvidd and deny us the south sea. It sounds almost diplomatic when I put it that way, doesn¡¯t it? The Giordanan dogs know nothing of diplomacy. They know only of what their right hand possesses. You¡¯ve all seen their handiwork; driven to secrecy by our rule, by our laws, our justice.¡±

    The men he still had at his command got to their feet. On sand worn sandals, with heat weary bodies and hungering stomachs, they gathered to Lucius¡¯ voice. The gloss in their eyes rivaled that of the corpses they passed.

    ¡°They¡¯re slavers, and they mean to go back to ancient ways, to the barbarity of the Yellow King even. These are not people who would politely let the civilians of Rackvidd go home. If Medorosa Canta breaks down the walls of Rackvidd, only two fates will await all those of Vassermark at his mercy.¡±

    Lieutenant Tyrion had left an array of props that Lucius put to good use for his speech. He stood directly beneath one of the crucified revolutionaries.

    ¡°They will kill; men, women, and children. Or, they will enslave; a confinement to mines and pits, to work as whores or to fight to the death. That would be all the way against Aillesterra if they¡¯re lucky, a gambling pit if they¡¯re not. The Cynizia won¡¯t see anything wrong with it. The way they see it, losing a war means losing your right to life. They see themselves as righteous in taking back independence, so no moral qualm will stop them. Words will not stop them. Steel will stop them. We will stop them.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ve got family in Rackvidd,¡± one soldier said, piping up his voice from the second row. ¡°A brother, with a family. They have it good there. It¡¯s a good town. They ain¡¯t done nothing wrong.¡±

    Another, one of the rescued slaves, stepped forward. ¡°I was going to kill myself, end it all, if you hadn¡¯t saved me from that mine. I owe you more than my freedom, I owe you all my life. The last fucking thing I will stand to see is those bastards taking more good people to that hell.¡±

    Lucius stepped over, put his hand on the man¡¯s shoulder, and held up his sword. ¡°Steel will stop them. We will stop them. Come on, let me hear you! For Rackvidd!¡±

    ¡°For Rackvidd!¡± his soldiers shouted back, their voices wavering.

    ¡°Fuck the Cynizia!¡±

    ¡°Fuck the Cynizia!¡± They shouted, voices aligning; strengthening.

    ¡°And to feast as fucking heroes afterwards!¡± Lucius added, and drew out of them a guttural, gluttonous roar. Once more, they marched down the road with half a stomach of food, half a night of sleep, and chasing at the heels of their foes.

    <hr>

    <ol>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">The man, who in later years was quite the town drunk and fond of his encounter with ¡°that theif Solhart¡±, had been thoroughly unemployed and a known debtor in the area. While his family did own a supply of sheep to shepherd, it barely qualified as subsistence. It seems to me a stud sheep would have done him well, but it was never more than something he ought do, rather than something he did do.</li>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">His true motive was to sleep with a mistress, unbeknownst to his wife.</li>

    </ol>

 1-31 - Smoking Out The Infiltrator

    ¡°Hold him down, he¡¯s gone mad!¡± The centurion hardly had the situation under control when we arrived. I understood at once what had happened, but Lord Raymi caused a great storm of shouting, which did nothing but make the captured fishermen more fearful and prone to fleeing.

    Three men lay dead in the street, blood covering the ground. One of the Vassish men had been tackled to the ground. Butts of spears drove into his limbs, and one particularly brave soldier laid atop him to fight his thrashing. ¡°Get ahold of yourself. What are you doing, man?¡±

    Aisha understood as quick as I did, and she stepped forward. ¡°Was that man stabbed in the fight?¡±

    Raymi glared at her, then at the guards. The centurion saluted and said, ¡°It was a small scuffle sir. These men began pushing and shouting when we locked the harbor down. It was a ruse; they drew steel on us. We have the situation under control.¡±

    ¡°It doesn¡¯t look under control to me. What has become of this man?¡± Raymi asked.

    The centurion scowled. ¡°I think he was poisoned in some manner. He took a stab to the gut and fell, but got back up and attacked us.¡±

    I paced around the back of the soldiers, stroking my beard and pacing the streets and alleys that surrounded the harbor like so many strings in a web. Dozens of civilians watched with their worries plain on their faces. I was the only one present with the freedom to concern myself with the onlookers.

    Aisha straightened herself up and faced the restrained soldier. ¡°So this soldier was stabbed, and then began attacking his allies?¡±

    ¡°What are you doing, Aisha?¡± the restrained soldier asked, bloodshot eyes staring at her. The men holding him down all had to shift and press harder, pinning his straining limbs. ¡°Why did you flee to the Vassish?¡±

    ¡°Self-preservation,¡± she said, doing wonders to keep her voice calm as she looked down at the spirit of her brother. ¡°And because what you¡¯re doing is wrong, and won¡¯t succeed.¡±

    Medorosa laughed, the heaving of his chest almost enough to knock free his grappler. ¡°So you don¡¯t trust me? You don¡¯t believe in me? The time of Vassish occupation is over, sister.¡±

    ¡°Medorosa Canta,¡± Raymi said, taking a knee beside him. ¡°Is that you?¡±

    Medorosa¡¯s puppet grinned, teeth stained red. ¡°We meet again, Raymi. Not quite in the flesh.¡±

    ¡°I thought you died.¡±

    ¡°You left me to die. You prioritized your ley over my life. You don¡¯t have the right, nor the virtue to rule Giordana.¡±

    Lord Felix von Raymi frowned and stood back up. He planted one thick hand on the handle of his sword and asked, ¡°Is there any diplomatic resolution to this?¡±

    Medorosa cackled once more. ¡°Asking is proof that we can capture Rackvidd from you, that we can cast you Vassish out, and you know it. Your walls will fall, Raymi. Your time is at an end.¡±

    ¡°Get off of him,¡± Raymi said, and gestured to make the soldiers realize he was serious. With some trepidation, they braced themselves and leapt away.

    Medorosa pushed himself up to hands and knees. ¡°Fighting me won¡¯t change any-¡±

    His head flew from his shoulder, tumbling end over end with a ribbon of blood behind it. The words from Medorosa¡¯s lips vanished before his head hit the ground and rolled away. Raymi grimaced, holding the drawing strike at full extension. ¡°Girl,¡± he said, slowly returning his blade to its sheathe. ¡°Does killing him like that do any form of recoil to him? Will he be disabled for a time?¡±

    Aisha bit her lip and shook her head. ¡°No, I¡¯m sorry. A bit of disorientation at most. I¡¯m sorry, I don¡¯t know any weakness of his, but I never spent much time with him fighting.¡±

    I pointed a thumb over my shoulder. ¡°A few of the troublemakers escaped into the city, didn¡¯t they?¡±

    The centurion¡¯s face colored. ¡°Three of them, yes.¡±

    Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators!

    ¡°I think you can give up the quarantine, Lord Raymi. Medorosa is already inside. You have a saboteur who never even needs to show his face, so long as he¡¯s comfortable killing. Given that attitude, I imagine he will be butchering any Vassish he gets his hands on.¡±

    Raymi gritted his teeth and stared out to the sea, where a dozen Cynizia ships could be seen. ¡°These fucking savages. Bring me the priestess, at once. I want Medorosa¡¯s head on a spike.¡±

    ¡°Would that be the Saphiran(1) priestess or the Shepherd¡¯s?¡± I ventured to ask.

    Raymi fixed me with a most curious glare, unaffected by the arcane impression of my eyes. ¡°Of the sun god, Lumios.¡±

    This surprised me a great deal. With a scarf over most of my face though, my expression remained confidential. Rather than say something imprudent and impatient, I bided my time for this priestess. Raymi marched the group to a bit of privacy near the harbor and questioned Aisha as thoroughly as an inquisitor. All he lacked were the persuasion tools, but the redhead held nothing back.

    Not about Medorosa anyways.

    Eventually, a robed woman on in her years, though still able to stride across the road, came to our little gathering. Aisha had said nothing not previously transcribed, and so I might take this moment to comment on Priestess Mori. At first, her robe seemed modest, but the white linen revealed itself to have a tapestry of golden thread embroidered into it, so fine and delicate as to make it glow with the day¡¯s light. I had heard of certain abbots using needlework in solitude as a form of meditation, though also to make ends meet, and she must surely have trained in the art a great deal. Sadly, the color had faded from her hair, and her face had taken on a school mistress¡¯s scowl.

    ¡°What is it, Felix?¡± she asked, and gripped tight the chain holding her censor. A small, bronze thing that could have been mistaken for a bell.

    Raymi straightened up and bowed his head a fraction to her. ¡°Sister Mori. I need you to track down a criminal who has used a stigmata.¡±

    She sighed and looked around. When she caught sight of the decapitated head, she caught herself and retreated a step. ¡°A killer then?¡±

    Raymi grimaced. ¡°Unfortunately. I of course will assign you a group of guards. The city is under siege, or at least it will be soon. I need you to find the ringleader.¡±

    Sister Mori shook her head and sighed. ¡°I always strive to help people understand their blessings, and this is how you use an old woman like me?¡±

    ¡°Can you find him? The man used his stigmata on my soldier. I hope there is yet some vestige.¡±

    ¡°And what will you do with him, if I do find him?¡±

    Aisha cut in. ¡°Please. He has to be stopped. For not just the people of Rackvidd, but all of Giordana.¡±

    Sister Mori cocked an eyebrow at her. The way her lip curled; she wasn¡¯t impressed. ¡°And who are you?¡±

    Aisha gritted her teeth reflexively, but she answered, ¡°His sister. I know better than anyone here what he¡¯s capable of. Please, if you can help us capture him, then you must.¡±

    Sister Mori drew herself up, arching her head back to sneer down at her. ¡°I must do nothing but what my faith to Lumios demands of me. The sun god preaches temperance, not leaping to action.¡±

    ¡°He also teaches the importance of stability, of keeping the peace, even if it is at the point of a sword,¡± Raymi said. ¡°Besides, my patronage to your church can¡¯t continue if the city is ransacked. Would you rather have Giordanan masters?¡±

    She sniffed. ¡°I suppose not.¡± Reservations aside, she moved over to the body. I watched her most closely. She knelt next to the head and busied herself with the censor, striking a flame to the herb within to draw out a trickle of smoke. After a short prayer, though I don¡¯t know what the sun god could have done for her, she rose and dangled the smoking, brass egg before her. ¡°He should be easy enough to¨C¡±

    The ashen line pointed due west, as though caught in a trade wind. The smoke didn¡¯t rise vertically until several strides away. Needless to say, I was impressed with her ability, even if she seemed shocked herself.

    ¡°I¡¯ve never seen a reaction this strong before. He must be no ordinary¨C¡± again she cut off, for after two steps back towards Raymi, the smoke had an entirely new direction, roughly to the north west.

    The trick revealed itself to me at once. ¡°You have the stigmata God¡¯s Wind, don¡¯t you?¡±

    Sister Mori turned to me, from which the smoke steadfastly fled. No matter how she held the censor, the smoke billowed directly from the spot I stood. Her stern glare belied fear. I could see it in her eyes. A most regrettable reaction. ¡°Who are you?¡±

    I bowed. ¡°I see I must take my leave then. Lord Raymi, if you would permit me to return to the battery? I will be of more use there. At present, I¡¯m quite interfering with her work.¡±

    A pair of trusted guards were dispatched with me, and saw me off to the city bulwark. I had no plans of rebelling against the Vassish, but I could see it made Raymi feel better. That left Aisha alone. When Sister Mori¡¯s ability began to function properly, the smoke merely drifted in a suggestion towards Medorosa¡¯s location. ¡°Let me come with you,¡± Aisha said. ¡°Once you get to the place he¡¯s at, you still need someone who can recognize his face.¡±

    Raymi nodded. ¡°You there, squad leader Oscar. You¡¯re in charge of apprehending Medorosa Canta. See it done,¡± he ordered, and at last, a hunter had been assigned for the rebel leader of the Cynizia.

    ¡°Thank you. I will not disappoint,¡± Oscar said, saluting and bowing to Lord Raymi. Then, he gathered up his men, surrounded Aisha, and followed behind Sister Mori.

    <hr>

    1. Name updated from Aquaria.

 1-32 - Tyrions Grasp At Glory

    Erdro Karakale¡¯s army arrived at the gates of Rackvidd in the middle of the night. While Oscar and Aisha gave chase to Medorosa, the men outside the walls waylaid the small folk. Farms burned. The roadside stables became riots and menageries of bloodied beasts. While horns trumpeted of the arrivals at the gates, the mountain men swept along the foot of the walls to find doors and pedestrian passages. They assaulted the tiny doors with hammers and rams. One they broke through and a bloody slaughter from room to room, corner to corner, ensued before the defenders cut off the intrusion by means of burning oil and belatedly shutting the internal portcullis.

    The lord of the Black Keep had taken a gambit to break through upon his first arrival, and failed.

    By first morning¡¯s light, the Cynizia footsoldiers had arrayed themselves into an armed camp facing the city. The men moved like ants, crawling over crude fortifications they put up with wood and stone beyond the reach of arrows. The cannons could have been brought over, if not for the seaward threat, but for the day they worked without fear.

    Lieutenant Tyrion had no inkling of Erdro¡¯s plan, and could see no further than the backside of the Cynizia footsoldiers before him. Visions of glory filled his fevered mind. Melodic musings of musicians and bards stuffed his ears with their praises. Blind and deaf, he ordered a charge against the Cynizia.

    It went as well as one might expect.

    Sieges are very strange things, and entirely dependent on one¡¯s ability to throw rocks further than the enemy. That is, if the attackers mean to storm the place rather than wait it out. The Cynizia had no cannons to break down the walls of Rackvidd, but there were other solutions to the problem. Their nighttime raid was merely the first option available to them. When that failed, they moved to their second plan and happened to be quite prepared for an attack, even if it did come from behind.

    Surprise or no, flanked or not, Erdro Karakale still had the numerical superiority, and to Lieutenant Tyrion¡¯s despair, Lord Raymi did not come storming from the gates to trap the Giordanans and envelop them.

    But that is not to say no aid came to him at all.

    Lucius had been chasing him ever since his betrayal, and caught up as the morning¡¯s battle unfolded.

    Arrows were first. Lobbed from the shallow hills around the city before he and his scant crew of ten drew closer. The remaining troops had lagged the night behind, unable to keep pace no matter his urging. They would not arrive till the afternoon, but Lucius brought the strongest ten warriors with him and joined the fray.

    As he saw it, there was a great press of bodies. The blue cloaks of the voluntaries looked like trees in a forest, getting tossed by the winds of a storm. Against them, the brown and black of the mountain men, as though they had clad their steel with the very stone they came from. Tyrion had crashed his men upon them, and his valorous wave had broken upon the stone.

    The froth sprayed red.

    In my experience, and Lucius¡¯, there is no easier man to flank than one who believes himself flanking another. Provided they don¡¯t expect it. As the men of the Black Keep fanned out like an enveloping mouth, their edges thinned and thinned. They wrapped around the shield formation of the Vassish, but whereas the voluntaries stood three men deep, with spears over one another¡¯s shoulders, the Cynizia had no support to their backs whatsoever.

    With no warcry to announce his presence, Lucius charged the seaward flank. Just one more man to the mix, but a man in the right spot. He sank his sword through one Giordanan¡¯s guts. His shoulder bulled over another, letting the spearmen fell the surprised fighter. With a flourish and spin of steel, he slit the throat of a third.

    A shout went up. The men cried out, ¡°Solhart! It¡¯s commander Solhart!¡± From one voice to many, the entire melee lurched towards his flank. Like grain to a flock of birds, both masses slid and counter-shifted. They pushed one another¡¯s determination all the while extending once more to gain the enveloping flank.

    Lucius did not join the voluntaries, he fought to their side. He danced between swords and spears, daring any to step within his reach. The combat wrapped around him like skin covering an infection. The pus the blood of the dead.

    The mountain men extended, like anchoring rope in a storm. The line held but every fiber threatened to snap. The tension only needed to rise while the Vassish held on. But alas, the fool Tyrion would not stomach it. The tide had turned with Lucius¡¯ arrival, and nothing to do with his prowess. It was the ten auxiliaries loosing arrows into the edges of the Cynizia that tore and frayed, not him.

    ¡°Solhart, what are you doing?¡±

    Tyrion barged into the melee, one shield strapped to his maimed arm to give the impression of defense like painting over rot. The raw force of his stigmata alone held the man together. In his other hand, blood dripped from his sword. It was mud that caked his uniform. More than the effect of their martial prowess, their status struck the men away and made them wary. The churned slop of carnage beneath Lucius¡¯ feet cleared of assailants.

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    ¡°Sound the retreat,¡± Lucius snapped, spinning to face the host of mountain men.

    ¡°You know nothing of war, boy. All you know is the art of running away. And you know what, there¡¯s no fucking way you¡¯re Solhart.¡±

    Lucius had no choice but to turn on Tyrion, to put his back to the Cynizia. ¡°Hold your tongue before I take it from you like I took your arm.¡±

    Erdro Karakale made his appearance on the stage. ¡°Well if it isn¡¯t the crux of the battle,¡± he bellowed, striding through the ranks of soldiers with arms raised up. Fully armored, he moved like a giant. He wore a curious, gaudy armor comprised of chain hidden beneath his silks, along with metal bracelets and accessories strapped about his arms, legs, his belt and beard. Even his helm had rings of gold riveted on, ascending the peak to a feathered plume nearly a head again higher than his skull.

    And so, the whole conflict had come to ahead, those three men whom their legions looked to for direction. This was often the way of battles in those days, and a prime reason I had staked my bets onto Lucius. For when the leader dies, the men break and rout. Who better to lead than a man who can¡¯t die?

    Had he been magnanimous, Lucius would have squared off against Erdro himself. He had used up his magnanimity during his duel with Tyrion. When the lord of the Black Keep put himself before them, Lucius spat on the ground and stepped aside. He gave Tyrion the glory he so desperately wanted.

    I do not mean to besmirch the fool¡¯s combat prowess. He had won a great many battles back in Vassermark, and made himself acquainted with the savages in the wastelands. But Erdro was another matter entirely. Perhaps if Tyrion had been of Skaldish make, like the Tolzi brothers, he would have stood a chance. As it was, Tyrion was thirty pounds lighter, and one arm short of the Giordanan. The years of martial training beneath his belt meant little when put up against Erdro¡¯s own prowess, even drummed up into a berserker frenzy with his waning stigmata.

    The mountain man stepped into the fray, letting the lines of soldiers surround them and watch. He took it as a point of honor and so he brandished his sword. It was a heavy thing, long enough to be used from horseback and with a flared blade that made it chop through the air. Countless Vassish soldiers had lost arms and heads from the hacking swing of his steel.

    Tyrion braced himself and gritted his teeth, eyes burning as he let the Giordanan approach. ¡°Vassermark!¡± He bolted forward, stabbing and thrusting. Erdro took the blows on his banding, twisting his sword to force Tyrion¡¯s attacks away as he fell back. Then the lieutenant lunged. The tip shot out like an arrow.

    Sparks flew, edge from edge. Spectators jumped. The subdued pushing of shields and probing of weapons halted. Eyes were sucked to the exchange. Up came Erdro¡¯s sword, where he clasped it in both hands. Down it cleaved.

    Tyrion, fettered by flagging fatigue, slid his shield up over his face. The metal rim split. The wood cracked. He screamed. Down to one knee he fell. Erdro¡¯s boot planted on his shield and shoved him back, extracting his weapon from it and sending the voluntary sprawling in the mud.

    Lucius, who had been occupied sending a handful more Giordanan¡¯s to the Shepherd¡¯s embrace, started to jump in, to put himself between them. ¡°Don¡¯t you dare,¡± Tyrion growled. Blood poured down his face and blinded him in one eye. ¡°You will not usurp me here!¡±

    Erdro laughed. ¡°Hopeless, but I like it. Give me your name, northerner.¡±

    ¡°Tyrion Reed. Tell it to your Goddess,¡± he said, and stomped his feet into the mud. He took the stance of the royal sword arts, the official martial art of Vassermark. Shield thrust forward, sword arm up and back, elbow to fist to tip a line at the enemy. Erdro whistled and grinned. Tyrion blasted forward with a thrust, a drawing slash, a pivot of the feet and a hack. He chained one cut to the next with the grace of a dancer. His sword clashed against bracelets, against mail, against sword, and against Erdro¡¯s flesh.

    The mountain man retaliated.

    His sword cut up and took off Tyrion¡¯s last arm. It cut down and chopped through to his spine. The lieutenant¡¯s blade twirled through the air and stuck in the ground as he fell to his knees. Tyrion¡¯s grasp at glory ended.

    Lucius vaulted over the dying Lieutenant, using the man¡¯s back as a springboard. He had ditched his shield to grab his sword with both hands. From high in the air, he hacked down, faster than Karekale could raise his cleaver of a blade. He struck the Giordanan leader square across the shoulders. The impact rocked through his body. His sword shattered, cracked across the iron banding protecting Erdro.

    But he did not go unscathed.

    The broken half of blade still in Lucius¡¯ grasp continued on ripping into his chain shirt and through to the man¡¯s flesh. Erdro¡¯s mouth gaped. His blood squirted out. He staggered back, a tremble of weakness through his arm. For a moment, fear paralyzed him. He stood betwixt the armies, wounded and facing a man with a broken weapon.

    ¡°Sound the fucking retreat!¡± Lucius screamed. A pocket horn blared out the simple code. The Vassish closed ranks with one another, locking shields as one and falling away. They trampled over corpses.

    As the two forces pulled apart, the window of support from Raymi ended. Rather than so much as a volley of arrows, smoke began to trickle up from within Rackvidd. It stank of the same chaos that destroyed Puerto Faro.

    The stunned Erdro Karakale hefted his blade out to the side and shouted, ¡°Hold. This was our victory.¡± The Giordanan¡¯s stumbled and lurched, their formation dissolving into the mud. Plenty wished to chase and continue the fight, to press the advantage. Those were the ones that stepped forward, inviting arrows from the auxiliaries, only to retreat to the protection of their comrades.

    Erdro and Lucius locked eyes with one another. ¡°So, you¡¯re Solhart?¡± the mountain man shouted, his voice nearly as bellowing as Lord Raymi¡¯s. ¡°You exceed your reputation. I savor the thought of killing you.¡± The lord of the Black Keep grinned and stomped his foot on Tyrion¡¯ corpse, pressing it into the mud like he stood upon a bog.

    ¡°Savor it while you can,¡± Lucius shouted back. ¡°None of you will survive the day.¡±

 1-33 - Arson

    The temples and churches of the land keep many secrets unto themselves. The temples of Aquarius house centuries of biological research, most importantly their Deep Oil that can stay lit for days at a time. The church of the sun god in Rackvidd had a secret of their own, though far less mystical in nature. They had a caffeine generating fungus they called Farmer¡¯s Boon.(1)

    Even for someone who had never had the drug before, staying up all night straight proved too much for young Aisha. Without the grip of immediate focus, sleep claimed her in passing fits. As though the hunt were a passing dream itself, she found herself moved from one building to the next, nodding off and waking up by the time the sun had risen once more. The soldiers fared better, but their patience grew razer thin.

    ¡°We¡¯re looking for a man named Medorosa Canta. He¡¯s new to the city. Got a moustache and a scar across his chest from a vendetta. Out with it : have you seen him?¡±

    The words flickered Aisha¡¯s eyelids back open. She was in a tavern. She had taken a cushioned seat beside the unlit hearth, the seat any bard should have been granted for their performance. The Vassish had the proprietor on his knees in the middle of the room, sobbing. He was older, gray of hair and round of belly. ¡°I swear, I swear I did not know anything about those men. They stormed in and got in a fight with my brother-in-law. That¡¯s all I know. Please, I am a law abiding citizen. I have done nothing wrong.¡±

    Sister Mori paced around him. ¡°Where is your brother-in-law now?¡±

    He turned to her, tears running down his face and his lip trembling. ¡°Please, Priestess. You know me, I attend your prayers. I give¨C¡±

    She cut him off. ¡°Where is he?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t know! He left with one of the intruders. Look, he is a gambler, though I never knew him to have debts. He must have kept it secret or something. He didn¡¯t explain anything to me.¡±

    Aisha slid off her chair and slid into the conversation. She took a knee beside the man and put her hand on his shoulder. ¡°Your brother, was he injured in the fight?¡± The man nodded. ¡°A blow to the head perhaps? Or a stab to the chest?¡± The man nodded once more. ¡°Can you give us a description of him? I¡¯m sorry, but your brother is almost certainly dead at this point, and we will be looking for his corpse soon enough,¡± she said, and glanced at the thing no one wanted to look at.

    A Vassish man laid flat on the ground of the tavern, sprawled across a toppled chair. He seemed young and fit, with the build of a mercenary or guard, save for the broken glass sticking from his face and throat. The gush of blood coated half the man¡¯s chest red, but Aisha could see that it wasn¡¯t enough. Like a pig for slaughter, most of the body¡¯s blood had been spilled elsewhere.

    Medorosa was moving from body to body, sowing chaos through the city of Rackvidd.

    The proprietor forced out a description of the man accurate enough for the soldiers. At Sister Mori¡¯s command, they stoped wasting time where the Cynizia had already left. She activated her stigmata once more, while standing atop the corpse. The smoke flowed strongly, pointing out the door to the street. When the troupe of investigators left, she said, ¡°Remember this place. It will be investigated. One of you might get promoted for it.¡±

    ¡°You can¡¯t be serious. He¡¯s the victim,¡± Aisha said as she caught up with the older woman.

    Her glare could have shattered glass. ¡°The only reason he is a victim is because he let the scoundrels in. He¡¯s lucky he wasn¡¯t killed for good measure, that his wives were not also victims.¡±

    ¡°My brother doesn¡¯t kill women. He certainly wouldn¡¯t take their bodies if he did.¡±

    None of the troupe listened to her. Their march bordered on a run, and they followed the flow of smoke northward, to the city gates. Before they turned the final corner, they could hear the clash of steel. Blood trickled across the cobblestone, flowing from the butchered throat of a horse.

    The soldiers drew weapons and charged ahead. ¡°He must be here,¡± Oscar shouted, leaving the women behind. The beige granite loomed before them, some two stories tall and fat with debris guts. The walls of Rackvidd were no trivial thing to destroy, but a wall is only ever as mighty as the men atop it. Those men screamed then in panic and agony. One tumbled off the side and hit the ground with a bone crunching crack.

    It put a chill through Aisha. When she heard the way his body broke, all her mind could think about was the night in Puerto Faro. The sound of Leomund¡¯s blade hacking through the Giordanan¡¯s arm still sank itself on her psyche. The songstress faltered, stumbling to a halt as the Vassish charged into the fray.

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    ¡°How?¡± a Giordanan man roared from atop the wall. His gaze faced the road beyond. His shoulders shook with rage. ¡°How has he caught up with us?¡±

    Rather than an answer, a pair of spears closed in about him. Oscar scrambled up the steps to get atop the walkway. ¡°Medorosa, I presume?¡±

    Aisha¡¯s brother spun on the man. He grinned and brandished his bloody sword. ¡°The one and only.¡±

    She turned from the conflict. The thought still made her chest clench. While everyone¡¯s attention sat upon the puppet of the ringleader, she alone turned her gaze away. She saw a brown-skinned man and recognition flashed inside her. She couldn¡¯t hope to place his name, but she knew him for a Cynizia at once.

    He had a short stature to him, thin of frame and sickly of grin. The kind of man who¡¯s short hair always had a grime to it, and whose clothes could never be cleaned. He had a repulsive look to him, but not a memorable one. The kind of man it pained one to look at and thus, would be ignored. He slipped past the stableboy and in between the precious horses.

    ¡°Stop him,¡± Aisha screamed, but even as she ran over, her cries brought only confusion. The soldiers of Rackvidd responded too late. First went a lantern spark, then a douse of oil, and the great stock of animal feed became a blaze. Smoke drizzled into the sky as the beasts whinnied.

    For the first time in her life, she looked at her hand and wished there was a sword in it. As she was, she was useless. Not even an onlooker, but a victim of the power of violent men. She stood in the street, squeezing her hands into fists and watching as the Cynizia infiltrator slipped out the side.

    He saw her. He recognized her. He snarled.

    But Aisha¡¯s warning had not gone unheard. The Vassish soldiers were occupied with Medorosa¡¯s puppet, but out from shops and homes came one man after another. They wore no armor, but they had swords and clubs. They emerged from buildings with Giordanan domes, but unmistakably Vassish. They frowned and looked between her and him. They could smell the smoke, and they knew who they would believe.

    She swallowed the knot in her throat and pointed her finger at the infiltrator. She could feel the power she held, and she let it loose into the world. ¡°Corner him!¡±

    The Cynizia man bolted. A street sweeper checked him in the chest with his broom. The infiltrator drew his sword, a broad-bladed saber, and hacked at the sweep. The broom snapped in two. No blood.

    For the moment the man stood still, a construction worker stepped in and hurled a hammer at him. The tool spun through the air in a blur. The handle cracked off the Cynizia¡¯s skull, the hammer head ripping off a chunk of ear. He screamed, senses reeling. The edge of his saber swung through the air, whipping back and forth like he was fighting flies.

    The crack of a club across his back dropped him to a knee, and the locals surrounded him. Before he could raise the weapon again, theirs descended. The mob beat him until he howled and his blood colored the street. The more limp he grew, the more of the locals ran to help with the growing fire. Eventually, Aisha and the street sweeper alone stood with the twitching, mangled Cynizia.

    She walked over and shook her head. ¡°You¡¯re not the only ones with local support, now are you?¡±

    Sister Mori caught up with her. ¡°What in the name of all that is good and holy have you done?¡±

    Aisha knelt down, hugging her knees to her chest as she watched blood bubble from the man¡¯s mouth. ¡°I caught one of Medo¡¯s friends.¡±

    Sister Mori closed her eyes to say a prayer. When she opened them again, Oscar had caught up with him. ¡°That crazy bastard leapt off the wall rather than be caught¡­ what happened here?¡±

    ¡°I caught someone else you can question,¡± Aisha said.

    The soldier bared his teeth in a grin. His glance at the street sweeper made the young man jump away. ¡°You sure banged him up though, didn¡¯t you?¡±

    She frowned. ¡°He¡¯s an arsonist. He deserved it.¡±

    Oscar reached down and grabbed the infiltrator by the hair. He hauled the man up to his knees. Swelling had closed one eye. The other couldn¡¯t focus. Out came Oscar¡¯s dagger. He shaved off some skin from the infiltrator¡¯s larynx. ¡°Where is Medorosa Canta?¡±

    ¡°How would I know?¡± the man gasped out. ¡°We parted ways. You won¡¯t get anything from me.¡±

    Oscar snarled. ¡°Then should I just kill you?¡±

    ¡°Freedom to Giordana,¡± the man said, and stabbed Oscar in the gut with a dagger of his own.

    The Vassish soldier grunted, and ripped his blade across the infiltrator¡¯s throat. Hot blood sprayed him across the face as Aisha and Sister Mori both rushed to help him. ¡°I¡¯m fine,¡± Oscar spat out, tossing the corpse away. Lifting his shirt, he revealed the chain beneath. ¡°He didn¡¯t have the strength.¡±

    ¡°Come then,¡± Sister Mori said, marching to the corpse of Medorosa¡¯s puppet. ¡°Leave the fire to the locals. We have a manhunt to finish!¡±

    Aisha stared down at the body. A man who gave everything for his belief in Medorosa¡¯s words. The dream her brother conjured up from years of indignation and chained their hearts with. She knew how many hundreds more were arrayed against Rackvidd. She could smell the bloodbath in the air.

    <hr>

    <ol>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">Evidently this name came from the fungi¡¯s tendency to sprout up between fields after a drought-breaking rainstorm. Farmers in the know would eat them and have a very productive day. Given the addictive properties of it however, I would think to call it Farmer¡¯s Bane</li>

    </ol>

 1-34 - A Brief Parley

    The coastal road formed a funnel and brought the conflict to a stalemate. The more Lucius withdrew, the tighter his ranks formed. Even with the greater numbers, no envelopment was possible for the Cynizia. But, the more they withdrew, the further they were from protecting Rackvidd.

    Blue cloaks dotted the fields. Where budding crops should have stood, the ground had been sown with blood. ¡°Move the injured back! Fresh men to the front,¡± Lucius shouted, marching up and down the line of men, himself between them and the Cynizia. The ranks of soldiers rolled on themselves, the formation twisting and coiling to cycle the soldiers. Each of them gripped their weapons and panted for breath. The shield wall waved like grass in the wind while those behind collapsed to their knees and tried to squeeze drips of liquid from their waterskins.

    The doctor took a second in command position of sorts, snapping orders at the men on how to line up the injured and what to do for base treatment. It weakened the force, but drew out of it those most likely to break and rout. In time, they would return to combat, but not for Rackvidd.

    Lucius had thought the Cynizia would do the same, and in part, they did. But only half. He lost sight of their leader, Erdro Karekale. The lord of the Black Keep vanished back to his siege camp amid the distant thumps of cannons. My pupil knew perfectly well what the noises were, those drums in the distance. For the foot soldiers, it was the work of the gods, or at least a divine beast.

    Over the heads of the Cynizia contingent set to block him off, Lucius stared at the city walls. In his mind was born the first of his military innovations. The spark of it, the nucleus of ideation. He knew that marching on the Cynizia forces alone would be his destruction. If Lord Raymi opened the gates, and they did not throw themselves into the fray, they too might be crushed and the gates forced. Only together would the mountain men be slaughtered.

    And Lucius had no way of speaking with the city defenders.

    Of course, no innovation comes wholecloth and without precedent. During his education, I had once told him the legend of General Tallymund who, in the Wolf Hunter wars between the Sun¡¯s Alliance and Skaldheim circa 250 CC, devised a code of trumpet blasts and colored flags. This was in a time before the trolls had so thoroughly diffused through the tundra. For an entire season, General Tallymund had used his remote signaling to communicate with his subordinates, even while they were dispatched across the plains, maneuvering to capture the barbarian host and maintaining the natural advantages as they were.

    This drove the invading king of chiefs mad, until he hatched a counter plan and captured one of the flag bearers. Under duress and torture, that man divulged the code. The king of chiefs thought he had pulled a great trick upon General Tallymund, for then he was privy to the communications. He watched and he listened and when the time for their charge was nigh, the king of chiefs had already aligned his army to break the men of the central plains.

    Except, the vanguard came to their flank, from a group who should have been the reserves. A mere day after their code had been intercepted and wrung free, and without recombining his forces, General Tallymund had snuck out new orders right under the nose of the king of chiefs. Needless to say, the northerners were slaughtered.

    I had meant the story to teach him the dangers of bad information. Had the king of chiefs prolonged the war, continued to deny decisive combat, the Sun¡¯s Alliance would have crumbled to famine; their grain trampled, stolen, or burned by his marauding all while an easy retreat to Skaldheim existed. The king of chief¡¯s temper drew him into the conflict, to match wits with General Tallymund. Instead, a single piece of information eluded him, and spelled out his demise.

    The southerner had privately told his commanders, and them alone, an additional command. Should he fly a black flag first, all subsequent commands were to be inverted. To charge was to retreat. left was right, and so on. Thus, the Sun¡¯s Alliance ripped through an unprepared flank, penetrating a host many times their size.

    The Vassish had a rudimentary set of universal signals, but it lacked the granularity and specificity to communicate something like, ¡°In two hours time we must attack simultaneously.¡±

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    Lucius began to devise a means of full language communication in code. A means of rendering flag motions to letters and from letters into words. This was not something he could implement that day. Much too many issues and nuances existed in the problem.(1)

    This is, of course, because Lucius had next to nothing to do while menacing the Cynizia. He turned the problem over in his head all while scowling at his foes and daring them to loose an arrow at him. One rogue did just that, missed, and Lucius didn¡¯t flinch as the shaft stuck in the ground some feet beside him. Lost in his thoughts, he hadn¡¯t noticed it, but the Cynizia saw only a fearless warrior.

    A day of siege can be a truly boring event. For as much as some men on both sides wished to charge and to destroy the enemy, the Vassish had the obvious sense to wait for their last few score of soldiers to catch up. By the time the sun hung high overhead, the duties of care for the injured had been handed over to the slightly less injured, and those unfit to fight ferried themselves away. They alleviated the burden, lightened the load, and handed over a fair deal of food and water too.

    Far from bad information, Lucius found himself with no information and not enough soldiers to break the siege. Part of him wished to retreat further, behind a bend in the road and have his troops bed down in anticipation of a nighttime raid, but he feared that Lord Raymi might issue forth an attack at any moment. In truth, it was the mountain men who had the moment to not just rest, but to continue their counter attack, whatever it might be. Lucius at this time, had no inkling what Erdro Karekale¡¯s stigmata was, and thus could not imagine what their aim was.

    To his surprise, they sent a rider out beneath a white flag. An older man who dismounted and showed no weapon but a sheathed honor blade. ¡°My lord has sent me to ask for your surrender.¡±

    Lucius stared back at him, unable to believe the words. ¡°Then you must be a jester¡¯s apprentice.¡± His men laughed.

    The negotiator¡¯s face darkened. ¡°I hear you are a gambler, Solhart.¡±

    ¡°I am.¡±

    The horseman twisted in his saddle and pointed his thumb at the city beyond. More lines of smoke had replaced the first to dwindle out. Helmets glinted between crenelations. ¡°How much will you gamble that we won¡¯t break the walls of Rackvidd?¡±

    Lucius stuck out his chin and said. ¡°Three.¡±

    ¡°Three? Three what? Lives of your men?¡±

    ¡°To do that requires you have three extraordinary stigmata. One to break the walls. A second for your fleet to pierce the harbor. And a third to synchronize them. You began your siege with what? A few hundred men? Perhaps if I hadn¡¯t arrived here, you might have expected more to join your cause and swell your ranks, but you can¡¯t wait for that. So if you break the walls now, the full might of the garrison will come down on you with us at your backs. You¡¯d be crushed. You wouldn¡¯t dare unless the fleet could aid you.¡±

    The negotiator stroked his chin thoughtfully and grinned. ¡°Who says we don¡¯t? We chose this strategy, did we not?¡±

    My pupil grinned back. ¡°That¡¯s what makes it a gamble, right? If your lord wants to gamble, ask him if he¡¯ll gamble his life. I¡¯d happily face him man to man. That is, if that little cut I gave him doesn¡¯t hurt too bad.¡±

    The negotiator stuck his chin out, glaring down his nose. ¡°We already killed your leader, Tyrion Reed¨C¡±

    Lucius spat on the ground. ¡°Insubordinate. Got what he deserved.¡± His men stopped laughing.

    ¡°This is for all of you!¡± the negotiator shouted, turning his gaze to the ranks of soldiers behind Lucius. ¡°If you wish to keep your lives, you need only give us his head and walk away.¡±

    A most dangerous proposition.

    The time for words had passed. Lucius turned and ripped the spear from the hands of the nearest soldier. While the man blinked back at him, he spun. The negotiator knew at once what that meant, and he yanked upon the reins. The horse reared as Lucius took leaps forward. Heels to the belly, the man bolted. Lucius threw the spear. The steel head arced. It ripped through cloak and flesh. The Giordanan slumped in the saddle. The horse bucked and galloped, frenzying from the smell of blood. He toppled, falling from his seat and hitting the trampled road.

    Lucius shook his hand out and turned back to his men. He marched half the line, looking into their eyes. Once he spotted a man he could use, a squad leader from the auxiliaries, he spat out, ¡°Crucify the corpse. Put it on display.¡±

    <hr>

    <ol>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">This later came to be known as Solhart Cipher, though the precise encryption changed as needed. For the first five years its use spread without change, but later in life he sent out new encryption keys nearly monthly.</li>

    </ol>

 1-35 - Gambling With Cannons

    ¡°Solhart has arrived outside the gates!¡±

    A rush of surprise and relief. A burst of hope like spring¡¯s first buds.

    ¡°Solhart has been pushed back! The mountain men hold.¡±

    A grip of fear like a fist around the throat.

    Everyone who heard the twin lines of news felt much the same, but Aisha found herself largely robbed of life, enervated to the extreme. The barking orders of soldiers pounded in her ears. Chaos drifted through the streets, pulling men to the harbor, to the walls, back to the palace, to fires, to riots, and whenever they arrived in one place they were desired in another.

    The group hunting Medorosa passed through it all, looked over by lieutenants hungry for accolades. The turbulence of troops dragged eddies of attention through the city though, which Medorosa found like a fish in a stream. From one district to the next he and his accomplice fled with Sister Mori fast behind.

    ¡°This is exactly what he wants,¡± Aisha said when the old priestess finally demanded a brief rest.

    Oscar offered her a bit of biscuit ration.(1) ¡°How so? Petty disturbance? We¡¯ll have his head on a spike soon enough.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s not petty,¡± she said, and attempted to crack part of the ration off. It took her two attempts, and one of Oscar¡¯s subordinates grimaced. The man vanished to find the lady something proper to eat, but she paid him no mind. ¡°He¡¯s tying up resources. Scattering the chain of command¡­ he must be trying to get to something when the chance comes.¡±

    The Vassish soldier planted his hands on his hips. ¡°Well, he¡¯s your brother. You know him best. What would he be trying to do?¡±

    She shrugged. ¡°Win it all.¡±

    Sister Mori arched her back, pressing on her side with a scowl. ¡°How would one man sway a siege?¡±

    Aisha, turned her gaze to the flagstone beneath her. ¡°Could he open the gates?¡±

    ¡°Lord Raymi is personally protecting the gates before their army.¡±

    ¡°What about the harbor then?¡±

    Oscar narrowed his gaze. ¡°What about the artillery? Where that strange man calling himself an engineer went.¡± A most unpleasant description of myself, but accurate.

    Aisha shook her head. ¡°You don¡¯t have to worry about him.¡± Though in truth, she still had her reservations about me. She was, afterall, privy to my true desire in the moment and that had nothing to do with the safety of Rackvidd. Not directly anyways.

    ¡°But, that may well be his aim, no? Your brother¡¯s?¡± he pressed.

    She chewed on her lip and turned her gaze southward, to the sea. Her head ached and the biscuit did little to help her growing dehydration. ¡°I¡¯ve never seen weapons like those before. Is that why you Vassish went to the wastelands south of the sea?¡±

    The soldier dutifully puffed his chest. ¡°Indeed. A marvel born of Vassermark¡¯s might at the bequest of King Arandall.¡±

    ¡°Were any of them brought south? Would Medorosa have ever seen them?¡±

    ¡°No, we have precious few for the defense of our cities. None to risk losing in a sunk ship.¡± Nothing to say of the lives lost from a sunk ship. ¡°I suspect your brother is as shocked by them as you must be; but, we¡¯ve been firing(2) upon them for an entire day now.¡±

    ¡°Take me there. I can¡¯t think of any better way for him to cause mayhem than to kill the men working those stone beasts and turn them upon the city. Sister Mori, do you think you could watch from afar?¡±

    ¡°From sitting on my bony rear end? Certainly,¡± she said. She had produced from a pocket a rather coquettish paper fan, the stylized kind of toy that daring women would use to draw the eye. The puff of her cheeks while she tried to take the heat off her couldn¡¯t have been further away.

    The group of them set off before the conscientious soldier could so much as hand Aisha the popina snack he had spent his precious pay on. Hopes of her favor were found dashed upon the ground.

    By my own recollection of this, and referencing maps of old Rackvidd, I was in fact the strangest thing at the bulwark at this time. Much to the ire of the artillery squadron. The sergeant in charge, I think, wanted to kill me. He and I were taking bets regarding the accuracy of my calculations. After a brief argument over whether or not the shot-stocks, which propel the sphere, could be re-used, I had set about to prove my calculations. Suffice to say, I was correct, and one particular ship from Medorosoa¡¯s fleet which became lodged on rocks was reduced to splinters.

    This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

    At this time, Medorosa Canta revealed his most underhanded of uses for his stigmata.

    The guard at the base of the steps to the cannon platform did not slacken their watch. Lord Raymi had sent word from the northern gates to be wary of anyone approaching injured. In this, they did not fail. And yet, they spoke freely with the locals. With the porters that bring fresh tar and oil for night time illumination, and for the messenger boys, and the young women working sales for the bakers and food merchants. Regular people they encountered near every day.

    And so, one of the guards who was rather taken with the young daughter of the nearest baker, waved her over with a smile. He talked large about how there would be no threat from some rabble of Giordanans. He boasted of the defenses they had. He never once questioned why she had a scarf on that didn¡¯t match her blouse.

    He should have. There are a great many ways to kill someone without shedding blood. Strangulation leaves only bruises on the throat.

    She too had one of those paper fans, which pained the guard all the more. They made excellent gifts, and I suspect he was the one who bought it for her off a wandering peddler. It concealed the knife all too well, before she pushed it through his trachea and drowned him in his own blood.

    The other guard, there¡¯s always another, started and swung his spear down, but the baker¡¯s daughter¨C the corpse puppet I should say¨C swept in. He raised the alarm with a cry. The spearhead sliced through her ear and cut some of her hair. She thrust the knife into the other guard¡¯s gut. It tangled with the chain, barely cutting through the man¡¯s belly fat. His hands closed on hers. The stigmata could do nothing to strengthen her body. The guard wrestled her back, overpowering her and driving the knife back out of his gut.

    She went limp and near collapsed. For the briefest moment, the guard stared. Then, out from her chest bloomed the bloody steel of the first guard¡¯s spearhead. Shoved through her chest and into the other guard¡¯s gaping mouth.

    The first defenses thus broken, Medorosa, with the blood soaked body of the first guard, charged up the steps of the seaward wall. Aisha and Oscar found the two corpses pinned to one another¡¯s embrace, and understood at once. Bells rang across the district, up and down the patrol routes, and further soldiers began their charge to aid the cannoneers, but not before Medorosa burst into the tent.

    When Aisha arrived in turn, the canvas walls had been torn down. A barrel of ley rods had been kicked over the side, and the corpse puppet stood across from myself as the hostage artillerymen turned the nearest cannon down to the harbor : to the chain protecting the docks from incursion.

    ¡°Brother!¡±

    The sergeant had been cut down by Medorosa, and as the only man present with a sword, the situation appeared grim. He scowled and inched closer to the weapon. ¡°Sister. I¡¯ve never seen you quite so persistent. Is chasing after me your goal in life or something? Betraying the people of Giordana.¡±

    ¡°You have to stop this,¡± she said, marching to him. ¡°You¡¯re killing innocent people! Destroying everything.¡±

    ¡°All in the name of liberation from the Vassish! These people? These people are collaborators. They¡¯re complicit with the occupation. A foreign occupation for the prosperity of foreigners and the insult to our own heritage.¡±

    ¡°Oh you don¡¯t know the first thing about your heritage! You know what you''ve dreamt up in taverns and bars and goaded your friends into believing! I know for a fact that you skipped every temple lecture you could and I doubt you have more than two prayers stored between your ears.¡±

    His nostrils flared. ¡°I know about honor! I know about keeping your word. And they don¡¯t. That¡¯s what matters, Sister. And now, that purity will come back to Giordana, by my hand.¡± He hefted the sledge hammer up in one hand and spun. It slammed upon the firing pin and the reaction within lurched.

    The cannon shot, however, merely rolled from the barrel and bounced off the ground. The ley rod within had been exhausted by my earlier play, and shattered.(3)

    Oscar, the pinnacle image of a proper footsoldier, had not spared the thoughts for what Medorosa was trying to do. While the Canta boy had been occupied with his scheme, Oscar had sprinted towards him. In Medorosa¡¯s confusion, Oscar cleaved his sword through the corpse puppet¡¯s back. He shattered the spine and dropped it there.

    ¡°Too bad,¡± I mused, grinning and stroking my chin.

    ¡°This isn¡¯t¡­ the end,¡± Medorosa croaked out ¡°Karekale is coming.¡±

    ¡°Perhaps,¡± I said.

    Aisha¡¯s eyes glistened, and she pointed a finger down to the bakery below. A dozen soldiers surrounded it at the orders of Sister Mori. ¡°It¡¯s over, Medo. We¡¯ve caught you. Just surrender.¡±

    The city lurched. To the north, dust and smoke plumed to the sky as a din of crashing stone swept across the rooftops. The walls of Rackvidd collapsed on themselves in a landslide of granite. The defenses of the city broke open.

    <hr>

    <ol>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">The Vassermark army had a superstition about their field rations. The objective reason for them (note : imagine an entire loaf of bread rushed into a brick the size of one¡¯s palm and salted so greatly as to purge any rot) was to simplify the logistics of feeding an army. They were sized such that a man could survive on two a day if the need be, and could supplement any local requisitions. The taste would never have been tolerated however, if not for the mystique given them by ancient warrior traditions. These rations were used by great swordsmen as their food during extended training of months or even years. Rubbish of course, but the lie made the food go down easier. Common soldiers eating the food of great warriors.</li>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">At this time, no fire was actually involved in the projectile process. By my recollection, most cannoneers referred to it as ¡°throwing shot¡±. However, the term is used to fit the modern jargon, as other such technologies have been developed to capture the public imagination.</li>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">I had of course foreseen Medorosa¡¯s attack, though I had assumed the soldiers of Vassermark would put up a better fight. Gambling with the sergeant had been an insurance plan I wished not to use. But alas. I do hope his family made use of the coin purse I left upon his corpse. In the end, he won the bet.</li>

    </ol>

 1-36 - Solhart The Victor

    One finds it difficult, even with my repertoire, to imagine a sight more in need of a righteous charge than watching the city walls collapse.

    Bodies littered the road between Lucius¡¯ army and the mountain men, each pierced and felled by arrows. Lucius sat beneath the hasty post to which they had strung up the corpse of the negotiator, goading the men to him. The Cynizia commanders kept their temper and kept their orders firm, but the legion of the Black Keep obeyed Erdro alone. Without him, each was their own, and each burned inside to see their honorable diplomat so humiliated. Naturally, any who tried to cut off Lucius¡¯ head perished.

    My pupil was in truth happy to sit there and whittle away at their defenses one warrior at a time. Every fighter slain seemed to goad another, all while his own soldiers regained their strength.

    Then the wall collapsed, and he knew that at least one of the three stigmata existed within their ranks.

    ¡°Men. The time for waiting is over. Your families are in there, at the mercy of these barbarians. Now we fight!¡± he roared.

    There is always a question of motivation when it comes to asking men to run headlong into mortal danger. Tyrion used valor and expectation. That is fine for an advantageous fight. Lucius did not have an advantage of that sort, not after the voluntaries had already been whipped for Tyrion¡¯s foolishness.

    To protect others works much better.

    While the bulk of Karekale¡¯s men scrambled over broken brick and boulder, the thinnest of lines stood to keep the Puerto Faro garrison at bay. The Vassish war cry rose like a wave and crashed upon them. Shield to shield, a hammering as though by rocks. The weaker men were thrown back, knees buckled. Gaps striped the formation. In went the swords, in went the spears.

    Beyond that shell of defense, the mountain men drove themselves against the hasty defenses of Rackvidd. Without so much as overturned carts to block the roads, the soldiers of Lord Raymi swelled around the breach in the wall and clashed. Most of them held, but not every road, street, and alley could be held. At least one collapsed, and through it streamed plunders, pillagers, thieves, rogues, scoundrels.

    Into the city poured the worst of humanity.

    Horns blared, sub-commanders screamed. They tried to rally reinforcements back from the charging mass. The two lines merged into one another, dissolving into a melee. Lucius fell victim to it as well, breaking through the middle by taking a spear through his shield arm. He cut that man down and tore the weapon out from his flesh.

    It would heal.

    Beyond the first line of the mountain men, he found himself surrounded. He also found the secret trick of Erdro Karekale; a pit mined out to a tunnel. He knew at once; a sapping tunnel. The wall had been undermined, and with a speed unthinkable to the defenders of Rackvidd.

    Lucius¡¯ retaliation had also come at unthinkable speed however, and he caught Erdro at the mouth of the tunnel. Still black with the subterranean mud, the lord of the Black Keep faltered in his march. Out came his sword. ¡°Solhart!¡±

    Sandalled feet pounding through the mud, over the blood and broken bodies. Lucius abandoned his shield, it would stop no blow from Karekale before it regenerated. He snatched up a spear from a fallen Giordanan. The tip twirled through the air while his sword cut through a man¡¯s face to make a path between him and Erdro.

    ¡°He¡¯s mine,¡± the lord of the Black Keep declared, shoving his second in command off to lead the attack on Rackvidd. He looked to the melee beyond and knew no help would come for either of them, though the victor may well find himself butchered. That put a grin on his face. It was a dragon¡¯s savory sneer.

    In the midst of open combat, a melee on all sides, to call something a duel sounds a folly. Despite this, what they had very nearly was a duel. When soldiers are spectators and the circle is protected not by agreement but by the raw pressure of wills, a true spectacle can be forged, as though the pressure were a blacksmith¡¯s hammer.

    Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work!

    Lucius had learned the way of ending a fight quickly, of striking a man down during that hesitation of doubt. Quite common that a foe will think to himself, ¡°Perhaps we don¡¯t have to do this, not really.¡± That vanishes after the first threat to his life. Killing the man in that first threat is what makes a good warrior.

    It doesn¡¯t work on other good warriors. Erdro Karekale was not such a prey.

    He was injured however. Every movement tore at his unhealed chest. While his own doctors had stitched him up to a degree, packed him with salves and pain killing drugs(1), he was not a man whole. He contended with Lucius, hacking with his sword and dancing from the spear tip. The two of them trampled corpses and parried steel.

    ¡°Your city has fallen, Vassish!¡±

    The spear slipped from the side of Erdro¡¯s blade. The brute shoved forward, knocking Lucius away. My pupil retaliated, twisting and spinning his body to slash his sword across the Giordanan¡¯s leg. He lost the spear in the process.

    Aching arm. Weak fingers. Lucius growled. ¡°It¡¯s my name they will know tomorrow.¡±

    Erdro bellowed laughter and took his oversized saber in both hands. He assaulted, a frenzy of steel clashes. He bludgeoned against Lucius with the sword, hammering into parries and guards and blocks till the boy¡¯s arms went numb. With a roar, he struck with all his waning might. The edge didn¡¯t reach Lucius, but his own hilt was smashed back into his face.

    Nose and lip split with blood.

    ¡°I¡¯ll send your head back to your king!¡±

    Lucius spat. A hot squirt of blood from his mouth and into the raging face of Erdro Karekale. That made the gap. That cleaved the man¡¯s mind from the fight for an instance. Lucius¡¯ cut wasn¡¯t clean. It was a twist of his blade to bring it beneath Erdro¡¯s arm and he ripped it backwards. Like a saw, it cut from skin to bone and tore the tendon¡¯s of Erdro¡¯s tricep.

    The lord of the Black Keep roared, blood gushing down his body. A dying dragon¡¯s cry for help. The pressure of wills that kept the melee apart vanished. Soldiers swept in. Shoulder to shoulder with one another, mountain men next to Vassish, their eyes on the two leaders. Each thought of nothing but of the enemy leader¡¯s head.

    The tide of the battle for Rackvidd turned then, as he stood there on the brink of unconsciousness and waiting for his stigmata to put him back together. Sammy, the doctor, had to find him as the battle for Rackvidd progressed into the breach of the walls, and Lucius put to the test the boy¡¯s claim that he was only a butcher on Sunsday. For years after, my pupil kept with him an arrow head ripped from his lungs, put there by one of the Giordanan¡¯s. Called it ¡°a gift that came very close to my heart.¡±

    A singular image escaped that bloodbath, and became immortalized in paint by the future artist Leandro Bauer, who ultimately lost a leg but not his life fighting for Lucius. Naturally, I had some hand in the growth of Leandro¡¯s fame, for it suited our purposes well, but I by no means wish to diminish the technical prowess possessed by Leandro. Sadly, the original painting can no longer be publicly viewed, as it has transferred to a private collection whose location I won¡¯t divulge. Copies are available in most large cities, and have elicited more than one grand heist, both before and after my pupil¡¯s death.

    At the time of creation, the original was sent directly to King Arandall, to curry favor for himself, and for Lucius who in effect, saved Leandro¡¯s life. It worked on both accounts.

    As depicted, Lucius stood, one foot on the felled corpse of Erdro Karekale(2). Helm lost. Armor pierced by two spears. Blood dripped from his limp arms and stained his blond hair. He did not have the slump of death to him. He stood with head turned to Rackvidd as his soldiers forced away the Cynizia rogues. The sun had just begun to set beyond him, casting darkness across the pile of slain foes.

    Lord Felix von Raymi saw this sight as well, but he from atop the remnants of the city wall. He had fought his way up and cut through the mountain men to survey the extent of the risk. By way of Erdro¡¯s gleaming gold, he saw that Lucius had defeated the enemy commander and struck the head from the snake.

    <hr>

    <ol>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">Alcohol was the primary painkiller available to Erdro, which even the most casual historian would surmise contributed to the man¡¯s defeat. This in no way lessens Lucius¡¯ victory, for he had been the cause of the wound.</li>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">It took me nearly a month to recover the corpse of Erdro Karekale. I normally have a great many means of bribery and theft to dig my fingers into such a curious stigmata, that allowed him to treat stone like clay. He had dug direct through the foundation of Rackvidd thanks to this miraculous power. He had used it to collapse the coastal road behind his troops as well. Oh, the trickery I could have done with such a pawn. The artificial creation of stigmata was still beyond me at the time however. Erdro¡¯s death served little more than furthering my research notes. That, and a rock for Lucius¡¯ fame to stand upon.</li>

    </ol>

 1-37 - Death of a Friend

    Bakeries. A staple of any city. Not a glorious profession by any means, nor a treasured bit of one¡¯s diet. It is, nevertheless, the most important profession of any settlement, for it renders plant into food, into calories that can be easily consumed. And frankly, they constitute one of the only good smells in the whole warren of bodies that humans inhabit to pass dirty coins around and everything else civilization demands.

    As such, the reward for baking is long hours of physical labor, little sleep, and outlandish rent prices for access to the ovens they need to keep people from starving. They wear their bodies out about as fast as bricklayers and breathe a cloud of flour smoke for half the day while slopping water into the tub and knocking elbows with their assistants.

    In a town such as Rackvidd, the bread was known for a peculiar flavor, and a darker hue than elsewhere. The grain shipped in from the north, from Vassermark¡¯s mainland farms to be traded for textiles and salt packed sheep goods. Salt too. One would think the bread there should taste like the bread to the north, they¡¯re made of the same grains. As it turns out, the secret ingredient is tobacco spit. It is an acquired taste to say the least, though eventually somewhat addictive.

    I say this all to build an image in the readers mind, not of the pleasant little storefront where a young woman could wave passerbys over to part with half a talon, but of the dungeon on the other side of the pass-through oven. No fresh wood had been tossed to the blaze since Medorosa¡¯s arrival and slaughter, and yet the heat still saturated the air worse than a desert. Deserts are at least dry, and the body can cool itself with sweat. The air in a bakery has all the sweat it can take.

    By Sister Mori¡¯s direction, the Vassish guards surrounded the place, finding the doors and windows from which Medorosa might escape. Trapping him was all well and good, but did little to actually kill him. Between the barrels and the basins and jumbles of tools, the backside of the bakery hardly had the space to stretch one¡¯s arms out, let alone swing a sword. The spears of the Vassish had a slight advantage in their thrusting, but a claustrophobia arose whenever the butt of a spear knocked into a wall, caught a doorjamb, or bounced off another¡¯s boot. It made them slow and deliberate. They treaded through the bakery as though upon uncertain ice, oblivious to the storming of the mountain men to the north.

    Oscar and Aisha arrived at the front. The air smelled of burnt bread, of loaves abandoned within the stone dome. The girl who should have manned the front laid dead at the foot of the stairs behind them. Rather than gruff orders to knead and to work and to flip loaves, they heard the shouts and clangs of combat. Through the door to the back they had to step over the still-warm bodies of the bakers to get to the blue-cloaked backs of the guards.

    Aisha gasped, her voice strangled in her throat the moment she saw her brother¡¯s final accomplice. ¡°Almir!¡± The time for surrender had passed, as a spear had passed through his stomach.

    The Giordanan man grunted, spilling blood from his mouth. Before the strength could leak from his body like wine from a cracked amphora, he surprised the Vassish with a strike from his short blade. He had brought in a crude, cleaver like weapon. Poor in a fight, but able to be swung in such a room. It caught the guard beneath the helm. The man gave a start. The muscles in his neck popped. Blood hit the ceiling as he faltered. Both men fell to the ground.

    The guard¡¯s companion roared, falling to one knee to see to his friend, but Oscar gave him a shove further back, around the bend to where Medorosa still contended. Aisha fell behind them, unable to step past Almir¡¯s body. She sank down, kneeling in front of him as she covered her mouth with shaking hands.

    The Cynizia showed a weak smile. ¡°Aisha-ima¡­ I didn¡¯t even hope.¡±

    ¡°Why? Why did you come here?¡±

    The color began to fade from his face. ¡°Someone had to protect Medo-imo.¡±

    ¡°I told you to give up on this, didn¡¯t I? That it would fail?¡±

    ¡°I wanted to believe.¡± Life left his body as the tears ran down Aisha¡¯s face. She had never quite considered him a friend, but he had been a part of her life for years.

    The bridge between him and her snarled and shouted. He expertly twriled his blade, circling it and driving away spear thrusts. Sweat and blood mingled across his body, dripping into his clothes and spraying off with every slash of his arms.

    Oscar had seemingly let Medorosa escape to the back alley, to where carts would be laden and unladen with flour or goods. Now they had him surrounded. ¡°Don¡¯t be afraid. He¡¯s just a man. His stigmata is useless if he can¡¯t kill anyone. Don¡¯t take risks! Shields men, shields! Take out his legs.¡±

    Medorosa found his back to a wall. ¡°You think you have such a great luxury here? Take your time! See if I care. The wrath of the Black Keep will be upon you. They have broken your wall. They storm in by the hundreds now.¡± He faltered. Eyelids drooping, he threw a hand to the wall and steadied himself. An act of anemia.

    ¡°Those barbarians will be slaughtered just as you will be,¡± Oscar shouted. ¡°I want him taken alive. You hear me? We¡¯ll have him crucified still living. Whoever brings him down shall journey north to the capital for his trial. How about that, boys?¡± A handsome reward.

    This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

    ¡°How about not?¡± Almir growled, and threw an arm around Aisha, pressing the edge of his sword to her throat. Warm blood still leaked from his gut. The man didn¡¯t breathe. The man was not Almir.

    Aisha stiffened, her chin reaching up like it wanted to divorce from her shoulders. Her ears hammered with the beating of her heart, while her eyes went to her brother. Medorosa¡¯s head rested upon his chest.

    ¡°Don¡¯t move!¡± Almir¡¯s corpse shouted when one Vassish soldier moved closer to Medorosa.

    ¡°Impossible,¡± Oscar growled, spreading his stance out and gripping his sword. He looked the two of them up and down. ¡°I saw him die myself! It was at the hands of a guard.¡±

    The corpse that had been Almir chuckled. ¡°My stigmata does not require that I be the killer. Now then, dear sister who betrayed me, why don¡¯t you beg? If you don¡¯t want me ripping out your backstabbing throat.¡±

    Aisha didn¡¯t beg, but she did swallow. The edge cut the skin of her throat just enough to draw blood. ¡°What do you imagine is going to happen here? That these soldiers will surrender to Karekale¡¯s forces? You¡¯re proving yourself to be an idiot, brother.¡±

    Oscar signaled one of his men with a jerk of his head. A spear pointed at Medorosa¡¯s body. ¡°I wonder, rebel, what happens to you if you die while in a corpse? Do you still get to move for a bit? Do you become the walking dead forever? I think that will make a lovely spectacle for the king¡¯s court.¡±

    ¡°Back off,¡± Medorosa hissed. ¡°All of you step back.¡±

    Oscar shrugged, holding his sword as loose as a bard holding a lyre. ¡°Why should we? So what if you kill the woman. She¡¯s Lord Raymi¡¯s prisoner and nothing more. I won¡¯t get in trouble if you kill her. She has served her purpose. All that will happen is you will have to face your goddess and say you killed your own sister¡­ for nothing.¡±

    The corpse of Almir breathed raggedly. The effect of Medorosa¡¯s stigmata was a somewhat uncertain thing. It depended greatly upon the state of the body. Obviously, a decapitated body is of no use to it, nor would that of an elderly person. No tools to work with, and Aisha knew this well. What she didn¡¯t know was what would happen to him if they did kill his original body.

    I suspect that Medorosa didn¡¯t know either. Perhaps he thought that he might end up a fleeing ghost. A soul doomed to leap from one decaying body to the next while fleeing from the Shepherd¡¯s hunting dogs. She doesn¡¯t like those who abuse the cycle of reincarnation.

    What Aisha did know, however, was that her brother awaited the arrival of the mountain men because they brought death. There would be other bodies for him to leap to, a surprise to spring upon the Vassish, if he could just do it so elegantly as to not get his own body impaled.

    He needed an opportunity, such as the emergency bells ringing a new tune across Rackvidd. They clamored like a church at noon suddenly, an incomplete melody. Four-four time but half filled : the signal that the harbor was under assault. Medorosa¡¯s attack on the cannons had not been for naught.

    Of course, I was there to oversee the redistribution of weapons after the great chain shattered. The Cynizia fleet did not reach the docks unscathed by any means; but, the men there in that alley were caught by surprise.

    Medorosa threw his soul back into his body. Before Almir¡¯s corpse even hit the ground, he had grabbed the shaft of the nearest spear and thrown himself into the man. They rolled, tumbling with body and limb. The Vassish compatriots leapt at him, but their weapons found only the blue-cloaked back of their comrade. Medorosa¡¯s sword had gutted the man too.

    ¡°Stop him!¡± Aisha shouted, an obvious thing.

    The chaos remained just that; a slash of weapons and rage. Medorosa dragged the Vassish into the mire of bloodshed and proved his experience. Out from the melee he sprang. He threw himself into the back of a barrel cart, while at once pushing his soul to the corpse he had just made. He, in the Vassish body, pulled down his pursuers, crawling atop them in search of a dagger.

    The Vassish were wise to his strategy by then and Oscar wasted no time before stoving in the head of the deceased soldier. No second corpse was made, but at the same time, the barrel cart had been knocked free of its parking blocks. It tumbled down the road, veering and swerving, laden with Medorosa¡¯s body while the Vassish crawled over the tangle of bodies.

    ¡°Do not let him get away!¡±

    Sister Mori took Aisha by the shoulder and turned her around, pulled her from the bloody chase. ¡°Come here, come here. This is no duty of yours.¡±

    The songstress tugged at the priestess¡¯ grasp. ¡°He¡¯s my brother. I can¡¯t just run away from this.¡±

    The old woman pursed her lips. Already, the sound of fighting grew distant. ¡°You¡¯re no warrior though. Look at you, torn between heart and brain. Half of you knows what must be done, but the other half weeps that it must be so. You¡¯ve got nothing but pain to bridge the two.¡±

    Aisha settled her breathing, bringing her senses back to the moment, to herself and her body. Tears trickled down her cheeks and she sheepishly wiped them away. ¡°You know, I probably could have killed him in his sleep. Prevented all this.¡± Her gaze went down to the body of Almir at her feet.

    Sister Mori shoved her a step back and interposed herself. ¡°No, no I don¡¯t think you could have. Let alone getting past his guards, you¡¯re not the kind of girl who could do that to her brother, no matter what he¡¯s done. Ratting him out to other people is about the most you could do I think. And there¡¯s nothing wrong with that.¡±

    Her lips twisted and she shrugged. ¡°Sister, if I don¡¯t go help them, they¡¯ll never catch him. He¡¯s¡­ he¡¯s like a greased up eel if he wants to be. Always has been, all the way back to getting out of temple lessons as a kid. The monks always sent me to go round him back up and bring him back¡­¡±

    The priestess¡¯ face didn¡¯t crack, one of the best features of old religious people. Hard like bedrock. Certainly better than their views on tradition, even in the face of someone several centuries older than them. ¡°It¡¯s not your job to bring him back. You didn¡¯t send him here. Leave it to someone else.¡±

    Aisha shook her head. She pulled free of Sister Mori¡¯s grasp at last and said, ¡°I can¡¯t though. I have to go. Maybe I have to find someone else first. Someone who doesn¡¯t die even when they¡¯re killed.

 1-38 - Lord of the City

    Something more terrifying than Medorosa Canta awaited Lucius, just beyond the city walls.

    Girded with quick stitches and a wrap of bandages beneath his armor, Lucius staggered to the fissure of rubble that had been the wall around Rackvidd. Sammy had barely put him into one piece and gotten his armor on him, and Lucius pushed himself to the fray once more. In one hand, he carried his sword. In the other, the flag of the Black Keep.

    Rather than roaring mountain men ready to cut his head off, Lord Raymi stepped out to greet him with a far more dangerous tongue. ¡°The duelist, if my eyes didn¡¯t deceive me. Was that Erdro Karakale you cut down?¡± He spoke loud, but without his stigmata. The de facto ruler of Rackvidd had taken his helm off, displaying his face for all to see, and faced Lucius with a certain tightness in his eyes. A study of disbelief.

    Lucius threw the standard down at Raymi¡¯s feet. Fist to chest, the salute struck himself almost off-balance. ¡°M¡¯lord, aye. I¡¯ve cut down their commander. Their ground forces have no leader to them. They will rout soon.¡±

    Raymi inclined his head. He stood upon ruins with the strength of a conqueror, rather than the conquered victim. No weight of fear pressed down his shoulders. ¡°Who are you, soldier?¡±

    Lucius straightened his back, matching the almost regal air that Lord Raymi projected. How I wish I could have been there to see, to scrutinize and inspect. I had spent such agony trying to unteach from him what that circus troupe had poisoned him with so long ago. But, as the reader knows, I was occupied with certain explosions. Without my oversight, he said, ¡°Lucius von Solhart, Sir. The gods have blessed me with a second life and I am here to put it to good use.¡±

    ¡°After the disaster that happened at Puerto Faro, I understand. Dozens dead, perhaps a hundred. Trade connections lost, civilians butchered, merchants crying about debts and contracts. All manner of destruction sprung from that city, which you were in charge of. It even came so far as to tear down the walls of Rackvidd.¡±

    ¡°Yes, sir. But, it is a disaster I am here to put an end to.¡±

    Lord Raymi held the silence, as it were between the two of them during a panicked storm of assaulting the city, or looting and pillaging being put down street by street till the roads ran red with Giordanan blood. Lucius¡¯ wounds seeped with his own blood, more with every pulse of his heart. The gaze quickened it, drove anxiety into him. Lord Raymi knew the true Lucius von Solhart, the feckless failure of a Vassish nobleman. A man only in charge of an insignificant garrison, whom no one thought could be under threat much less fall, by virtue of his birth.

    That was not the man standing before Lord Raymi. True, they were of the same age, in the same armor, in charge of the same army, but this was a falsehood at last put to the test. The soldiers had lost their doubts in the desert, withered away inside them like the water from the scrub plants between the dunes. Day by day he had driven into them by his actions what role he had, and the name of the man with that role was Lucius von Solhart.

    Lord Raymi was under hardly a fraction of the illusion. All he knew was that the only forces capable of coming to his aid were those of Solhart¡¯s garrison. That their retreat across the Giordanan coast would have led them to Rackvidd in such a sorry state as he saw them in. But he saw them victorious. He saw that my pupil had done something useful. He had slain Erdro Karakale, dealing a blow to the rebel cause that would echo for years.

    Far more important than his identity, my pupil had proved to Lord Raymi that he was valuable to him, something the original Lucius von Solhart had never been capable of.

    This was the crux of our deception, to win over a true vouch safe. To delude, willingly even, a man able to bring my pupil into the royal court where mere presence meant power and authority, for all the dangers within King Arandall¡¯s orbit nonetheless. Nearly a decade of preparation stood at stake as he faced the lord of Rackvidd, and in his mind it rested entirely on his present acting skills, exhausted as he was.(1)

    The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

    Lord Raymi nodded and swept his arm around the rubble. ¡°This has been a costly disaster.¡±

    ¡°The lord of the Black Keep had a powerful stigmata. Part of the coastal road was collapsed along the cliff, and will need to be rebuilt if land travel is to resume between here and Giordana.¡±

    ¡°It could have been stopped in the cradle, if this Medorosa Canta had been defeated in Puerto Faro.¡±

    Lucius learned once more than rehearsing lines didn¡¯t not necessarily make them easier to say. ¡°That was my failing. My forces had been spread throughout the city, and fell prey to the riots before ranks could be formed up once more. The scale of the insurrection was¡­¡± he spread his arm back, out to the field of corpses. Vultures and corvids had begun to circle, black shadows in the sky and cast too upon the ground.

    Very few bodies had the blue capes of Vassish soldiers.

    Lord Raymi nodded and nodded, and gave his judgment. ¡°If this is your mess, then bring me Medorosa¡¯s head. You¡¯ll need his blood to clean off this failure.¡±

    A rope down the pit, of which to grab hold of and haul himself up one mighty pull after the next. Lucius seized it and brought his sword to his heart. ¡°Yes, Sir,¡± he barked out.

    Raymi gestured to one of his subordinates. He began the banal details of assimilating the raucous mob of survivors from Puerto Faro and forming an escape chute to force out the Cynizia from the city, ready to snap shut like a steel valve to slaughter the remnants. He sought out information first and foremost, and found a city guard able to bring Lucius to the fray, to the manhunt for Medorosa.

    My pupil stepped into Rackvidd, one stroke of his blade from truly being Lucius von Solhart. He marched over corpses and smelled the ash, both of which would be common for him ever more.

    ¡°The navy will have that flotsam armada swept up beofre long. I think, Lord Solhart, you¡¯re in a bit of a race with the naval captain,¡± his guide said, taking him in the cleft between battle lines, through to the heart of Rackvidd.

    ¡°How so?¡±

    ¡°Well, normally, you¡¯d want to be the one to swing the last blow, eh?¡± the guard said. He was young, but a year older than Lucius which let his arrogance leak through. ¡°The one who swings last is the one who ended the battle, but really, it¡¯s the other way around like this. Whoever swings last is the one who dragged their feet and didn¡¯t get to it fast enough. The lazy one, as it were.¡±

    ¡°You say that as though the Cynizia stand no chance.¡±

    The guard laughed. ¡°Of course they don¡¯t. They don¡¯t even understand what they¡¯ve picked a fight with. We have proper warships. Aged wood from the north, where the trees get actual water. These shabby buckets they call ships can¡¯t even weather a storm. One good ramming and they¡¯ll sink.¡±

    The intricacies of naval combat were a bit lost on this poor man. Cannons had not yet made it shipside however, so he was not too far off in his estimation. A mere few years later however, and the entire concept of ramming would be laughable.(2) Lucius merely said, ¡°So long as the harbor chain holds strong. The last thing we need is more people running around, setting fire to things. Where are we going?¡±

    With little knowledge of the condition at sea, the guard said, ¡°To the palace. That¡¯s where that snake Medorosa has been fleeing.¡± He leaned in to whisper, ¡°They say he can possess the bodies of those he kills.¡±

    ¡°That would certainly explain a few things,¡± Lucius grumbled back, ignoring the pain of healing as they stepped out on the main road and he at last saw the palace proper, along with the swarm of blue cloaked guards closing in to it. Medorosa was nearly there, to the seat of perceived power, as though he alone could conquer the city merely by taking that throne. Perhaps someone had told him too many legends about the gods, of magic and enchantments bestowed by the divine beasts. Rackvidd was merely a mortal place, and the power came from the people throughout, not the symbols within.

    But, of course, he was not the only one forcing Medorosa into the corner of his own desire. After long days, he and Aisha would finally meet one another once more. Far above, circling with the scavengers, the divine beast Golden could barely contain his bloody glee.

    <hr>

    <ol>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">Naturally, I had contingency plans, should Raymi see through the ruse. Lucius was not privy to those, lest his facade falter in some false sense of complacency. Lucius did not, at this time, disappoint.</li>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">Aside of course from a good game of Trireme. Though quite a few people tried to simulate cannon fire in the game, overwhelmingly people merely chose to describe it as forward facing canons rather than ramming</li>

    </ol>

 1-39 - The Throne Room

    At last, the story begins to come to a head. Allow me to paint the scene. The throne of Rackvidd. Once, an opulent thing of gilded wood, by then replaced with a plain seat of oiled pine, as tradition within Vassermark. The seat had been crafted from heartwood taken from the king¡¯s hunting grounds, and made to a delicate level of opulence, situating it properly among its four legged peers throughout Vassermark. Though of less value, as Rackvidd meant little more than naval force projection, it had nonetheless been crafted by the same artisans that crafted King Arandall¡¯s throne. That, combined with the imported, Alliesterran cushions made for a splendid chair to lord over the barren meeting room.

    If the little dias had not been sufficient for the city lord, at its back glowed a stained glass mosaic depicting a clash between a dragon-like eruption of fire below and the azure rebuttal of Saphira above. The goddess in cycle and yet above the tumult of the Ash Fall Mountains, chaos and order in balance with one another.

    A beautiful work, but the light came from nothing more than a little internal garden, and hardly reflected the varied faiths of the city. It gave nothing more than a humbling air when people turned to the throne as they argued their contractual disputes, their disagreements of law, their political misfortunes and their plights of favor.

    The throne was a despairing thing of trifling arguments and little power. It ruled over people who hated it, and bowed to distant nobles. It balanced the tugs of faith between the temples and churches without so much as a scrap of magic bestowed upon it. And yet, it was more precious than heaps of gold to Medorosa Canta. It had, in the lengths of his imagination, bundled unto itself all the hardships of his revolution. The false belief that some cosmic scale kept balance, that the anguish and death and suffering made for an ever grander prize.

    Nothing but a fallacy, a fabrication of his despair to cling onto.

    He had fought his way in among those stone pillars to the very foot of the throne. Dogged by wary guards, dragging with him the fears of punishment with every step he took. No armed force of Cynizia had arrived to the palace. One man hardly raised concern. They hadn¡¯t even shut the main doors on him. Progress further, however, was blocked by spear points. He could get to the throne, but any door out, to the wings of residential rooms and meeting rooms, to the barracks and battery, to the storerooms and kitchens and aerie, to everything with true utility, was blocked.

    ¡°Harder to pin down than a greased hog,¡± Oscar declared as he marched towards him.

    The leader of the Cynizia could hardly catch his breath. His frantic scramble of pounding feet and blood had come to an end, and his body cried out for rest. ¡°Karakale has taken down the walls. The mountain men will butcher you all!¡±

    ¡°Erdro Karakale is dead by my hand,¡± Lucius said, his voice echoing down the hall, amplified as though in an opera hall. Vehemence sprang into the air between them, those two men who had not seen one another since the night in Puerto Faro, and yet whose influence had always been at the other¡¯s throat.

    ¡°Solhart!¡± Medorosa shouted.

    ¡°Lucius?¡± Aisha cried out, held to the side by a soldier with thoughts of chivalry in his head.

    For a moment, my pupil found himself speechless, his mouth gaping like any other boy of eighteen. The sight of her broke down walls of worry and concern that built within his mind like piled debris. He barely wrested himself back to Medorosa as the Giordanan circled round the throne. He marched out before the encircling wall of Vassish soldiers.

    ¡°Who are you?¡± Oscar asked.

    With a grin and conviction, with the shackles of fear and doubt falling away, my pupil announced, ¡°I¡¯m Lucius von Solhart! The man who will put down this rebellion. I¡¯ve slain the lord of the Black Keep and now I shall cut down Medorosa Canta. This duel is mine. Let me finish it.¡±

    This tore at Oscar, unfairly in a sense. He stepped away, in deference to Lucius¡¯ noble status despite his own desire to avenge his men. He gritted his teeth and hoped that Lucius would fall, that the glory would be his, but did not impede his way as Lucius approached Medorosa Canta.

    Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

    The Giordanan merchant spread out his hands. In one hand, he held his saber and in the other his honor blade. Both dripped blood across the stone beneath. ¡°We meet again you luckless bastard.¡±

    ¡°What I lack in luck, I make up for in tenacity,¡± he answered, taking his time to size Medorosa up. He needed a gauge of the other man¡¯s injuries and exhaustion, and found Medorosa only as worse off as he himself was. Lucius was healing however, Medorosa was bleeding.

    ¡°How have you not died? I¡¯ve lost track of the number of times I¡¯ve killed you. At least three, probably more in those mad brawls you call combat. What sort of stigmata do you have?¡± Medorosa paced, letting his attention slip from guard to guard and finding that none wanted to step forward. Like an iron maiden from the deepest dungeon however, he could not move towards any of them without finding their steel thrust at him.

    ¡°I heal. You have to try a lot harder to kill me.¡±

    ¡°I saw your fucking head cut off!¡±

    ¡°But you didn¡¯t see the head, now did you?¡± I can only imagine the grin my young pupil had as he said that. All the better for it too. Lies and grandiosity beget legends, and legends beget fear. We may never know how many times his life was saved but these displays.

    ¡°Lucius!¡± Aisha called out, forcing the room¡¯s attention back to her. ¡°Please, is there any way to spare my brother?¡±

    He hesitated. A glance to Oscar, though he only knew the man had an air of authority, earned him a stern shake of his head. ¡°Even if I took him prisoner, he would be executed by the king.¡±

    ¡°I can barter for his life!¡±

    Medorosa roared, ¡°You will not! You will not talk of me like this, sister. I have not been defeated. I am a free man. I am at war with Vassermark, not its pawn nor subject. If they want my life they will have to take it.¡±

    It was not Medorosa¡¯s rage that reached Lucius¡¯ heart, but the pain of Aisha grasping at anything she could, trying desperately to not lose anything more. The tears in her eyes struck him worse than the cleaving blows of Erdro Karakale. Alas, a fleeting sympathy did not bear the weight of responsibility he bore upon his undying shoulders. Lord Raymi had given his dictate, named his price, and that left no room for negotiation.

    Medorosa Canta had to die.

    He shook his head and glared at the Vassish man holding her by the arm. ¡°Take her away. What is wrong with you men? You would force a woman to watch the killing of her own brother?¡±

    ¡°She¡¯s no sister of mine, not after her betrayal,¡± Medorosa said.

    Aisha collapsed, her legs giving out beneath her. If not for the support of the guard, she would have fallen to the ground at Medorosa¡¯s words. The pull of the man swept her back, into the halls of the palace and away from the fight.

    Lucius turned to him. He marched to the dias. ¡°Family is not something that should be forsaken. They¡¯re the deepest bonds, and the void left by tearing out the roots can never be filled. You surely wound yourself as much as wound her.¡±

    ¡°What would you know, Vassish? You people don¡¯t even understand what a marriage is between a man and a woman. You treat children like communal property(1),¡± Medorosa saids.

    Lucius pressed his lips into a line and shook his head. He lifted his sword before himself, gripping the pommel with his other hand. A fatigued duel often does not survive to the point of a bard¡¯s retelling. It can impress only other warriors, who know what it can be like to exert one¡¯s body past all limits. How a sword can feel so heavy in the hands and feet so leaden. Grand attacks and flourishes are, by necessity, abandoned, as the fighters can only manage the most simple of attacks.

    But, it is within the grips of exhaustion that excellence wins out. About them, in the streets of Rackvidd, the mountain men were being put down one after the next, run through with Vassish spears from the calm and unyielding guards. They had sprang into the city filled with vigor and adrenaline, but their running about drained them. The brushes with death clasped their limbs like chains. The creeping thought of waning retreat pulled them away and the frenzy began to fail. Only then did training win out, did the blue-cloaked soldiers turn the tide with hardly a loss on their own side. It was easy for them to stand behind their shields, to ward off attacks until an ally could gut the barbarian for them. Not so easy to be in a rabble, in an unknown city, against men with faces hidden behind calm masks.

    The direct victory of the siege drew to a close around them, by the inexorable forces of kingdom and economy, the might of Vassermark unyielding against a spurious rebellion. Lucius and Medorosa held between them the spirit of the victory. The Canta boy was right in his reckoning that the symbols of power had a degree of it themselves.

    Medorosa put his back to the throne and held up his blades.

    Lucius accepted the invitation and lunged into the fray.

    <hr>

    <ol>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">Medorosa Canta was of a quite discriminatory sort, in regards to the marriage customs of Vassermark.</li>

    </ol>

 1-40 - Medorosas Duel

    Two blades against one. Giordana against Vassermark, a conflict reignited by betrayal. Both sides had put forth men barely older than children to be their avatar in the struggle. Neither Lucius nor Medorosa fought with any fear of death.

    One might imagine a great deal of grunting and shouting, of swearing oaths at one another. That would have required they spare the breath for words rather than heaving in fresh air. Each of them, mere moments after the first lunges, the thrusts and swipes, the clash of steel on steel, they panted like dogs. Deep, ragged belly breathing as the muscles in their arms and legs contended with the strain of combat.

    Lucius had fought dual wielding men before, a roguish archetype if ever there was one. Duelists fancied it in the central kingdoms, and more than once he had found his blade bound up and his stomach cut open. The tricks, the circling of tips and pivoting of shoulders as edges scraped, Lucius knew them almost as well as Medorosa did. He would thrust, stab, graze a slice of red across the Giordanan¡¯s wrists before seeing the twist and tearing his blade back to a guard.

    Medorosa¡¯s attacks in turn slammed back at Lucius. They danced back and forth, pressuring one another around the dais as his one-handed strikes failed to push back Lucius¡¯ defense.

    Either could have, perhaps, ended the fight with a burst of strength. Had they the power to rain down a flurry of blows, slashing and crashing upon the other¡¯s defenses and overwhelming them, the duel could have been brought to a close. If either had tried, in their fatigued states, the other would have cut their head off.

    Lucius gladly played the game. The longer it dragged out, so long as neither ceased, the more people would speak of it. He made his thrusts and he pulled away, circling the throne in the light of the glass mosaic. Every moment, every beat of his heart, stitched his wounds back together. He drew more strength from his feet to his hips to his hands, and his blows grew heavier.

    Medorosa grew weaker and knew in his heart the cause. He had no allies, no brothers to watch his back. They had one by one perished for his cause. What had made him a terror to the savages of the wastelands valued for naught against Lucius. He could not slay some impotent would-be warrior and sow chaos. He could not drop himself to the ground like a puppet with no strings, for he had no protection. He had only himself and no way to use his greatest strength, his stigmata.

    The enormity of his mistake began to dawn on him. The faces of his comrades, now dead, flashing before him in the clash of steel. Every blow made him more certain that Lucius had not lied when he said Erdro Karakale had been slain at his hand. Dhib had been cut down by Lucius. Omar slain by the guards. How many would drown after the naval battle?

    Those thoughts, the weary yoke of leadership, truly dragged Medorosa Canta into the muck of despair, for no matter how he attacked Lucius, he could not break through. He could not kill my pupil. Even the glancing slices that marred his arms and legs closed up and sealed if they were left to be in the dance of swords.

    Then, as the strings of tension upon his heart tried to tear him apart, he locked blades. He caught Lucius¡¯ sword with honor blade and saber both, holding it with all his strength of arm and grip both, then slammed it to the side. Their blades cleaved, ramming into and through the back of the throne. It splintered and erupted. Shards of wood flew and the break rang like a cannon shot.

    For a moment, Lucius was held in shock, of questioning what it meant to break the throne of Rackvidd. What it did was break the illusion Medorosa had put upon himself. It broke his need to be there, at the center of the city, and the crux of power. It showed what a trifling thing the symbol was when put to the test of mettle.

    He leapt.

    Not at Lucius, but at the window. With an ancient skeleton of tin and solder, a brittle frame unable to even keep the rain from seeping through. He drove his shoulder to it and smashed through to the courtyard beyond.

    Lucius roared as the thousand shards of glass tumbled inside and out. He leapt up to the crenelated sill. Medorosa had hit the bosom of grass below, rolling to his feet as fresh blood poured into his jacket. The courtyard was home to dozens of entries and exits, paths of flight and escape.

    Lucius dove down, hitting with his shoulder and rolling. Before he could get his feet, Medorosa hacked down, stabbing into his arms with his saber. It robbed my pupil of his grip on his own sword as pain lanced through him, the pain of fractured bone.

    The saber was pinned between his arm and his chest however, and when he twisted he tore it from Medorosa¡¯s grasp as well. That left one good weapon; the Canta boy¡¯s honor blade. Before Lucius could rip the saber from his arm, the dagger plunged at him. It was all he could do to grab hold of Medorosa¡¯s arms to stop it.

    This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

    ¡°This will be the fourth time I¡¯ve killed you,¡± Medorosa hissed, throwing his weight atop Lucius to drive his sliver of steel down.

    Lucius spat. This time, it didn¡¯t reach his opponent. Medorosa roared, gritting his teeth, snarling, thrashing his body down. With a heave, Lucius shoved the Giordanan aside, but too late, too weak. The knife slipped down, plunging in and ripped through his eye. The orb ruptured as the blade twisted in his socket, gouts of blood and pain blinding him as the weapon scraped against his skull.

    But he had shoved Medorosa, he did force the man aside, and the Giordanan landed atop the glass thrust through his shoulder. He too howled in pain and lost his grip. The honor blade tumbled to the ground between them as Lucius at last ripped the saber from his arm. For a moment, they scrambled in the dirt, churning it with their blood. Lucius had the worse of the gore, but the pain was not enough to blind him and the gods had given him two eyes.

    He snatched up the saber torn from his arm just as Medorosa leapt back up with his honor blade.

    ¡°Enough!¡± Lucius screamed. He chopped down, both hands on the handle.

    The Giordanan rebel thrust his dagger forth, catching the edge on his guard, but too weak. The saber slammed down, shoving through the blade and chopping into Medorosa¡¯s shoulder. It bit through bone.

    The shock reverberated back, passing through Lucius¡¯ hands, wrists, and to his arm. A shock of pain wiped his senses from him, greater than what any man could bear without crying out in pain. His own bone, fractured by the sword thrust, snapped. The muscles contracted, ripping the tips of his humerus through his flesh. He screamed.

    It was then, standing at death¡¯s door, that Medorosa at last had the upper hand. With his own sword cleaved into his torso, hands wet with blood and hardly enough breath to pant let alone to shout, he held the advantage. His honor blade dipped down, sliding off the saber. He slipped it in through the left side of Lucius¡¯ throat, beneath his destroyed eye. With a jerk, he ripped through my pupil¡¯s artery.

    Blood near boiling hot fountained out, coating both men as they collapsed.

    All this occurred in less time than it took for a single guard, a single soldier fo Rackvidd, to storm into the courtyard. The men beneath Lord Raymi charged over and found the twin corpses.

    ¡°No!¡± The scream, ripped from Aisha¡¯s lips, echoed out from the inner garden and up to the heavens above. ¡°Brother! Why, why did you do this?¡±

    Oscar watched from above, one foot on the precipice of broken glass. ¡°What a pity. A tragic end. A destruction on both sides. A cruel folly brought to its own end. Two men in such high pursuit of glory, of vanity and significance, that they each achieved nothing. The duel they wanted so badly brought them nothing but their own end.¡± He spat on the ground.

    Aisha, in lieu of both combatants being dead, was allowed to break free, to charge over. She fell to her knees at her brother¡¯s side, tears running down her face as weeks of fear came to fruition. With no hesitation of the filth and blood, she cradled his head and spared a glance for Lucius¡¯ disfigured form limp upon the ground. She cradled Medorosa¡¯s head with trembling hands, her body racked with her sobs. Then hope found its way into her, merely to twist the knife harder and deeper within her heart.

    ¡°He¡¯s still breathing! Please, a doctor! He can be saved. He can be taken prisoner. Put on trial! Enslaved. Something. Bring a doctor, a priestess, anyone!¡±

    No amount of her cries and protests could rouse Medorosa however. Oscar shook his head and departed to the throne room once more, working his way through the halls to join them. The other soldiers knew better than to hold out hope. They knew what sort of destruction had been dealt to Medorosa¡¯s body. Mortal hands could no longer save him. Only the power of a stigmata, and no such saint lived within Rackvidd.

    A shadow descended from the sky, great and monstrous as it alighted upon the palace roof and preened its abyssal wings. Golden crowed, twitching his head and salivating above the red stained garden. ¡°Delicious! Such a delectable delight to devour this day. The transparent tragedy of trifling tyrants. The blood of bashed and battered brutes bare upon the ground. The sniffling suffering of a sister. The vexation of veterans viewing the vile victor. I have not sated my glut with such beautiful and pained morsels for decades.¡±

    Aisha turned her head up, trembling as she gripped her brother¡¯s body and found that she had not the strength to ask for help of the divine beast. Not because he was incapable, but because she knew, deep in her heart, that Golden would refuse. For all the aid that creature had bestowed upon Lucius and her, the payment was then due. The blood and body of sacrifice that laid in her grasp.

    The soldiers cried out, ¡°Demon! It is a demon of the sands!¡± They were struck by the awe of magic, the hyper-real impression of force, how his feathers cut away the waning sky behind him. The mere presence, cast down above them, drew all eyes upward. Their spears wavered and their feet retreated.

    The duel laid forgotten in an instant, and in that gap, the victor rose. Drenched in blood and broken in body, Lucius von Solhart pushed himself up to his feet. His right arm dangled at his side, useless. His left eye a blight of gore. He panted and heaved across ragged throat.

    Lucius laughed.

    Golden nearly burst with glee as he shouted, ¡°Now then! Finish it! Bring this act to an end!¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ve done it,¡± Lucius said, his voice rough as a saw as he coughed out blood. ¡°I have the undying body. Let them all come. Let all the Vassish come at me. What will they do to me now that I have an unkillable body?¡± Medorosa said through Lucius¡¯ mouth.

 1-41 - Payment of Dues

    Medorosa Canta had wedged his soul into the gap between Lucius¡¯s body and spirit. In the moment of death, when life blood could no longer reach my pupil¡¯s brain, there had been a fissure. Within the moment of activation, as Lucius¡¯ stigmata looked over his tattered body and began to activate, the Giordanan rebel had first thrust forward his own ability, his own soul.

    Second by second, the body of Lucius von Solhart knitted back together. Cuts closed, bruises faded, his eye scarred shut. Only his broken arm could not be put back right. Every shove of magic tore something anew, drawing away the focus of the stigmata. The blood and tissue had to come from somewhere however, not that Medorosa knew. For as much as he healed, the life came from self-cannibalism. The stigmata ate away at his body, first the fat, then the muscle. For as much as his body restored, he grew more emaciated and weak.

    Medorosa exalted in his newfound life, blinding himself like he stared into the sun. And he turned that blind rage on his own sister. He grabbed Aisha by the hair, digging his fingers through it down to the roots, and hauled her to her feet. ¡°You betraying bitch. Now look where it¡¯s gotten you.¡±

    ¡°Medo?¡±

    ¡°If only you had sided with me, if you had kept faith in your family. What was it? What lured you away? Was it love? Was it this filthy, foreign face?¡± he spat at her. ¡°It¡¯s mine now. How does that make you feel? The Cynizia will conquer Rackvidd, will cast out the Vassish and those we capture will be slaves. You¡­ you will be among them. Sold as the lowliest whore!¡±

    ¡°Unhand her!¡± the Vassish guard roared, for he was no stranger to Medorosa¡¯s power. He stabbed with his spear. He caught no flesh, but forced the puppet master away.

    The Canta boy laughed, feeling the exaltation of a fresh body, of health and vigor as though he had been awoken from sleep or chewed on amphos root. He was, however, unarmed. He dared not rip the saber embedded in his own body. Lucius¡¯ blade, the infantry steel that had cut down Erdro Karakale, was his salvation. While the guard tried to pull Aisha away, he scooped it up and felt the weight of it. Cumbersome in his off-hand.

    For a man who felt no pain though, scarcely a more dangerous foe could be found.

    He threw himself at the guard, and they exchanged blows as Aisha fell to her hands and knees beside them. She crawled away, and for that sin of cowardice, Golden threw his ire at her. ¡°Who are you to flee, girl? Take the responsibility into your own hand,¡± he ordered, and flicked a wing. With but a trifle of magic, he shot a mote of light down to the garden floor beside her.

    While Medorosa and the Vassish guards embroiled each other with the dance of blades, she took up the fallen honor blade. First cut upon her brother¡¯s chest to start the vendetta, she knew how it would have to end. She knew the slender blade well, the ceremonial thing give to her brother by their father when he first took hold of a caravan, first proved himself a man. She had it then, and she drove it into her brother¡¯s chest.

    Medorosa gasped, in his own body and in Lucius¡¯. Blood burst from his lips on the ground as he convulsed and drowned, the fire of life quenched. Right through his stigmata.

    Of course, the mark itself does not break the effect of the ability.

    His possession of Lucius¡¯ body did not shatter, and Medorosa¡¯s hold on my pupil remained. Merely shock held him in place for a time. He had not known whether he could survive without his body. A morbid concern, a fleeting hope, all his life that it might be so great as to transcend the cycle of death and rebirth. Part of him yearned that he could be free of the fear of death, but he knew that would be anathema to the goddess Shepherd.

    And he then stood beneath the gaze of her divine beast.

    ¡°Seize him! Drag away the fallen. Do not let him jump to another body. What are you doing? Circle round him. Spears!¡± Oscar barked out orders again and again, drilling his men back into obedience.

    They had their opportunity as Medorosa faltered, and felt the pressure upon his soul like a vice between Lucius¡¯ body and Lucius¡¯ soul. He turned this way and that, looking for weakness, for a leaping path from body to body. The steel snake bites of spears nipped at him whenever he looked away. They gouged his legs, his arms. They hammered his back through the armor. They beat upon him and drove him down until at last he threw himself at them.

    A spear gutted him, straight through abdomen and through; but, he hacked into the poor soldier¡¯s neck. Life traded for life, but his own would not die. With the certainty of an escape route, he turned back to Oscar with renewed vigor, just as the man charged him. The Vassish sergeant understood the opportunity Medorosa had made for himself, and kept wary. They exchanged blows while he kept the utmost caution. He never overextended, never gave Medorosa an option for a shared death. What gave him strength was the false hope that the spear through his chest would slow Medorosa and break him.

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    The [Undying] stigmata was far stronger than that.

    It was not a Vassish blade that cut Medorosa down at last, but his own. Still fresh with her brother¡¯s blood and face wet with tears, Aisha slid behind the frantic fighter. With myriad dents and chips through the steel segments, she only needed a moment to chose a spot. Then she stabbed her brother in the back, jerked the honor blade up into Lucius¡¯ heart and ruptured it.

    The compounded shock broke Medorosa. The sword fell from his grasp and even his opponent hesitated in surprise. She slew him with as much force as it took to open a door, and in doing so shoved his soul off of Lucius¡¯ body.

    The boy slackened and fell, landing on his knees. His head went limp, drooling blood until Aisha pulled the honor blade back out. Her hands shook so violently she dropped the accursed blade and fell upon the ground. The rush of emotions ransacked her mind as she sobbed for her brother, and for herself.

    ¡°Stop him!¡± Lucius screamed, and the Vassish didn¡¯t know whether to believe him. He had to jump up and pounce upon the previously slain guard just as Medorosa tried to scramble away.

    His soul shoved out like chaff from a thresher, Medorosa had flung himself to the guard¡¯s corpse. He clung to it with the tenacity of a man drowning and grasping at a rope. The flurry played out as a spectacle before Aisha. A pitiable grapple as Lucius fell upon him. Medorosa cast aside all of his dignity, grasping at any shred of hope left to him. He kicked and gnashed with his teeth, and squirmed out from beneath Lucius.

    Only for Golden to fall upon him as an eagle falls upon a shrew. Talons dug into into the dirt beneath him and the divine beast thrust his beak through the corpse¡¯s back. He ripped out lung and liver both with a bite and swallowed. He fanned his wings and cleaned his beak as the Vassish fled from him. The bird laughed as but three people remained before him: Aisha, Lucius, and their witness Oscar. ¡°Calm yourself,¡± Golden said, traces of blood still dripping down his face. ¡°You did it. All that humans hands could do, you have done it. In such a delicious way as well, by the hand of his own sister, the one who knew him best.¡±

    Lucius collapses, falling to his knees and sinking down. ¡°It¡¯s over? It¡¯s finally over?¡±

    ¡°Why did this have to happen?¡± Aisha asked.

    ¡°Do not feel bad,¡± Golden said as he walked over to her. ¡°Can a ship see the trireme board? Only after it has been sunk. That is your nature. And you have played the role of pawn splendidly. It is simply not in your nature to be the player.¡±

    ¡°Stop! I need his head!¡± Lucius shouted as Golden grabbed hold of Medorosa¡¯s body.

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, I won¡¯t take it far,¡± Golden said with a laugh, and launched himself into the air. He carried the body away and ascended to the sky. He circled and scanned, and swooped overtop the old cathedral to the goddess of death, and dropped it atop the spire. What was meant as a lightning rod(1) he used to spit the body, to hold it in place as he tore the flesh from the bones and feasted upon the heart of the rebellion.

    Thus, his due was paid.

    As the hours progressed, the Giordanan armada scattered to the ends of the horizon or to the bottom of the sea where they fed the dark creatures of Saphira¡¯s(3) domain. Lord Raymi in turn routed the mountain men, taking nearly a hundred prisoner in the end. Some would be executed, others transported to prison mines(2), and only one gave him a great deal of trouble about what to do.

    Aisha Canta remained at his mercy, and though she had dealt the killing blow, she remained sister and conspirator to a very costly insurrection. She did not have the strength to fight on her own behalf, even in the realm of words. For one trained in the bardic arts, Lord Raymi found himself at a loss when she would not defend herself. While considerations to consign her to a remote temple stirred in the noble¡¯s thoughts, I at last approached on her behalf. She had given herself up to my cause, and had proven a useful tool.

    ¡°Give her to me. Allow me to take her far away from her homeland, away from her friends and allies that might seek retribution against her. She had put herself to the cause of Vassermark, and I wish to see her thus rewarded. Young Lucius von Solhart has need of assistants, and I can think of none with a fate more firmly tied to him than her.¡±

    This offer came after the feast celebration, after the thrill of victory I will soon touch on, for Aisha Canta was denied the joy of celebration and kept in a room by herself. Her only visitor was Sister Mori of the church. Her sad tale thus came to an end, and in time she would find her strength once more. Such a beautiful asset she became to the rise of Lucius von Solhart to the very apex of worldly power.

    <hr>

    <ol>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">Some people like to think that an understanding of conductivity is in fact a recent innovation, but the practice of grounding a tower to the earth below predates humanity. The gods dictated it as a design practice without explanation, and risk-adverse architects replicated it the world over. The belief was a godly design must be proper. In this instance, they were correct.</li>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">A very beautifully written essay was written on this matter by one of the inmates and deserves its own study. It regards the difference in beliefs about the definition of enslavement, and when it is justified. The contrast between Giordanan debt slavery and Vassish crime slavery was argued to be slimmer than the paper the essay was written on. As with most politically inciting works of merit, a true copy can hardly be found. Perhaps one day I will introduce it to circulation once more.</li>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">Name updated from Aquaria</li>

    </ol>

 42 - Feast | End of Act 1

    A feast to a starving man, held at arm''s length and untouchable. That was the torture they inflicted on Lucius the day after. In the foul name of etiquette, even his drinking mug laid empty as serving girls poured wine down the row of tables. The lower tables, where soldiers and esteemed citizens sat, were laden with fresh loaves of bread. They stretched and tore in their eager grasps, spewing steam into the air, while none had been provided for the young hero.

    But he couldn¡¯t eat, not before the celebration had been wholly announced and it took an agonizing amount of time before Lord Raymi stood up and lifted his wine. With the throne behind him hastily repaired, he turned this way and that as the rattle of silverware settled. ¡°Quite the tumultuous time we had, wasn¡¯t it?¡± he asked to no one in particular. The peace in the room let the chefs wheel out carts of fire charred goat and beef, the animals slaughtered that morning to the delight of everyone¡¯s stomachs.

    ¡°But, like a rock in the storm, we held fast. The tide of war broke against us. It brought with it blood and anguish, but we are the stronger for it. I ask that you all take your wine now, for I never want you to forget the men who became victims of this revolt. Too many perished to ward off the chaos. Now, all of you, a toast to the fallen,¡± he said, and hefted his goblet. The whole room matched him, and they all drank.

    He continued. ¡°By their sacrifice, we have kept the peace, kept order in the city. Much rebuilding is needed. It may take years to fix the wall, but time is something afforded us in peacetime. In so doing, we will also look to secure the lands against such an uprising once more. We will need advances in trade, in faith, in law and order. We will bring civilization to Giordana and the prosperity that comes from it.¡±

    That bit was for the merchants assembled before him. Prosperity could only come from fruitful labor, and even in an immature form, Vassermark lived off capitalism. Financial theory still had a backseat to honor and pride, and nobles could be foolish despots, but self-interest and free exchange of goods still put life into the kingdom. Lord Raymi announced both a second war, and tempted them with the spoils, all while the smell of cremation still stuck in their noses.

    ¡°That is for the future. Today, the present. Lucius, stand up,¡± Lord Raymi ordered.

    My pupil with naught but the pepper taste of wine in his mouth, rose. He looked horrid. Gaunt and with an eyepatch over one eye, his frame had thinned down like a plague victim¡¯s, and he hardly had the strength to move faster than a brisk walk. No one could see him closer than across the room however, and from that distance they saw only the embroidered leather jacket we had procured for him, and the brilliant way the candle light glowed in reflection from his hair.

    ¡°The hero! The redeemer! Lucius von Solhart! Slayer of the lord of the black keep, and of the leader of the Cynizia. Lucius the Undying!¡±

    I had coached Lord Raymi on that, in a most matter of fact and conspiratorial alliance. He wanted to tout around a heroic subordinate as much as we wanted Lucius to be seen as heroic. The connections we offered him, with my position as engineer and Lucius¡¯ heredity, as it were, could not be beaten. We offered him bait worth any hook hiding inside. Afterall, which fish believes they can¡¯t break a fisherman¡¯s line?

    Lucius held up his wine and took hold of their attention. ¡°A week I spent, playing cat and mouse with these barbarians. I liberated a slave pit. I treated with the bishop of Jumeaux. I turned their trap into my own and at last I cut down their sieging ranks. A few of them were good warriors. A few,¡± he said, bringing on a row of jeers and boasts from the veterans.

    ¡°But we showed them. The might of Vassermark triumphed, so drink! Eat! Make merry for the days of success must be savored. They will be fond memories as we march back across the sands and set right to this forsaken land,¡± he said, with a great chorus of thumping fists and feet. The whole throne room rattled with approval and he sank back to his seat.

    Lord Raymi grinned and nodded. He swept a hand across the room and shouted, ¡°You heard the man, feast! If I don¡¯t see at least three drunken duels tonight, I¡¯ll have the lot of you soldiers running laps.¡±

    And so Lucius tore into the sweet food of victory. I found the meal to be of a plain sort, but I do understand the pleasure of charred meat with a bit of salt and butter. Plain, simple, delicious. Perhaps it simply didn¡¯t have the same allure to me, as I had moved from city to city aboard boats and never strayed far from luxury. For me, the sweetest prize was to look upon my pupil and know that we had won.

    He was Lucius von Solhart as far as the kingdom of Vassermark was concerned, because Lord Raymi would say as much when he sent us back to King Arandall to present the embalmed head of the rebel. With such a wondrous letter of introduction, who would even bother to investigate his past? Some would, of course, but we had begun the foundation that would be unshakeable even in the most violent of storms, as we knew well would come to pass. For a man may well be his name, yes, but the regard other people have for him, his stations of responsibility, those are where his power comes from. A name is but a trifling thing that can be picked up, discarded, and stolen.

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    On that day, the boy I had raised and trained for the better part of a decade could revel in his own success. He could drink and eat, and pack the weight back into his body without care for tomorrow. The soldiers he had fought and bled alongside, who he had led across the deserts of Giordana and into battle, they rallied around him with kegs of ale and they alone were the cause of no less than half a dozen fights, but all in good nature. A manly sort of bonding that brought that eighteen year old boy onto the path of adulthood.

    It was a good reprieve, a good memory to keep him company as he marched not into a desert of sand, but of human decency. His next destination was the king¡¯s court.

    I met with him upon the morrow. I had secured for us a simple room in a forgotten corner of the palace, the kind that surely had secret exits and paths, but of which I was sure no one would spy upon us through. In all likelihood, the architects who knew of those paths were all dead, and the original owners with them too. For us, it was a pleasant thing with a window out to the sea in the distance, now somewhat obscured by the rebuilding of the cannon battery.

    ¡°Master,¡± Lucius said, somewhat stiffly and awkwardly.

    ¡°Lucius¨C¡± The name felt good on my lips. ¡°--You don¡¯t need to be so formal. We have been together for years. What is some few days apart?¡±

    ¡°Yes, master. Quite exciting days however.¡±

    ¡°Tell me,¡± I ordered, ¡°Did you ever think you might fail?¡±

    The boy turned his gaze down and nodded his head. ¡°Yes, when Tyrion, the lieutenant of the voluntaries, took half the men and fled, I thought the whole gambit might be for naught. He had stripped me of my army and nearly got them all slaughtered.¡±

    ¡°And what did you learn from that?¡±

    ¡°I learned that mercy is something that can only be given when a threat has been wholly neutralized. I thought I could still make use of him. I should have killed him when I had the chance.¡±

    ¡°Good. That is a wonderful answer. On the path before you, you will make many enemies, many friends will betray you. This first lesson in that bitter draught will serve you well. You will hesitate less when you have to cut down those you like.¡±

    He grimaced and squeezed his hands into fists. ¡°Yes, master.¡±

    ¡°It is not so bad though, now is it? You have made at least one ally, two even, if the Canta girl can pull herself back together.¡±

    ¡°Two?¡± he asked, his frustration laxened by confusion.

    ¡°Samson, the doctor. It seems he¡¯s been quite enchanted by our grandeur. I spoke with him last night. The feast was not so agreeable to him as to the warriors. I suspect that after an entire day helping in the infirmaries that he didn¡¯t have the stomach for rabblerousing. I¡­ may have made a few promises to him as well.¡±

    ¡°Promises? On your behalf, or mine?¡±

    I nodded. ¡°Yours. He wishes to study you, and I gave my consent. Your healing that is. He can learn a great deal and disseminate it for us. Imagine what can be gleamed from the way your stigmata stitches your body back together! Surgery could be revolutionized. Nutrition at last cracked open to show us its secrets.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m not going to let him cut me up. Wizard, you promised me you would never again abuse my body,¡± he shouted, stabbing a finger at me with the conviction of a sword thrust. He of course referred to the day I killed him, so long ago. He still hadn¡¯t gotten over that, despite my good reason for it. But, that is a matter I will get to shortly, as he spoke of it at length upon the voyage north.

    ¡°No no,¡± I said in appeasement. ¡°He merely will stay with you while you get yourself injured incidentally. The duels and battles. Why, just yesterday he had to reset a compound fracture of yours. You should be thankful that you will have a medic who will understand your healing better and better, even if he has an ulterior motive.¡±

    He groaned, but took hold of himself once more. Again, that serious glare adorned his face while he looked at me. All the more mature for the patch across his eye. ¡°You¡¯ll be with me next time, right?¡±

    ¡°Oh, for a time,¡± I said, to assure him. ¡°On the journey back to the capitol surely. Then, it will depend on what they do with you, my young hero. I may or may not be able to accompany you, but we knew that was a possibility. That is why I taught you so much, so that you can stand on your own in my stead.¡±

    ¡°But, do I have to be half blind while we do this as well?¡±

    I laughed. ¡°Only for a time, Lucius. Regrowing your eye will be a wondrous feat to prove your ability before the king, and sadly that means you can¡¯t go and get yourself killed before then. It won¡¯t be so bad. I don¡¯t expect you¡¯ll get into many fights on a sea voyage. Pirates won¡¯t dare attack a royal vessel, so the worst you have to worry about is managing yourself with dice, I imagine.¡±

    He grimaced and shifted his feet around. There were some trivialities of organization to attend to, but our conversation lagged and drew out the more that went on. He didn¡¯t want to go, and I came to realize I had not told him what he most wanted to hear. ¡°You did well, Lucius. You learned and applied yourself, and you succeeded. I couldn¡¯t be happier. I look forward to the next leg of our journey. Perhaps I should procure some texts for us to study? Merely as an option, if you don¡¯t find yourself too busy with personal matters.¡±

    The boy blushed from the mix of praise and playful accusation. The stoic hero vanished and there was the teenager I knew. I¡¯d have to break him of his need for affirmation, eventually, but that was a pain he did not yet need. Not at least until he had for himself a cadre.

    And thus, our travels in Giordana came to a close, and after many years, Lucius returned to Vassermark.

 Letters 1

    (Letter written by Lucius shortly before Medorosa¡¯s vendetta. Never sent, I saved it from the fire for my record keeping.)

    Dear Mother,

    You wouldn¡¯t recognize me if you saw me. I¡¯ve been training with a Skaldish swordmaster for so long that I¡¯ve finally gotten some muscles on my bones. Yes, even my arm. That has all healed up. You wouldn¡¯t even know if you looked at me now. I find the heat here dreadful though. We¡¯ve arrived in a town called Puerto Faro. It¡¯s in Giordana, on the coast of the Southern Sea. I get the impression this is the kind of city that good captains skip over, leap-frogging them to get between Aillesterra and Vassermark.

    For a time, we were in the religious city, Tavina, while Master Amurabi finished teaching me the local language. I found that city much more pleasant, though now I realize it was because I could so regularly swim in the lake. Despite the locale, the water there is very cold. Master Amurabi says that there is a fissure down through the firmament. Vapors and other things seep in and give the temples their religiosity. Either way, it was very far from any war, and the people poor but happy.

    Now here in Puerto Faro, they are poor and angry. You don¡¯t even see children here. The merchant families take them in like serfs and shuttle them across the land to work as apprentices. If you saw the rogues that sired them, you¡¯d know it was for the best. The only good people are the ones with businesses here, sucking the money from the lowlives, who in turn get their money by gambling or stealing.

    The houses look of very poor construction. I thought we had entered some form of inhabited ruins when we first arrived, but that is simply because the desert sand stains everything the same color beige. The windows have to be tightly shuttered, or the insides end up a mess. The people with homes are very protective of their property in that way, and I see tapestries and mosaics through many windows. You¡¯d never notice if you were just passing through. I suspect the Vassish garrison still hasn¡¯t noticed.

    I miss Jarnmark. Most of all when one of these giant insects bites me. They¡¯re horrid. Tiny, flying demons. Master Amurabi says there¡¯s nothing magical about them, but I can¡¯t see how an insect could naturally grow to the size of a peach nut.

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    Soon, I will leave Puerto Faro, and have to march across the desert. No pools to swim in, not even good food. (The Giordanan food took some getting used to, but my palette has adapted to their spices.) Perhaps, as I find myself sucking dregs of water from bladders between the dunes, I will find myself longing for the buzz and the bite, at least of a sign that I won¡¯t die of deprivation.

    When this is all done, I will get to return to Vassermark after my journey, but I don¡¯t think I will see Jarnmark but from the deck of a passing ship.

    Your abandoned son,

    [REDACTED]

    <hr>

    (A letter nearly posted while we passed through the city of Glasslight on our way to Tavina. Stopped by the outrageous courier fees they expected. Prices had inflated because of pilgrims gone to see the Sun God relics. He asked me to post it to Jarnmark at my earliest convenience, since he knew he wouldn¡¯t be able to. By the time it was convenient for me, the desire had left him.)

    Dear Mother,

    Master Amurabi taught me a great deal of things while we traveled the central kingdoms, and it seems I might have a bit of a name circling around. Please, don¡¯t let it cause you any distress if you hear it. The rumors are quite exaggerated. Master Amurabi had me work as a bounty hunter to cover our expenses, and to teach me how to fight. I mean, Leomund taught me the actual forms and basics of fighting, but I mean to actually kill.

    I used to think that bandits in the woods were all hardened criminals. Only some of them are. Turns out that the ones who survive long enough to get a bounty on them are, more often than not, the cowards that ran away. The sight of steel was enough to make plenty of them piss themselves and flee. I never thought finding them would be harder than actually killing them.

    I guess now I understand why lords don¡¯t bother their knights with the duty. It would be a waste of their time.

    One thing that is true though, is that they¡¯re all bastards. When I was first learning to fight, when I was as scared of them as they of me, I let one get away. He took a child hostage. If Leomund hadn¡¯t been ready with an arrow, that child would have died because of my hesitation and his evil.  I never let that happen again.

    Once you get in a habit of it though, it¡¯s not too hard to make a living at it. Especially near Drachenreach, where they pay for drake corpses. Those can be scary fights, but it¡¯s not like I¡¯m going to die. If anything really bad happened, Master Amurabi would have come to save me, so I was never scared. Not too scared anyways.

    So, please don¡¯t think too much of any reputation you hear. It¡¯s just gossip spread by bards who want to swindle a few coins from drunks.

    Your abandoned son,

    [REDACTED]

 Act 2 - A History Of Ambition

    Intermission,

    As it is my expectation that this text will be split among several smaller books, a means of easier distribution, I feel it necessary to insert myself before the reader once more. My pupil¡¯s adventure in Giordana resolved itself the day he set foot upon the Sea Bird¡¯s Rest, along with myself, Aisha Canta, Doctor Samuel and a few others of bureaucratic nature, as I will soon explore. We did not leave behind such an idyllic victory as one might hope. In the muddy entanglements of reality, we had reason to fear many loose ends among the men left behind. Without a charismatic presence, and certainly without Golden¡¯s arcane meddling, there was a risk that some of those who had met Lucius still had doubts about his identity. Suppressed, secretive thoughts they would be too concerned to share openly, but which a prying man might still get hold of.

    Thus, I left the Tolzi brothers behind, under auspices of assisting Bishop Jean, but with guidance on how to see the destruction of that troop. To have them cast into the fires of war again and again, and for any deserters to be hunted down. While Lucius was given promises of restoring that loyal army to him upon a future date, I carried out the necessary protections, a task which always falls to me.

    In the coming tale, that of the journey north to the capital city of Vassermark, Hearth Bay, but also of Lucius¡¯ youth, I have my own thread of action and foolishness. For at the same time, while the boy was tossed adrift from family and without a rock to hold onto, that is without a cause to fight for, I overlooked a man who, in effect though not by act, would become one of the greatest killers in all of history.

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    I do not believe that Lucius realized until much later his incidental encounter with Jacque the writer, patron saint of the hangman¡¯s noose. I do not mean this as a fault against Lucius, he could hardly keep his head above water, young and treading the despair known as poverty. But my discourses with Jacque ultimately led to my discovery of the future emperor, and so I cannot leave it out of the history.

    Rather than dragging out my time with the man, I will, however, constrain myself purely to those events which will help color the young Lucius¡¯ life and provide context evident to a well read reader that he himself hardly understood at the time.

    Now, I will waste the reader¡¯s time no longer and share but one more fact of importance. My pupil was not then known as Lucius, the name which he stole in Giordana. The people around him called him Jarnpojke, a rural name if ever there was one. To prevent confusion, I will persist in calling him Lucius no matter the time of reference.

    Your faithful chronicler,

    Amurabi

    <hr>

    As it may come of use to you, the structure of the Ashe Family in the year 727CC is as follows.

    Faithe Ashe, eldest sister and tied to Danyl Ashe, a military commander often on expedition in the contested lands between Jarnmark and Skaldheim.

    Their eldest child is Frederika Ash, second in line to inherit. Their youngest is a baby boy by the name of Andrey.

    Irina Ashe is the middle sister, tied to Peter Ashe, deceased but from a mainland noble family of good reputation.

    Her eldest child is Annika Ashe, the heir to the family. Secondborn is Edvin Ashe.

    Ruby Ashe is the youngest sister, unwed and pining for the writer Jacque but awaiting a political tie.

 2-1 - A New Journey

    The freshly dubbed Lucius von Solhart, together with myself and our growing collection of tag along conspirators, left Rackvidd aboard the Sea Bird¡¯s Rest, a twin masted galley expected to make good time northward. Accounting for stops to shore and religious exercises, we would arrive in Hearth Bay in two weeks time. I was no stranger to such journeys, having made thousands of them hither and thither over the years. The younger folk were caught between a sense of adventure at the high seas and with a loathsome claustrophobia when they realized just how little room the ship afforded them.

    Of the three cabins available, the captain kept one himself, I another, and Lucius relinquished his to the woman aboard, Aisha. When a scoundrel, one step away from a pirate by the name of George, asked him why, Lucius answered, ¡°I spent the last few weeks without even a curtain when I shit. The crew quarters are luxurious.¡± All present knew the question had truly meant why I had not been deprived of my room, for which I give my thanks to my pupil.

    The first day of travel involved a great deal of ship navigation, to maneuver the vessel through the straits and around known reefs and shoals. Safer channels existed, of a more circuitous manner, but Captain Bodin sought to earn his reputation with skill, and so cut the course as a crow would fly. It worked the crew to the bone, taking full advantage of their fresh enthusiasm while he shouted orders at them. They ran about, changing lines, retying knots, and adjusting sails while he worked the wheel and watched the currents and tides. The men with work never had a moment¡¯s rest and the day began to fly by for them. We passengers had little to do but watch the rough cliffs pass by and nibble upon salted meats.

    Often, a ship¡¯s crew will sing songs, shanties and bawdy humor, but we were provided no such entertainment. Captain Bodin¡¯s orders were too frequent for such noise, which left us with the wind snapping at sails and the wash of waves to listen to. The crew did not dare bring out dice on the first day, and conversation between the men lagged. Lucius should have been capable of keeping up chatter for all hours of the trip, draining the sea men of their nautical knowledge and stuffing it within his own brain, but something else weighed upon him.

    In some few hours, he stepped up alone beside the melancholic bard. She had cast herself upon the aft railing, though the sight of Rackvidd had long since been blocked from view. Indeed, all of Giordana would be gone from her before the sun set that night. Even the wind rustled her red locks with foreign smells, foreign sand and salt, foreign everything.

    Still heavy with the weight of fratricide upon her, she stared across the sea with drooping eyes. The tavern bard Lucius had first met was there in body only. She didn¡¯t even have the same frills to her dress, choosing instead a plain and forgettable article that would have blended into any crowd. Alone at the back of the ship, however, it simply understated her appearance.

    ¡°What do you want?¡± she asked, turning to face Lucius. She didn¡¯t return his smile.

    ¡°Just catching up on things now that life is slowing down. Finally have time to myself, time to think.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s not alone time if you¡¯re with me, now is it?¡±

    ¡°Spending time with you is better than alone time,¡± he said. Only once the words had left his mouth did he realize they sounded strange.

    She cocked an eyebrow at him. ¡°And here I thought you were good at improvising.¡±

    ¡°I¨C... never noticed the color of your eyes before.¡±

    She straightened up and folded her arms as she made a show of sizing him up. Without his armor, he had been reduced in size by half, much more apparently the boy that he was. ¡°If that¡¯s meant to be a compliment, you should be able to do better. You¡¯re actually just confessing how unobservant of me you¡¯ve been.¡±

    ¡°I was distracted.¡±

    ¡°By?¡±

    ¡°Your hair, more often than not. I should have realized your eyes are the same color, like hyacinths.¡±

    Her cheeks nearly matched the color of her hair when she realized Lucius was staring into her eyes, full certainty in what he said. There was no squirming, no underlying demands, just an assertion when she had been expecting excuses about the war. She turned back to the sea abruptly. ¡°Most people call it fire-touched.¡±

    Lucius frowned. ¡°You¡¯re not feeling sea sick, are you?¡± the boy asked, his approach tepid.

    She scoffed. ¡°I¡¯ve been on ships before, Actor,¡± she said, brushing some billowing hair out from her face so that she could cast her freshly somber gaze upon him. ¡°Though, perhaps I should give you some leeway since you¡¯ve only got one eye left to see with.¡±

    He laughed and scratched at the bandage over his eye. It was more like an eyepatch than a bandage, for the bleeding had long ago stopped, but it would never pass as a stylish fashion accessory. ¡°You know, I¡¯ve spent more time acting these past few weeks than I ever did in the troupe¡­¡± He put his back to the sea and said, ¡°I heard you had a meeting with Lord Raymi?¡±

    ¡°I did. Just to pass along an offer while I still could,¡± she said, sinking down and half burying her face among her arms. ¡°Stella Medini has a bargaining chip, I hope it¡¯s enough to buy her peace.¡±

    ¡°Lord Raymi is a good man.¡±

    Steely eyes turned on him once more. ¡°Lord Raymi bought your lie because it would benefit him.¡±

    ¡°Pragmatic,¡± Lucius said, earning a pout from the girl. ¡°Politics and ethics are different things. He¡¯s better to work with than a knight who does whatever he¡¯s told.¡±

    Aisha sighed and looked back to the dappling waves and the dipping birds. ¡°I¡¯ve never met a knight. You know? The temples taught me a hundred songs and poems about them, but they¡¯re all foreign things. Crusaders from the north, paladins from the west, the eternally loyal bondsmen of the east who will cut out their own stomachs¡­ nothing I¡¯ve ever met. I always wondered whether a real knight could match the legends.¡±

    ¡°Not all, but some.¡±

    ¡°What would you know, Actor? How many have you met?¡±

    Lucius could have lied, weaved her a tale of grandeur fit to drape about the kingdom she found herself thrust into. That would have given her something to cling to. Instead, he said, ¡°A knight is nothing but a noble who can fight.¡±

    ¡°Really? Well if you¡¯re the expert, why don¡¯t you tell me about them?¡±

    ¡°Aren¡¯t you the bard?¡±

    ¡°Bards have to hear stories to repeat them. Besides, I don¡¯t feel like talking.¡±

    ¡°Well, technically speaking, I¡¯m a knight, so you have quite the story to tell already. I think you¡¯ll get plenty of coin for my exploits¡­¡±

    She turned flat, half-lidded eyes on him. ¡°Pass.¡± How nice it would have been if she had been more cooperative from the start, but who can say how history would have changed.

    Lucius cleared his throat. ¡°I could tell you about the crusaders, but as of late, they¡¯re more in-name-only than not. As good or bad as any other man.¡±

    ¡°No lady knights?¡±

    He grinned. ¡°Some, but not many I¡¯ve met. Women who can fight, tend to have a stigmata for it, and they get bought up quicker than¡­ than¡­¡±

    ¡°Tulips on Breaker¡¯s Day(1)?¡±

    Lucius grinned. ¡°Sounds about right. Bodyguards are important, and ones that can double as servants, particularly for ladies and girls? I¡¯ve seen merchants and nobles get in bidding wars after martial tournaments, and for second place no less.¡±

    This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

    ¡°Why don¡¯t you tell me about her, then? Seems like a fine piece of a story.¡±

    The grin faded from my pupil, and his gaze fell to the deck. ¡°That was a long time ago,¡± he said, words soft and somber. ¡°I don¡¯t think you¡¯d like the story.¡±

    ¡°Why? You can play the part but can¡¯t speak of it?¡±

    ¡°It was before I met Amurabi, before he saved me¡­¡±

    <hr>

    The notion that children growing up should be given time to play and to learn is a privilege of the nobility. The common folk have no choice but to put their children to use, be that in the ever-expanding iron mines or something more fitting for a cripple. These two paradigms clashed against one another beneath a dismal gray sky some ten years prior. In a stadium with more heat from the press of cheering bodies than from the sun, Lucius had been dressed up like a young fop and set to stand beside one of the viewing boxes.

    ¡°Sir Harold of West Point Cathedral wins by submission,¡± the young Lucius called out, turning his back to the melee. He didn¡¯t think a single person heard him, for half the people watching were screaming in anguish or cheer with betting chips squeezed in their fists. The crowd beneath the viewing box were miners mostly, people come in from out of the city. They were peasants who struck at the earth, carving away stone and rock to steal metal from below, and with their fires they smelted it down and sold it for gold.

    Gold which they promptly handed over to the merchants and bookies, the arena cashiers, all of which worked for the Ashe family.

    Generally, the Ashe family interested themselves with the continual smelting of iron ore, but they were not fools. that the grandeur and success of their domain would lead to their own grandeur and success, that the prosperity of the people meant prosperity for themselves. Especially when they convicted a merchant of treason and seized his funds like so many blood-sucking lampreys. What¡¯s more, they understood what leisure and luxury could do to keep up the spirit of the people, to motivate the peasants to work harder. Both things that had been deemed unnecessary for an eight-year-old cripple with nowhere else to go.

    It was in their city-building that young Lucius found a shred of charity, that is to say work, for there was precious little else a cripple could do but be seen and pitied. The year prior, a mining tunnel had collapsed, and his arm crushed beneath a timber. The boorish barber surgeon hacked it off of him while he screamed and cried, for there was no hope of digging it out. They had the audacity to say he should be grateful to his stigmata that he survived at all.

    With parents unable to support him, Lucius was sold into virtual slavery to work for a troupe of performers. They cleaned him up and made a clear show of his missing arm, and had him learn to be an usher, an announcer, anything that required but his voice and paid very little. When this troupe was contracted by the Ashe family, the actors, bards, and musicians transformed themselves at once to stage management and logistics for the desired swordsmanship tournament. The economy of food and drink, let alone the fighters, demanded a small army to manage as people flooded to the city to place wagers.

    And so, Lucius made himself useful by virtue of literacy. Nearly a hundred warriors from across Jarnmark, and some from across the sea, had gathered and submitted their names. These were phonetically transcribed and given to boys like him all around the stadium, such that they could call out the rounds. ¡°Next, the semi-finals. Miss Claire Riverfall versus¡­ Patrick-o-lees of House Ashe.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s pronounced Patrocles. Why did they put a worthless fool in our booth?¡± the blond haired youth of the Ashe family demanded. Edvin Ashe was older than Lucius, enough that he should have been taught better manners, but his mothers had been negligent.

    Normally, Lucius was the picture of meekness, because normally he had to talk to adults, like Edvin¡¯s brainless mother. To children, he could barely bring himself to smile. ¡°My apologies, m¡¯lord. I meant no insult. Honest mistake.¡±

    ¡°The mistake was your employers, to put you here,¡± Edvin said, turning up his nose and slumping to the opposite side of his chair. He had a little cadre of sycophants with him, boys from town, the sons of guards and the like. The group laughed and messily picked at bowls of fruit they shared between them till their fingers ran red and purple.

    Lucius¡¯ stomach growled empty, but the noise couldn¡¯t be heard over the cheering crowd. Some hundreds of people packed shoulder to shoulder beneath the spectating booth, betting tickets clutched in their hands as the two contenders emerged across the sand. The tournament had progressed to the semi-finals, and Lucius was well aware that the fighting wouldn¡¯t be particularly good. Both Patrocles and Claire had been bludgeoned senseless in the earlier rounds, though Claire had the better of it. Everything was for honor and prestige, so no edges were permitted upon their blades. It made the affair quite brutish and ugly to any trained eye.

    Lucius was as trained as a boy of eight years could be. That is to say, had seen a dozen such tournaments while talking with a trained swordsman. The man was past his prime, but a wealth of knowledge. Unfortunately, Lucius¡¯ aloofness only drew more ire from the older boy. Every blow that Claire rained down on Patrocles struck directly against Edvin¡¯s pride. He sank deeper into his chair and grinded his teeth and brooded, for Patrocles was his sword tutor.

    The master of the show, Lucius¡¯ employer, was not blind to the flagging affair before everyone, and what that would mean to betting revenue. While the two knights clashed, he conferred with the Ashe family and gained agreement to extend the affair another day. Wonderful news for the troupe¡¯s wages, but Lucius cared no further than getting down from his shouting pedestal and extracting his feet from the leather cludgeons he had been dressed in.

    The older boys grabbed him when the crowds dispersed. Claire had won, had bested Patrocles and would move on to the finals. That had put a chip on Edvin¡¯s shoulder and Lucius still had a target on him.

    City guard was thin through the port city of Podrest on a good day, amid a crowd they were vanishingly sparse and useless. No one raised an alarm as the poor boy was dragged across the street and tossed among some rubbish between a brewery and a bakery. The stench alone would have driven people away, and unfortunately for him, the back end of the alley had been clogged and blocked by stacked barrels waiting fresh ale. An able bodied boy might have been able to scramble up and to freedom, but he had only the one hand.

    ¡°Is this how a noble brat behaves?¡± Lucius shouted, wiping the dirt from his chin as Edvin stepped forward. ¡°Hiding in shadows and ganging up on a cripple?¡±

    The kid had a stick. A light, but firm shaft of wood fit to teach a child the basics of swordplay. ¡°It¡¯s the duty of nobility to protect our honor. Our honor is the honor of the city. That¡¯s why brats like you have to be disciplined.¡±

    ¡°All I did was¨C¡± The stick cracked across his jaw. It rocked his head and made him bite through his cheek, but he didn¡¯t whimper in pain. Lucius stumbled back until he bumped against the wall of barrels.

    ¡°You work for me! Your failure is in effect, a failure of the Ashe family. Don¡¯t you realize? Obviously not, because if you understood how important your mistake was, you wouldn¡¯t have made it. Clearly, simple methods need to be used to teach you.¡±

    Lucius ducked the next blow. The third, he dove away from. Then he was in a corner, on the ground, with nowhere to go. Edvin berated him, caned him and bloodied him, and for every blow that failed to earn a cry of pain the noble spawn redoubled his rage.

    ¡°Young master, what are you doing? Did you catch a pickpocket or something?¡± Patrocles asked, his armored frame blotting out the sun. He crossed his arms and surveyed the group of kids.

    Lucius tried to push himself up, to speak on his defense, but could only cough. And in that gap, the other boys all said yes, that Lucius had stolen from Edvin. Whether Patrocles believed them, history will never truly know, but it is true he did nothing to protect Lucius, and the young boy felt that betrayal.

    Worse even than the hired sword trainer of the Ashe family doing nothing for him, even Claire Riverfall made an appearance, as the Ashe family had scouted her by Patrocles¡¯ recommendation. She had a grin on her face despite the tournament bruising, for she had won something better than first prize; a stable job. For her, the blonde berserker, her first task proved to be the hardest to refuse. Insubordination too soon. To refuse was to risk the rest of her knightly career so recently won. Patrocles told her to take Lucius and be rid of him, and left it to her what that entailed.

    Patrocles led the older boys away like a mother goose, and Claire had to see to the victim. She crouched down, wrapping her arms around her knees, and asked, ¡°Why would you steal from a blueblood?¡±

    At last, his stigmata had closed the cuts in his mouth, and he spat out some blood to say, ¡°I didn¡¯t. He lied.¡±

    Claire stared back at him without challenging his claim. She took her time thinking it over, perhaps examining his wounds. She was covered in them as well, but she had glory and he had nothing but wounded pride. She asked, ¡°Where do you live?¡±

    He nearly answered with the town his parents lived in, but caught himself. He answered, ¡°With Master Wilhelm.¡±

    Claire frowned. ¡°You mean the organizer?¡±

    Lucius nodded.

    ¡°I suppose that explains the clothes¡­ Come on then, before you¡¯re taken as a beggar and tossed out.¡± She offered a hand and pulled young Lucius back to his feet. For that one moment, awe filled the boy¡¯s heart.

    It lasted as long as it took for her to walk him back to the clump of tents thrown next to the arena, the staging quarters of Master Wilhelm¡¯s troupe. The two of them were recognized at once, and the man dropped his duties for the moment to run over. ¡°Get rid of this kid. The little princeling has it out for him and it¡¯s just going to cause problems.¡±

    Master Wilhelm blinked and turned his startled gaze upon Lucius. ¡°What in oblivion did you do?¡±

    ¡°I pronounced it Patrick-o-lees instead of Patrocles,¡± the boy said.

    The absurdity of children went over his head. All he understood was how frustrated it made the adults. Master Wilhelm had no comfort for the boy, no smile or compassion. ¡°Stay away from the Arena tomorrow. There¡¯s no work for you there.¡±

    Claire Riverfall shook her head, but offered no hand to him. She didn¡¯t speak up for him or shed a tear. She left Lucius there and happily took employment from the Ashe family.

    <hr>

    <ol>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">Breaker¡¯s Day was a Giordanan holiday popular in her hometown Tavina. Originally for the mass freeing of slaves, it became more about reuniting with family, which became a reason for young adults to propose to one another. Colloquially, the term has come to be thought of as ¡°Heartbreaker¡¯s Day¡±.</li>

    </ol>

 2-2 - Use For Religion

    The story had lulled Aisha¡¯s mind, had sent her away to another time and another place. Opening up about himself was akin to taking her by the hand and carrying her away. Over the course, the two of them had drifted from the railing, to the port side of the ship, where a bench sat near the wheel. She squinted her eyes out across the sea, where chop and wind cast a haze over the horizon, obscuring the black line of horizon. ¡°Is that where you¡¯re from then?¡±

    ¡°I suppose the maps in Hearth Bay might say it is, but I don¡¯t think anyone lives there. Jarnmark is farther north. We¡¯ll pass it tomorrow or the next day.¡±

    ¡°Really? Why doesn¡¯t anyone live there? Even in the desert, there are nomads traveling around. You probably saw some, didn¡¯t you?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s the sea. Maybe some people live out there, but the Ashe family doesn¡¯t bother sending tax men, so it can¡¯t be said to be part of Jarnmark. They¡¯re barbarians of a sort. Takes a tough kind of person to live on some rocky slope where it¡¯s too dangerous to fish,¡± he said, gesturing at the distant waters. When he saw Aisha arch an eyebrow at him, he continued, ¡°The further west you go, the more wild the fish get. This sea is protected by the goddess Saphira. In exchange for Vassermark¡¯s allegiance, she drives out the monsters. Out there, where the priestesses don¡¯t go, you can still find krakens and sharks big enough to eat krakens.¡±

    ¡°I thought those were all extinct? All the stories are from the Dark Era.¡±

    ¡°Well, maybe they are. I¡¯ve never seen one, but I¡¯ve seen what the temples do.¡± he gestured to the back of the Sea Bird¡¯s Rest, for it was a proper Vassish ship, and dangling from the back was a smoking brazier that laced the waters with the blessing of Saphira.

    Aisha let herself give just a fraction of a smirk of interest. A shadow of enjoyment as the sun began to hang low in the sky. While the captain sought nightly refuge, Lucius began again.

    ~~

    The temples to Saphira are more like businesses than churches. Nothing at all like the cathedrals to Lumis that dot the land between the great kingdoms. Of course, hundreds of people supplicate themselves before their icon of the goddess, but free prayers don¡¯t keep the candles stocked and certainly don¡¯t pay for manuscript paper. While they did possess land, often in complicated lease agreements to the nobility and the farming collectives so as to evade certain tax measures, their revenue primarily came from the dirtiest sort of filth.

    The day of the the final match, while Master Wilhelm padded the day with performances and other trifles,  Lucius had been banished from the Arena, and sought refuge with the temple in hopes that he could fill his stomach out of charity. He had to shut his nose, as the priestesses and acolytes and doffed their embroidered robes and thrown on rough sewn mocks near black with stain. The gaiety of prayer forsaken, the women devolved in behavior fitting the sailors they traded with.

    The workshop cried out like the arena stands with the shouting orders for buckets and chemicals, for extra hands and above all, the slapping of dead fish upon tables to be gutted. They cared hardly at all for the meat, even dogs hesitated to eat those oily slabs, but for the greasy organs within.

    ¡°Boy, if you¡¯re going to sit there, you had better at least be making yourself useful.¡± Lucius knew the woman as Sister Brown, on account of her chestnut brown hair. ¡°Take the meat to the kitchens. There¡¯s good soup to be made.¡±

    Between the two of them were, as far as he was concerned, a slop of oozing flesh. ¡°Which is the good meat?¡±

    ¡°The mud eel for starters.¡±

    ¡°Which one is that?¡±

    She sighed and shoved over a strip of scales like a snake. She had gutted it from jaw to tail and stripped out the cartilage spine already, leaving the ribs and meat behind. ¡°And wash your hands. Your clothes too, before you eat. You¡¯ll get parasites if you don¡¯t.¡±

    ¡°What¡¯s a parasite?¡± What¡¯s a godling to a god?

    Sister Brown sighed. ¡°They¡¯ll make you sick, and if you get sick from them, you¡¯ll have to lay in bed drinking garlic tea, thick as honey and foul as fish guts.¡±

    Lucius winced at the thought. He could remember that kind of medicine from when he lost his arm, the way it burned his insides to burn out the infection from his ragged stump. The thought of fish soup, perhaps with some root vegetables tossed in, motivated him more however, and he gathered up the mud eel slices into a pot. Wrapping his arm around the bulk of it, he hefted it up and scurried from the workshop.

    The mistress of the kitchens was a grandmotherly woman, widowed by the sea and employed by the temple for decades. ¡°Lucius, what are you doing back here? How did you get those bruises? Did Master Wilhelm lay his hands on you?¡±

    ¡°It was Edvin.¡±

    ¡°Edvin?¡±

    ¡°Edvin Ashe.¡±

    The chef stopped chopping the vegetables before her and stared at the boy. With the scrutiny that only comes from age, she shook her head and tutted. ¡°And if you¡¯re here, I imagine no one believed you, did they?¡±

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    Lucius huffed the pot onto the counter beside her and slumped on the table. ¡°Of course not. Who would believe me over him?¡±

    ¡°Someone with a brain between their ears. Give me this. Mud eels? They expect me to cook the pot with mud eels again? The sisters are getting cheaper and cheaper these days.¡± She got to work regardless, cleaning the scales and stuffing the charity cauldron to the brim. She mused to herself about why the refuse fish were getting bought up, though she hardly understood a thing about the alchemy performed by the temple. Her knowledge ended at cooking.

    ¡°I hate having to work for people like him.¡±

    ¡°Too bad. Everyone works for people like him, unless you¡¯re the king.¡±

    ¡°But I don¡¯t want to work for them¡­ like, directly. I could work on a ship and go someplace far away.¡±

    The old woman laughed, turning away from her bubbling pot. ¡°No one would hire you, kid. I¡¯m sorry, but it¡¯s the truth. You¡¯ve got a rotten lot in life.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ve got a stigmata!¡± he piped up. ¡°I heal.¡±

    That just made her laugh again, and shake her head. It was in the sad way children often misunderstand. ¡°No one is going to believe you heal, not with an arm missing.¡±

    He couldn¡¯t respond to that. He merely scratched at his stump, for it often itched. Ever since he had lost it, the missing limb had irritated him, a constant annoyance that he tried to ignore. Eventually, and under his breath, he said, ¡°But I do heal.¡±

    ¡°Why don¡¯t you find Kajsa and help get some bread for the soup?¡±

    As little more than a charity case at the temple, he knew his stomach depended on doing whatever it was he was told, whatever menial task they felt like giving him. As such, he capitulated and went to see the girl Kajsa. At the time, he had no notion where she had come from, nor why she lived in the Saphiran temple. All he knew was Kajsa was in fact older than she looked, and the one that managed purity testing on the grease the temple produced.(1)

    Ever since he had thrown out a beaker of grime to clean it, which was actually a validation test of hers, Kajsa had been unable to stand Lucius. ¡°What are you here for? This isn¡¯t the kitchen.¡±

    ¡°I was asked to help you fetch bread for dinner.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ve got¨C!¡± She spun about the room, looking at sieves and decanters and the enormous distillery chimney that sat cold and idle. From what I understand of their process, Lucius had arrived just after the raw oil had been loaded into the vat, still thick with waste like fruit pulp in juice. The vat had to sit and separate before the blaze could be enabled, a perfect time to send Kajsa on an errand rather than leave her to idle mischief. ¡°Oh, shouldn¡¯t you be at the arena or something? Isn¡¯t your circus employed right now?¡±

    ¡°Yes,¡± Lucius answered.

    Kajsa was enough of a genius to have single-handedly extended the shelf life of the temple¡¯s special incense by two additional months, as well as a corollary discovery in wax production which revolutionized the city¡¯s cheese production. Deducing what had happened to Lucius fell squarely within her capacity, and even she had to put aside her frustrations with the boy and work with him. ¡°Come on then.¡±

    The temple had a long standing purchase order in with the adjacent bakery. The bakers reveled in it, knowing that any amount of bread they produced would at least be covered at cost, stale and hard at the end of the day. The place continually smelled of roasting loaves. The scent spread throughout the street like a succubus for the nose. While the bakers loaded up sacks for the two of them to carry back, Lucius had a question for Kajsa.

    ¡°The temple sells the oil to ships, right?¡±

    Kajsa had been rebraiding her long, golden hair and nearly let the whole thing fall apart when she turned to appraise the boy. ¡°Yes. What about it?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s to burn, to keep the monsters away, right?¡±

    ¡°For the next ship, yes. The residue creates sea roads. It works a lot better now that we have all the currents mapped out. Why do you ask?¡±

    ¡°Isn¡¯t taking care of that an important task, on a ship?¡±

    The girl caught on to where he was going, and squatted down beside him. She wasn¡¯t tall herself, and in fact she had to look up at young Lucius when she did so, but she said, ¡°Yes, but it isn¡¯t something you¡¯d be able to do, with only one arm. If a storm were to hit while you were aboard, you would need to be able to steady the brazier as well as maintain the fire.¡±

    His face had begun to redden with frustration and his hand balled into a fist. ¡°There could be some kind of contraption to help with that! I¡¯ve been in the temple a bunch. Nothing you do is magical. I could learn it all and get a job on a ship, and leave here!¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re more likely to leave with Master Wilhelm¡¯s troupe, if he get¡¯s hired to go abroad to Vassermark.¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t want to work for Master Wilhelm though! He uses me as a¡­ a prop! A freak! And the moment someone sneers at me, he tosses me aside. Why would I want to work for someone who doesn¡¯t care about me?¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t ask me, I work for an absentee goddess. From what I¡¯m told though, the trick is becoming your own boss, so you don¡¯t have to answer to anyone but yourself¡­ and your wives. You¡¯ve got that working against you, as a guy.¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t even want to get married!¡±

    <hr>

    ¡°That is the most childish thing I¡¯ve heard come out of your mouth,¡± Aisha said, her chin in her hands and her gaze on his face.

    Torn from his story, she forced upon him such self-consciousness that he cast about for another source of conversation. With the dropping sun, Captain Bodin offered him precisely that. The Sea Bird¡¯s Rest was furling sails and slowing to a halt, for he had spied a beach, and there on the coast a fishing hamlet. ¡°Seems we¡¯re about to get some food, what luck.¡±

    Aisha nearly remarked on that, a cutting blow of the tongue, but before she could enunciate the quip, her belly gurgled and growled. Her cheeks flushed even more than Lucius¡¯ had. ¡°That sounds great,¡± she said, jumping to her feet as the captain spun the wheel and sent the ship drifting to the shore.

    And so, our first night of the journey began around cookfires beneath a stump of a lighthouse that had been passed between so many faiths even I couldn¡¯t understand the iconography. Of course, Lucius and Aisha were busy keeping each other¡¯s attention.

    <hr>

    <ol>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">Deep Oil, and the associated incense braziers, was the secret weapon of Vassermark, bestowed unto them by their goddess. Or rather, the knowledge of how to harvest and process it was given to them by some of Saphira¡¯s emissaries, a bounty from beneath the waves that, when burned, had an effect akin to a pesticide. By tradition, all ships at the mercy of the goddess, that is at the mercy of the ocean, kept a stock to burn for her protection. In truth, the chemical produces a poisonous irritant that forces away the great monsters of the depths, but only along those lanes of travel used. Without local knowledge, ships from Aillesterra had never been able to cross the sea to the heart of Vassermark.</li>

    </ol>

 2-3 - Vulgar People

    I would pen down the name of the village we pitched tents in that evening, but it was such an inconsequential thing that the name has changed thrice since, and bears little meaning at all. The monastery in charge of the thorp, on paper, has been in disrepair and mismanagement for decades, a problem we were never able to find the cause of. A statistical anomaly perhaps, but it made for a quiet place to build cookfires.

    While the chef turned salted meats into stew, the whole congregation of the ship came round together. The crew enjoyed easy camaraderie, riding on secondhand glory without having fought for Rackvidd at all, but it entirely stifled the conversation between Lucius and Aisha. Our third companion seized the opportunity, nearly bursting with need to speak to someone, for he had not even been given one book for the voyage.

    Sammy planted himself beside the two of them, chewing a brick of biscuit with grim determination. ¡°The king is going to monetarily reward us, right?¡±

    Lucius first saw the tightening of Aisha¡¯s lips, and strove to answer. ¡°For something like this? I think the king will make an exception and be quite openhanded, for a price.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s not being generous then, is it?¡± the doctor responded.

    ¡°Nobles are expected to be generous, as a means of keeping the loyalty of their vassals. Vassals who are rewarded well are expected to perform better. It¡¯s a give and take.¡±

    Aisha said, ¡°The rumors I¡¯ve heard are that King Arandall is dead broke.¡±

    ¡°Not at all,¡± I said, imposing myself into their conversation as I sat down with the first bowl of stew. I wasn¡¯t impressed by the food, and needed a scrap of stimulation to wet my appetite. ¡°It was the previous king that was impoverished, and did everything he could to hide the fact. King Arandall merely spends within his means, and has made enemies among the lesser nobility who had grown fat on his father¡¯s foolishness. Now, they spread rumors because he does things like employ the Raymi family to lead expeditions south, rather than them.¡±

    ¡°So,¡± my pupil responded, ¡°I expect he¡¯ll hand me a chest of silver, and a job. Which, when you think about it, is really just an opportunity to get more of his money.¡±

    ¡°With less fighting, hopefully,¡± Sammy said, drearily looking out to the last vestiges of light in the sky.

    ¡°With more, hopefully,¡± I said. ¡°It¡¯s what Lucius is best at, afterall. The worst thing to happen would be some kind of remote governorship. But that too could be managed to success.¡±

    ¡°Wouldn¡¯t that just cause problems with the locals?¡± Aisha asked. ¡°If a foreigner were put in charge of them by decree of someone they had never seen?¡±

    ¡°If he were put back into Giordana, yes. But the king is not such a fool. There are many regions that have been stripped of their nobility, by war or disease or what have you. While some will decry bringing in a new ruler, to live without one is even worse. Some people have become very outspoken about the whole arrangement however. They¡¯ve created a mythos of self-governance beneath the gods, as though that ever existed.¡±

    Sammy asked, ¡°I thought you were an engineer, not a politician?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m neither. I¡¯m a scholar, and when certain essays take on a life of their own, I pay attention.¡±

    ¡°Essays?¡±

    ~~

    The Ashe Family had under their roof, Jacque Mordare busy putting quill to paper. Jarnmark had the luxury of prominence but separation. Across the seas from those that might be affected by his musings and charm, he safely coaxed the ladies Ashe into a sensual lull and sucked from them coin. The man was a charmer, if nothing else, and had the kind of fierce spirit that prickled at the very thought of attending Master Wilhelm¡¯s displays at the Arena.

    Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

    Though I didn¡¯t say it in public at the time, lest the sailors hear, he objected to the martial tournament on the very grounds that he suspected what did happen would. That some noble fool like Edvin would brutalize his fellow man because he had gathered unto himself the power of wealth and girded himself in status unearned. A striking man of both figure and ideas, with the surprising knack to convey them both. Alas, I found him to be a hedon and a glutton, but I have more years behind me than the ladies Ashe, and, to say the least, was not one to be charmed by his smile.

    While the rest of the Ashe family attended the tournament, he remained in their palace, accompanied by some dedicated servants and eating meals cooked by their chef. He strolled their gardens, enjoyed the safety of their house guards, and by their coin never went in want for paper and ink with which to complain about the status of the nobility. This incongruity was resolved because the Ashe family proved to be very amenable to his reformist beliefs, at least ostensibly.

    I myself was visiting Jarnmark at the time because I had reason to believe a godling had crawled into the world somewhere in the western mountains, a monstrosity that might one day butt up against Vassermark¡¯s expansion. I shant say how I had detected this intrusion, for the method still works to this day. While I was fine to leave the humans to themselves when it came to the regular beasts of the misty lands, clashing at the edge of the map, a godling was entirely another matter. When I learned that Jacque could be found so close at hand, I took some time to visit the fellow.

    Once he realized who I was, to say he welcomed me was an understatement. I¡¯d be lying if I said I was the kind of man to turn down hospitality, and in due course the two of us were quite drunk upon raiding the Ashe family wine cellar. Then, the thoughts in his head began to spill out of his lips. ¡°It¡¯s all a bit vulgar, isn¡¯t it? This whole thing. This palace of luxury, passed down the generations so each might add more art, more golden gilding, another wing, another contractual tendril to a neighboring enterprise. These nobles, they¡¯ve grown so fat on their prosperity that they¡¯ve blotted out the sun from the farmers. It¡¯s vulgar to look at, even from the inside.¡±

    ¡°This is the prosperity of stability,¡± I told him.

    ¡°There comes a point when prosperity has grown fat and can no longer be called such. This about us, we¡¯re in the belly fat of a dragon right now, snoozing upon a hoard of gold.¡±

    ¡°Iron mostly.¡±

    Jacque sneered and returned to the bottle. ¡°Iron, gold, gems and art, it¡¯s all meaningless. You don¡¯t need it to survive. These things are products of civilization, not a result of man¡¯s nature. As such, they are all the same.¡±

    ¡°And what do you know of man¡¯s nature?¡±

    He was too drunk to realize I was not myself a human. ¡°Man is an animal suffused with wisdom, but in his natural state would hardly show such a thing, for there is no reason to, no impetus. Before cities and towns and roads and laws burdened the world like so many chains and mires, man had no shortage of goods and food, for he was in nature where such things are aplenty. Only in a city are people so foolish as to do away with their very sources of life!¡±

    I couldn¡¯t help but laugh. His opinions were like those of a child. He had excised the gods from nature, which I confess is a reasonable stance to make. They are horribly unnatural parasites, but not the way he conceived of it. The man spoke like an atheist in denial. I supposed he thought the heart of a city was the courthouse or something of the like, rather than the temples and shrines. Part of me wondered whether he understood the function of a heart, literal or poetical.

    Jacque took my laughter as agreement, and continued his spiel. He even leapt up, bottle in hand, pacing the room. ¡°With the advent of settlements, man¡¯s wisdom came to use, and he mixed his labor with the things of nature¨C¡±

    ¡°Making them his own, yes. I¡¯m the one who wrote on that subject, some years ago.¡±

    ¡°Yes! And as it is man¡¯s nature to die after so many years, his creations outlast him, and by vulgar tradition, these things fall to the children of the creator. From that advantage, they first begin to rob and extort their fellows. One small advantage is plied to a larger advantage, and so on over the years, decades, centuries, into this!¡± The writer threw his arms to either side, sloshing red wine across the rugs. He probably broke some maid¡¯s heart, but he did so without fear because he had besotten the youngest of the ladies Ashe and she could never see anything wrong with him.

    ¡°Please, if you would, answer an old man this question. What would you have done about these vulgar traditions? The ones which have so comfortably kept you fed and drunk?¡±

    ¡°Destroy them,¡± Jacque said, without a moment¡¯s hesitation. ¡°Wipe the slate clean and let us, in our cities, set society straight by rational thought. We¡¯ve centuries of practice at it now. We wouldn¡¯t make such a broken society as this.¡±

    ¡°So you think you can reason your way to utopia?¡±

    ¡°Not me alone. The will of the people can however. Didn¡¯t I tell you? I believe in democracy.¡±

 2-4 - Doting Enslavement

    As night turned to day, and the crew bedded down aboard the ship, the story of Lucius¡¯ past progressed forward nearly half a year. The morning began benign enough, sailing at first dawn while Sammy at last extracted from me a portion of my medical knowledge. At the prow of the ship, Lucius was the main entertainment for us passengers. Not because he put on some play or act, but because he and the captain were fencing.

    Captain Bodin had a pair of blunted sabers he doted on, and handed one with a greedy grin to the boy as an invite to light exercise. Obviously, he thought Lucius had never fought upon a moving surface before. I had trained him in such eventualities, and he knew how to waver and dance upon the swaying deck, much to the ire of Bodin.

    Aisha sat to the side, chewing on dried fruit and watching the exchange of blows, and eventually asked, ¡°How did you get your arm back?¡±

    Lucius, sweating and gulping down water, responded, ¡°I healed.¡± A furtive glance was sent in Bodin¡¯s direction, but the captain had stalked off to get himself a bottle of liquor and could not hear them. ¡°I mentioned it itched, didn¡¯t I? It was healing the whole time.¡±

    ¡°And yet your family sold you as a useless mouth? To a minstrel troupe?¡±

    The memory yet pained young Lucius. The darkening of his expression forced Aisha out of her curiosity, but before she could apologize, he answered, ¡°The surgeon told them a limb lost would be lost forever. My parents were poor. Given the opportunity for me to be fed and employed, they handed me over for my own sake, as they saw it. I think my aunt pressed the matter.¡±

    ¡°Your aunt?¡±

    ¡°Mother¡¯s sister.¡±

    ¡°Why would she have a say?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s how marriages work in Vassermark. Don¡¯t you know?¡±

    <hr>

    Winter came and went in Jarnmark. Given the southern climate, the passing of the season was primarily marked by a change in produce and in ship arrivals. Claire Riverfall had been accepted in as a sworn knight of the Ashe family, serving the youngest lady, and in so doing she also guarded Jacque. As spring loomed, preparations had to be made for the equinox.

    Though that was originally a holiday hailing from distant and vengeful Aillesterra, the people of Jarnmark had co-opted the fertility rites as a joyous celebration. An excuse to drink and for young adults to pledge themselves to one another.

    Naturally, Master Wilhelm was called upon at this time for a performance more befitting his trade; a theater. To everyone¡¯s surprise, except perhaps Jacque, the young lady Ashe demanded that Lucius be her cupboy as she watched their rendition of Giganticide(1).

    Ruby Ashe, contrary to all written sources on the matter, a blonde. Named for the color of her cheeks upon birth, not some recessive trait that she and she alone had in all her family as certain painters would have you believe.  What those charlatans had right however, was the raw beauty she possessed, like a blessing from the goddesses incarnate.(2)

    Jacque was absent at the time. The true cause can¡¯t be ascertained but I suspect he was hungover or perhaps sleeping with one of Ruby¡¯s sisters. As such, her attention fixated entirely on Lucius, the object of her nephew¡¯s ire. ¡°Tell me about how you lost your arm,¡± she demanded.

    Her older sister Faith rolled her eyes. Perhaps it was a habitual thing, for the amount of rolls of fat she had on her. ¡°Why would you ask such an ugly, vulgar thing?¡± the older woman demanded.

    ¡°Because I should hardly think that such a misfortune could befall one of us, so how am I to know of it, if I do not humble myself to ask?¡± Ruby said.

    Lucius, newly tipped over to the age of nine, couldn¡¯t see how she was showing humbleness in the least. Master Wilhelm had been very clear that his duty was to serve, and that meant doing whatever the people with money asked of him, especially talking. Had he been older, he might have talked his way around the crudeness, but he had not even felt the tingles of puberty. That kept him from being wiled by the cut of Ruby¡¯s dress, but let him state, ¡°A rock fell on me. In the mines. My father worked in the iron mines. I was down there when the cave collapsed.¡±

    Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

    Ruby gasped and she drank more of her wine as though enraptured by a play. The theater performance below held no sway over her at the moment however. ¡°That¡¯s terrible! Such a young child, forced to work in the dirt like a worm. How can we say we have prosperity when something so ugly as this occurs beneath our very feet?¡±

    ¡°It wasn¡¯t under your feet. The mine is up in the mountains,¡± Lucius said.

    His childish confusion simply made Ruby swoon harder for him, as though she were looking at a stray dog in the rain. ¡°There should be laws against this sort of thing. I don¡¯t want it happening in Jarnmark.¡±

    ¡°Cave-ins?¡± Lucius asked.

    ¡°You can¡¯t just do that, sis,¡± Faith said, talking over the boy. ¡°That¡¯s how these poor families function. By Saphira, it¡¯s how we function too! How would Fredricka¨C¡± her daughter, ¡°ever learn etiquette without accompanying us to events? It¡¯s the same with the peasants. They learn by doing, by making themselves useful once they can. You make that illegal and crime is what you¡¯ll get. Just think, the swarms of urchins you¡¯d have running down the streets.¡±

    ¡°The children should be with their mothers,¡± Ruby declared.

    Faith rolled once more, slumping her weight against the viewing box railing. ¡°Spoken like someone who¡¯s never had a child pass between their legs. I will have you know, that after three you really get quite tired of the crying. And finding good wetnurses? It¡¯s a nightmare.¡±

    ¡°Well, I wouldn¡¯t mind in the least learning first hand, you know that.¡±

    ¡°You just want that writer¡¯s seed inside you.¡±

    ¡°I value a man with brains more than some soldier like you married.¡±

    ¡°Brains don¡¯t help in the bedroom, sister.¡±

    Ruby grinned and shrugged. ¡°So your man has taught us both¡­ you there, boy, tell us, how many fathers do you have?¡±

    He nearly answered in the negative, but from where he stood, he could see Master Wilhelm watching the actors play and Wilhelm could see him. ¡°Just the one.¡±

    ¡°Your aunt did not take a husband?¡± Faith asked.

    ¡°She did, but I¡¯ve never met him. He¡¯s in the army somewhere.¡±

    Ruby sighed and helped herself to more wine. ¡°He must have had it very hard, caring for the whole family like that. Nieces and nephews too, I assume?¡± Lucius nodded, for he had three cousins. ¡°No wonder you were thrust into the mines so young. As Jacque would say, the bounty of nature is no longer enough for so many kin.¡±

    Lucius didn¡¯t understand the two of them at all. Regardless, they continued to talk over him and about him, and demand answers of him to keep themselves entertained while the actors below swung their swords and cast out red ribbons of stage blood. In his own way, he understood what was happening, for he had many times seen his father haggle for the butchering of a hog. How his father and the swineherd would go round and round about politics and the city and upcoming events and who knew whom, all as a means of probing one another on the cost of the beast. Lucius did not understand the ritual, for the cost always seemed to be the same, but he did understand that for the women before him, he was the hog.

    ¡°I shall speak to Master Wilhelm,¡± Ruby said after the play wrapped up to much applause. ¡°I shall take you as my own servant. You¡¯re nearly of an age with the girls and can be their servant.¡±

    ¡°Sister! Are you trying to cause problems with Edvin?¡±

    ¡°Edvin needs to grow up,¡± Ruby snapped back. Of course, it seemed to only occur to Lucius that such growing up would still take plenty of time.

    Sadly for the boy, in due course, Ruby Ashe dragged him before the troupe manager and expressed her desire, to which Lucius declared, ¡°I don¡¯t want to work for her! I want to stay with you, Master Wilhelm.¡± Lucius had imagined some familiarity with the man who employed him, took care of him, saw to his basic needs and gave him something to do and something to learn. Perhaps he was right, but only to an extent.

    Master Wilhelm stood in no position to offend his benefactor, and Lucius only realized when he saw the scowl across the man¡¯s face. ¡°How dare you turn down such hospitality from your better? Why, I say that my company has no place for a scoundrel such as you, if you would deny the lady¡¯s grace. Here¡¯s your choice, boy; take her offer or be on the street. I employ only honorable people.¡±

    <hr>

    ¡°They treated you like a slave,¡± Aisha said.

    ¡°In their eyes, I may as well have been one.¡±

    ¡°No wonder you freed those slaves at the mine. I thought you did it just to get more fighting men.¡±

    ¡°Well, it was for that too. Say, you performed in taverns, didn¡¯t you?¡± he asked, snapping the sparring blade back into its sheathe as he tried to breathe new life into their conversation. When she gave a nod, he continued, ¡°Why don¡¯t you teach me some more Giordanan games? I feel like all I know is Trireme.¡±

    The bardic girl breathed out and cleared her head, thinking over her repertoire. ¡°Do you know backgammon?¡±

    I had taught him everything there was to know about backgammon. ¡°Never heard of it,¡± he said. He threw the game.

    <hr>

    <ol>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">Giganticide generally refers to the class of poems and plays regarding the semi-mythical slaying of the North Sea Titan, a tale which has kept a grip on the hearts of the locals because the skeleton can still be seen, centuries after all involved perished. Delightful heroism and battle.</li>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">The goddesses do not understand human beauty standards enough to give such a blessing.</li>

    </ol>

 2-5 - Monsters In The Woods

    ¡°You know,¡± Aisha slurred, her cheeks as red as her hair and her stomach more full of wine than not. Drunkenness had not drawn out sea sickness from her, but it had attracted Sammy to their table. ¡°I dare say you only got lucky, if this is the extent of your strategic thinking, oh great Lucius von Solhart.¡±

    The wine was getting to my pupil as well, and the more she smiled at him the more he smiled back. Getting her to open up from the gloom of fratricide was harder work than breaking the siege of Rackvidd, and, in the eyes of a teenager, the prize greater still. ¡°Failure is the greatest teacher, my teacher once told me. And I dare say I¡¯ve lost every way there is to lose in this game. So if I just don¡¯t do those things again I can only win.¡±

    ¡°You can¡¯t control the dice, though. Now can you?¡± Sammy said, but even as he did so the dice fell, the pips showed, and Lucius slapped his chips across the board in sets of two, neatly gating off Aisha¡¯s routes.

    Aisha gave a playful glare. ¡°I was taught by the best hustlers in Tavina. You should feel honored that I¡¯m teaching you,¡± she said, taking her own turn with a frustrated look at her piece held hostage at the start.

    ¡°It will be a wonderful novelty in Hearth Bay. Cards are the pastime of choice, or so I¡¯m told. They¡¯ve got artisans that paint them up in lacquer, but cheating is rampant. Some of the nobles think bending the rules like that proves superior wit¡­¡± He had scored most of his pieces, and those he hadn¡¯t were marched like soldiers to the end.

    ¡°Dice are easy to cheat as well. Especially on a ship. Can never tell if they roll right,¡± she mumbled. She chewed her nail, staring at the boardstate but she could only do what the dice allowed.

    ¡°You could spin them, couldn¡¯t you? Only balanced things can spin on their edge,¡± the doctor mused.

    ¡°Not on a ship you can¡¯t,¡± Aisha said, and got a few chuckles from nearby sailors.

    Sammy waved his drink around. ¡°But I mean, if you¡¯re both using the same dice, then it¡¯s fair, isn¡¯t it? Even if you knew one side was more likely than the next to show up, it¡¯s not guaranteed, right? And then, what would you even do with that knowledge, right? What¡¯s the fuss about? You¡¯re playing for fun, anyways, aren¡¯t you? I don¡¯t see coins out and both of you are still fully dressed, so what are you playing for? Bragging?¡±

    The two of them had taken turn after turn while he spoke. Rolling faster and faster as Lucius thinned his ranks without letting her hostage escape. The dice blessed him, showering him with doubles and rerolls. Aisha had similar luck, but without the means to seize upon it, not as far as her hostage was concerned. Eventually, he was forced to allow an opening, and she rallied, trying to send it fleeing across, but it was too late. The right dice turned up and he slowly scored his last chip.

    ¡°Lucky bastard,¡± she grumbled.

    ¡°I had a very good instructor.¡± Sadly, he was not referring to me.

    Aisha folded her arms with a huff and turned away as her cheeks took on a new hue. ¡°So is that your hometown, now?¡± she asked, gesturing towards the new colors on the horizon.

    Sammy, with his attention on the slightly misshapen dice, said, ¡°You¡¯re looking in the wrong direction. The Solhart family rules over the territory just west of Jumeaux.¡±

    Lucius and Aisha gave the boy a bit of a scowl, but he had the right of it. The crew could hear them. While Sammy tried to figure out if the dice were indeed loaded, Lucius rose and went to the side railing with the girl and quietly said, ¡°Getting there. The territory but not the city. Looks like the forests have been cut down more since I last saw it. More fields, more people.¡±

    ¡°Must be nice to have such good farmland.¡±

    ¡°We have worse things to worry about than sand snakes though.¡±

    ¡°How? You don¡¯t even have invading armies.¡±

    ¡°I told you, didn¡¯t I? There are monsters in the mountains there, from the other side. Bears are the best thing you could find in your field. I met my first monster while I was being used as a toy by the Ashe girls.¡±

    If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.

    ¡°A toy?¡±

    ¡°A dress-up, pretend prince,¡± he said with a laugh and a sneer. ¡°I wonder what they¡¯d say to me if they saw me at the king¡¯s court?¡±

    ¡°I bet they¡¯ll think you look like the hero they suspected you might be. If you didn¡¯t piss yourself or something. I certainly thought my brother looked like one, when he saved me from a pack of jackals¡­ they had come for one of our sick camels. Tore it to shreds while I shrieked, and some of them decided I would make a good meal too. Gaunt things of skin and bone and teeth that gnashed red with blood. It was my brother and his friends that showed up first to my shouts.¡±

    She gave a forlorn smile and continued, ¡°My idiot brother tried to use his stigmata to control one of the jackals, after he put an arrow in it. He learned the hard way that it didn¡¯t work that way. He spent a week fumbling about on all fours like a dog. Turned out to be a higher price than I paid for it all. I was just scared for a moment. He was embarrassed for a week.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s how childish heroics tend to go. I ended up bedridden myself, listening to some drunk ramble.¡±

    ¡°But were you the hero?¡±

    ¡°One of them.¡±

    <hr>

    They dragged young Lucius out to see the flowers bloom. Him, Fredericka, and the heir of the Ashe family, Annika, born to the middle sister and herself the older sibling to Edvin, set out under the protection of Claire Riverfall. Not a daring distance by any means, the four of them went only so far as a copse of scrub trees within sight of the city walls. A thicket used by peasants for harvesting firewood with well trod paths and plenty of wildflowers.

    The older girls had done a cruel thing to Lucius, and dug out a set of child sized armor. A ceremonial thing made by artisan blacksmiths in an attempt to show what might be possible in the future, they had made a metal carapace of segmented plates. The girls stuffed the right arm full of rags and had it strapped onto him like a prosthesis with no grasper at all. It clattered with every step he took, dragging limp at his side. ¡°Now, you¡¯re part knight!¡± Frederika had declared.

    Lucius could not find it within himself to see any benefit at all to his being there. Given the differences in age, both girls were a hand taller than him, and he had already seen how they treated their actual dolls, exactly the same. He didn¡¯t even understand what was special about the woods. The best flowers were grown in gardens and sold to stupid girls like those two with him. Had they been looking for fresh tea, he might have understood.

    Screams of children brooked little confusion.

    A bear, thin and black, reared up before them. Snout beige and mottled red, it appraised the girls while it licked its jowels. Claire, the true knight, sprinted to the fray with sword drawn. ¡°Get back! Back!¡± she shouted, though her words were directed at the beast. It was a mere animal, not at all interested in humans. Only Claire and Lucius understood that.

    Annika and Frederika thought the command was for themselves and went running. ¡°Boy! Get them!¡± Claire barked at Lucius, unable to go herself, not with a moaning bear twice her own weight before her. It had to be chased off before it could habituate to humans.

    Lucius had no end of insults for the girls, within the confines of his mind, but no thought of abandoning them to their own fright and stupidity. Like a spell spoken to the world, his thought that they would get themselves killed brought out the worst in mankind. They had stumbled across two peasants with packs of sticks burdened upon their backs and bellies as empty as their purses. The peasants found before them more silver than they could have dreamed of.

    They dropped the wood and drew steel.

    ¡°Hey!¡± Lucius barked, charging at the two rogues. Each had gotten a hand on one of the girls, taking kicks to the face and chest. They looked at one another, each expecting the other to deal with him, and in that unplanned moment Lucius threw his shoulder into the nearest. The three of them, Lucius, villain, and Annika, went rolling through the dirt.

    With racing heart, he tried to scramble up to his feet. His eyes first laid upon Annika¡¯s hand and he tried to grab it, only to mistakenly use his right hand, the impotent mannequin of steel.

    ¡°Get back!¡± the other barked. He had his foraging blade to Frederika¡¯s throat. A crude, rough thing of nicks and cracks like a vicious saw. He, like the other rogue, was as rough as his blade. It could be seen in how his fingers clutched the hilt like claws. The hunger in the hunch of his back. They were starving men who just found hope, irregardless of the evil it entailed.

    ¡°Monsters,¡± Lucius spat back at them.

    Then the other ran him through with his weapon. The steel pushed through clothes, belly, gut, and out the other side. Warmth gushed down Lucius¡¯ body as his blood poured forth. ¡°You idiot! What if that was Edvin?¡±

    ¡°Edvin¡¯s blond, ain¡¯t he? Come on, before the¨C¡±

    Lucius stabbed the distracted man in the leg with his pocket knife. It was a tiny little thing, blunt and short and useful for nothing but prying shells open. The howl of agony from the man echoed through the thicket as Lucius lost consciousness. Claire Riverfall descended on the men like a rampaging dragon, but Lucius was spared from seeing the body parts litter the forest floor.

    When he awoke naked and confused in one of the Ashe family beds, Jacque accused him of being a cheater.

 2-6 - Too Good At Gambling

    ¡°You definitely cheated,¡± Aisha said.

    ¡°Did not.¡±

    ¡°Did too. They didn¡¯t know you were unkillable, did they?¡±

    ¡°I fail to see the relevance.¡±

    Aisha stared back at him until he couldn¡¯t meet her gaze. ¡°You know,¡± she said, ¡°you have a habit of doing those kinds of things, don¡¯t you? You bet my brother would survive because you knew he would already, didn¡¯t you?¡±

    ¡°That is an unfounded accusation with no evidence behind it.¡±

    ¡°And if I go ask Amurabi?¡±

    ¡°He¡¯d talk you in circles and leave you more confused than when you first arrived.¡± Not an unfounded claim, but a tad hurtful all the same.

    Aisha shoved off the railing with a sigh. ¡°I need more wine, I think,¡± she said, and strolled below deck. After a moment¡¯s hesitation, Lucius followed behind her with a hope that he had seen a momentary glance over her shoulder. The ladder down was like a portal to the veil, to the shadowy realm of the dead. Nothing but scant lines of swaying light cast upon unfamiliar crates and struts. The fairy light of a lantern bobbing in her hand ahead as she traversed the crew quarters. She had the grace to avoid the sleeping forms, but not Lucius. He bumped and stumbled and missed his chance at her cabin door.

    She had wineskins within her cabin room, but he could only bring himself to stand in wait for so long. Eventually, he was sure something else had occupied her attention. Rather than meekly walk back to the ladder, he pretended his true purpose had been the other cabin, and in short order the two of us were sat across from one another.

    ¡°You haven¡¯t forgotten your etiquette, have you?¡± I asked him, one hand on the tome I had been reading. Not that it was something indecent to read, but to keep the aged pages from flipping. Teaching the doctor had me surprisingly busy re-learning certain pieces of medicine.

    ¡°Of course I haven¡¯t forgotten. Besides, I¡¯ll be treating with a king, not a queen. It¡¯s much easier.¡±

    ¡°King Arandall is a one of the wisest kings I¡¯ve ever met. He has a very shrewd eye.¡±

    ¡°He can¡¯t be too wise if you aren¡¯t using him,¡± Lucius said, perusing the spines of my other books. He had already read most of them.

    I cracked a smile at him. ¡°Who said I¡¯m not using him? The mere thing is, you never quite know when a king is going to die. By my estimation, the king doesn¡¯t have much longer. He should have taken a Vassish wife if he wanted a long rule.¡±

    He didn¡¯t smile back. ¡°Is that supposed to be a warning?¡±

    Defensiveness born of youth, quite tiring. ¡°In a sense, yes. You are of the nobility for now. You need to be thinking within your station. Above it even. By no means am I saying drive her away, but she should be nothing more than a mistress. It¡¯s not a matter of affection, but inheritance and property. Allegiances even.¡±

    ¡°Is the nobility even going to survive the next few years? It¡¯s not going to matter in the long run.¡±

    I turned up my hands with a shrug. ¡°Once you¡¯re the king, you can do whatever you wish. I must advise you until then.¡±

    He held his tongue and let the conversation die. When he spoke again, he asked, ¡°What do you think my reward will be?¡±

    ¡°King Arandall is going to send you back into the fray. A war hero is best used in a war. He might use you to drag off one of his problems as well. Fracturing your enemy¡¯s resources is the key to keeping power.¡±

    ¡°Well, there¡¯s no war in the east, so it will either be to the north or the south. Skaldheim or Aillesterra.¡±

    ¡°Hope for Aillesterra. They¡¯ll be much easier to crush. It takes action to triumph, no matter your own capacity, and those barbarians don¡¯t tend to do anything overt. They¡¯ve become crafty after fighting the trolls for so long. They¡¯ve cultivated their economy too much. Built up an armory of cunning. I don¡¯t think we¡¯ll have a flareup with them for years.¡±

    ¡°Unless we cause one.¡±

    ¡°Unless we cause one.¡±

    ¡°But we wouldn¡¯t,¡± he said.

    I grinned. ¡°Not yet. The scope of our activities is far too small, and Vassermark is not prepared for fighting Skaldheim. They would bleed dry. First, the imperial coffers must be filled, and all other theaters of war must be closed. Do not get ahead of yourself, my boy. You don¡¯t need to worry about the distant future, only the present.¡±

    He nodded and relaxed. Then his gaze moved across the books once more. ¡°Which did you bring?¡± At such an innocuous invite, we soon fell into a lecture and discourse regarding the introduction of organic material, bone powder, to the metallurgical process to strengthen castings. The King¡¯s endeavors with ley cannons had been blowing the back-caps off from the force reaction, and new steel was needed. Lucius already understood the applications of force and momentum equations, so the conversation dwelled primarily on that nebulous realm of metal crystallization, which I could only speculate on. We knew that the quench rate dictated the material performance, but no optical lens had yet been produced that would allow us to study the microstructure and study it. For many decades, we could only work off past knowledge and guess work.

    A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

    We fell into a discussion regarding the potential applications of cannons, what could be done to make them more maneuverable in an offensive capacity, and so on. The most frustrating aspect of the tools were how heavy the launching munitions were at the time. A modern cannon can be compressed to such a size than an infantry soldier can walk around with it, but back then, in the infantile days, it took barrels and barrels of shafts of ley to utilize it. Such things could hardly be brought forward to pound down a city wall. Erdro Karekale¡¯s stigmata was still much preferable.

    We might have sat there the entire evening, if not for a warning bell. Another ship had been sighted, and not a Vassish ship. All who heard it rushed to the deck. The thing could be seen upon the horizon. Thin and black, like an assassin¡¯s dagger, it glided across the horizon with three triangular sails. ¡°Pirates,¡± Captain Bodin declared when Lucius and I arrived. ¡°Long way from home too. From Aillesterra.¡±

    ¡°How do you know? The sails? The color?¡± Lucius asked, shading his eyes.

    ¡°Aye, both. They¡¯re tracking us. Maybe not to attack, but to learn a way north.¡±

    ¡°If they¡¯re following us, should we do something?¡±

    Captain Bodin said, ¡°Not much we can do, m¡¯lord. While my crew are no pushovers, we aren¡¯t exactly an armed fighting force. Doing battle with them would be risky, and we have no means of fighting except to board them and fight it out.¡±

    I thought Lucius would volunteer himself to do the boarding, but rather he said, ¡°A shame we don¡¯t have even a single cannon to mount at the back of the ship. We could punch a hole through their hull and sink them without a fight.¡±

    The captain¡¯s brow furrowed until he unraveled the idea, then he blinked. ¡°That would be nice. Imagine the shock that would give the Cyclops. But for now, I suggest all we do is sail through the night. I don¡¯t think we¡¯d be able to sleep ashore with pirates at our heels. Mayhaps we can lose them.¡±

    I stroked my beard, tugging on the hairs and twisting them around my fingers, but had no answer. ¡°How do you propose to navigate at night? Won¡¯t you have to cast an anchor?¡±

    Captain Bodin grinned wide enough we could see several teeth replaced with silver. ¡°That¡¯s my specialty, courtesy of the gods. Can¡¯t do it two nights in a row however.¡±

    ¡°Who¡¯s the Cyclops?¡± Lucius asked, wiping the smug from the captain¡¯s face.

    ¡°The commander of the Aillesterran navy. No one knows much about them, just that they¡¯re called the Cyclops and aren¡¯t from Aillesterra. Those religious nuts put a foreigner in charge, and the pirates have been more brazen than ever.¡±

    ¡°Pirates? Are they being paid by Aillesterra?¡±

    ¡°Probably. No way to be sure of course,¡± Captain Bodin said. ¡°Either way, I have no plan to fight this ship. We¡¯re running away and hoping the sea monsters get them.¡±

    ¡°Well, we¡¯ll have to see if they can keep up with us. I suppose that means a cold dinner tonight.¡±

    ¡°Aye, m¡¯lord. Now, if I¡¯m to be awake all night, it¡¯s best I bed down until then. If you¡¯ll excuse me,¡± Captain Bodin said, and vanished below deck to retire to his cabin. His first mate took the wheel and kept charge. I took my leave as well, retiring to my cabin to ponder the problem.

    To Lucius¡¯ dismay, it wasn¡¯t Aisha who eventually emerged to join him on the rear deck, but the doctor. ¡°Heard about the ship,¡± the boy said, squinting his one remaining eye at the foreign predator. ¡°Are you worried?¡±

    ¡°We have a plan to deal with it,¡± Lucius said.

    ¡°I hear they use slaves for the rowing. Makes them much faster than Vassish ships. If they catch up with us, do you think you could fight them off?¡±

    ¡°Perhaps, but it¡¯s not something I want to risk.¡±

    Sammy scoffed. ¡°What risk would it be to you?¡±

    ¡°If I fall in the water while unconscious, I may never revive. I¡¯d be down there, on the bottom, drowning forever.¡±

    The two of them stood there in silence, glancing about the sea until Sammy forced out of himself, ¡°Oh, I see. I understand your predicament now.¡±

    ¡°Care for a game of trireme?¡±

    ¡°Only if it comes with more wine. I¡¯ve got a hangover setting in, and the sun is still up.¡± The ensuing game proved far less linguistically involved than the earlier parlance of backgammon. They sat down with the board, a seafaring variant with slots and pegs to hold the pieces lest an errant wave throw the game, and grappled with one another mentally till Sammy at last mused, ¡°Curious how in the game, you can only sink a ship by coming at it sideways, and yet we¡¯re pursued from behind right now.¡± He was at the time, holding up a piece of his that Lucius had just eliminated.

    Lucius kept his eyes on the board. ¡°The game is supposed to be naval combat, not a chase. They don¡¯t need to sink us at all, but to follow us in and remember the way. If we don¡¯t lose them in the night, I may well have to go over there and kill them all. I can''t be the man who brought pirates to Hearth Bay.¡±

    ¡°Hearth Bay won¡¯t be threatened by one ship. Not unless they had an emissary of the gods aboard. Even then, the capital is protected by angels,¡± the young doctor said as he watched Lucius make his next play. He sighed as another of his avenues were cut off.

    Lucius waved his hand and glanced at the distant pirates. ¡°It¡¯s not about threat, but optics. There are people who would use it against me, would pressure the king to not reward me for Rackvidd. Better to not give them that fodder.¡±

    ¡°I thought you were afraid of getting killed on the sea?¡±

    ¡°Doesn¡¯t mean I won¡¯t go fight. Besides, Amurabi will save me if it comes to that.¡±

    Sammy made a furtive, defensive play. It did nothing but delay the inevitable. ¡°You know, this is a problem.¡±

    ¡°What is?¡± Lucius asked, taking another of the doctor¡¯s pieces.

    ¡°You¡¯re too good at games. The man they sent down to Giordana lost nearly every game and gamble he made.¡±

    That stayed Lucius¡¯ hand. He blinked and stared at the board state, the careful avenues of pursuit like a spider¡¯s web closing around Sammy¡¯s final ship. ¡°But¡­ gaming skill is often used by nobles to demonstrate their wit and cunning!¡±

    Sammy stared at him. ¡°And what? You spent your entire stay in Puerto Faro playing games? I guess that would at least be accurate.¡±

    Lucius folded his arms and scowled. ¡°Alright, point taken, but are you conceding or what?¡±

    Sammy grumbled and packed in his pieces, admitting defeat. ¡°You know,¡± he said as they were both trying to spot a chef walking out food for the crew. ¡°If you¡¯re worried about how you¡¯ll be seen when you arrive, shouldn¡¯t you be worried about bringing in the sister of the enemy leader?¡±

    Lucius frowned and looked back down at the barren board. He didn¡¯t have an answer for that, his emotions to tied up and entangled with what he knew had truly happened and what he knew he would have to do in the future. Before words could be forced from him however, a shadow passed over the two of them. Against the setting son, Aisha had emerged from below deck. The wind cast her hair and dress dancing beside her as she looked at Lucius with bloodshot eyes.

    ¡°Tell me what that writer Jacque told you,¡± she demanded.

 2-7 - Making Girls Wet

    ¡°I seem to be looking at living proof that mankind is born into the world in a state of nature, a savage fresh from the womb. It is only through the sham thing called education that chains are put upon him, and you, boy, are what happens when man is cut off from his parents and is doubly blessed with vigor,¡± Jacque said. He sat beside the window with a cup of tea.

    Lucius laid out across the bed, his gut mummified in bandages and famished. ¡°What¡¯s a state of nature?¡±

    The writer frowned and made the arduous decision between speaking for his own benefit, and speaking for the boy¡¯s. ¡°Do you consider yourself free?¡±

    Lucius blinked back and felt his stomach rumble and growl. ¡°I consider myself hungry.¡±

    Jacque sighed and rang a servant bell that had been left for when Lucius awoke. In due course, one of the maids brought in a gluttony of bread and soup for him to gorge himself upon. ¡°To answer my own question, you seem to be the least free person that I¡¯ve ever met. If these nobles had you in a collar and leash it could not be more obvious. Why?¡±

    Lucius choked down the food, pounding his chest and washing the lump down with more soup broth. When he could, he turned to the writer and said, ¡°Are you an idiot?¡± The caught Jacque by surprise, so galled him the boy was able to go on. ¡°There are bears and bandits outside the city, and I¡¯ll be beaten if I stay inside the city without a home.¡±

    ¡°But look at you! You were run through by a sword last night and already you are healed. What do you have to fear from bandits? The goddesses have blessed you with a gift so strong you may as well be cheating at life. What does society offer you that would make you accept this yoke?¡±

    Lucius had none of his high minded theorizing. ¡°And if the bear eats me next time? Am I supposed to just heal from being turned into a giant pile of dung? I can be hurt,¡± he said, pointing his stump at the man.

    Jacque set his tea down and paced the room. ¡°But with your strength, you would be the one to slay the bear. Just think how strong you could become, living in nature.¡±

    ¡°What nature? There¡¯s people everywhere. Even before my parents sold me off, everything was farms, orchards, or some private hunting ground where I nearly got trampled by a horse! Leave me alone you idiot.¡±

    Jacque did not leave him alone. He paced and thought, and twisted his mustache whiskers and formed a new question for his bed-ridden victim of words. ¡°You don¡¯t even have family holding you here, and so young. Too young for you to be interested in girls, yes?¡±

    The boy tried to hide his flush by eating more bread, stuffing it into his maw until he could smoothly say, ¡°I¡¯d have to meet a girl worth being interested in first.¡±

    Jacque burst out laughing. ¡°I should thank you for teaching me something. A true man of nature has his wits and cunning from even the earliest age. Any lest and he would surely perish. But, from your youth, like an ant upon the ground you see so little. You have not yet seen the options around you. It does not even occur to you that the land west of the mountains is no one¡¯s hunting ground. You simply have never escaped beyond the bounds of civilization. There, a powerful man could truly thrive as one with nature.¡±

    ¡°Are you calling me short?¡±

    Jacque¡¯s renewed laughter drew in more unwanted visitors. Frederika and Annika, accompanied by their aunt Ruby, stormed in, evidently alerted by the maid. ¡°You¡¯re alive. Good,¡± Annika stated, fists on her hips.

    Frederika burst into a blubbering mess of tears and through her face into Lucius¡¯ side as her attempt to thank him. Their aunt grinned at the group of them, and said, ¡°If anything is lacking in hospitality, it will be provided for. I won¡¯t stand anything less for our little hero.¡±

    ¡°Look at him,¡± Jacque said. ¡°Any more you could provide him would do nothing but spoil him. The only thing he wants for is his lost arm.¡±

    With the impudence only a young noble could have, Annika shoved up Lucius¡¯ sleeve to take a look at his stump. It had changed. A subtle, budding growth that only Lucius himself noticed. It was a tiny thing, the return of a certain mole flecked upon his skin that he recalled from his earlier youth. A mole the barber had hacked off to save him from the collapse. He was so taken by the sight, he didn¡¯t even think to tell the girls to stop looking at it like he was a freak.

    Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

    ¡°We should get that covered,¡± Ruby said, chewing a nail and swaying.

    Frederika shook her head. ¡°I think it looks interesting though. We shouldn¡¯t have forced you to wear that metal thing. A man who can fight without an arm is much more a knight than one who hides it.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m not a knight,¡± Lucius said, at last burying his arm in the blankets.

    Annika walked around the other side of the bed, and tugged his shirt down. Before he could pull away, she got a look at his stigmata scrawled across his chest. Back then, it was just as large as it was in adulthood, so it sprawled from one side to the next over his immature frame. Just the same way as a child might marvel at the scaffolding to make a building, without an inkling of an idea why any particular piece was where it was, Annika could only see the stigmata as a work of art.

    Lucius yanked his shirt out of her grasp and pulled it tight. ¡°Don¡¯t look at that.¡±

    Annika reared up at him. ¡°What gives you the¨C¡±

    ¡°Anne,¡± Ruby snapped. ¡°He saved your life, not the other way around. How would you feel if he asked you to take your dress off?¡± That mollified the older girl, wilted her like a flower set beside a fire. The younger girl, Frederika, giggled, her tears since wiped away.

    Jacque swirled his cup of tea and said, ¡°If I¡¯m not mistaken, you picked this boy up from that minstrel. You thought you were the one doing a favor to him when you forced him here, but he has done more for you than you could have imagined. So, the question becomes, how do you reward his selfless behavior?¡±

    For a moment, based on my experience with the romantic woman, I¡¯m sure she considered whether the boy could be brought into the family. Vassermark had hardly any upward mobility between the classes of people, but a strong enough stigmata, such as his, could have been justification enough, like bringing a new stallion into the horse herd. With a story such as those bandits, there might have been a possibility if the family was larger, but none of the Ashe sisters had been particularly fertile and the girls before her would need noble husbands. She asked, ¡°What would you like as a reward?¡±

    Right there, in the middle of the Ashe family palace, lords of the economic breadbasket of Vassermark, with them indebted to his bravery and with both girls near smitten with him, young Lucius answered, ¡°I want a sword, and I want to leave.¡±

    <hr>

    ¡°Oh my goddess, I can imagine her face. I¡¯ve never seen this Ruby, but I can see her face so clearly I could cry,¡± Aisha said, wiping a tear from her eye. The two of them sat with their backs to the railing along the prow. The sun had set and the moon shone overhead. It muted the colors of the world, and hid the old embarrassment cropping up in Lucius¡¯ cheeks.

    ¡°She took it politely¡­ although Master Amurabi is reasonably certain the dates line up and her first born was conceived by apology sex. Jacque was the one who put that idea in my head.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m sorry,¡± she said, slumping over and resting her head on his shoulder.

    Lucius tensed. ¡°What for?¡±

    ¡°For making you dredge these memories up. I¡¯ve barely told you anything about myself, and I¡¯ve got you just going on, and on to keep my mind off¡­ well, to keep me occupied.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s fine, Aisha. It¡¯s going to be a very long time before I can talk about this again, if ever. I¡¯m being cut off from my past. I¡¯m worried that before long, I will have forgotten it all.¡±

    ¡°Lucius, you¡¯re like a horse charging to the top of a mountain, while I¡¯m just trying to drag my cart with my own two feet, and now I¡¯ve hitched myself to you.¡± Her words were slow, her eyes almost closed.

    The boy cleared his throat, all too aware of the soft pressure of her body against his. ¡°I think you¡¯ve ended up drunk, because that doesn¡¯t make sense. No wonder with what little food they gave us.¡± He turned his attention to the back of the ship, to where Captain Bodin had the wheel, his eyes aglow with the light of the moon. He stood with his back to the burning oil incense trailing behind the ship, making subtle turns through the waves. Somewhere beyond, the pirate ship must have thrown anchor lest they run afoul of hidden rocks.

    For a moment, the world was at quiet peace. Weak wind, brushing waves, the creak of ropes. The deck bobbed slowly and rhythmically, lulling the both of them as dormant fatigue blanketed them. They each had the kind of spiritual innervation that took more than a few days to cure, and which would join them unannounced.

    Then the pressure alongside Lucius¡¯ body relented. He opened his eye, blinked away the almost-dream. Realization struck like lightning. The push against his back. The scrape of cloth on cloth. The bump of wood. He spun, throwing one hand then the next to grab hold of her, but it was too late. His fingers grasped nothing but the hem of her dress. The ripping of cloth cried out in the night even before Aisha¡¯s scream.

    Then she hit the water. She bobbed up once, a flash of red in the night. Then the tides washed over her.

    ¡°Throw a rope!¡± Lucius screamed while the sailors rushed over, but they were sea sailors. He didn¡¯t trust any of them to know how to swim. Better to drown than to survive long enough to be eaten, that was the motto of sea sailors. Lucius put a foot on the railing and leapt. Over the side he went, and down to the water after her.

 2-8 - Rescue

    ¡°Man overboard!¡±

    ¡°The girl¡¯s gone too!¡±

    Lucius hit the water before I had so much as woken from my sleep. With hands outstretched, he pierced the surface like a javelin, only to be swallowed by darkness. Compounding the natural blurriness of underwater, the shine of the moon could scarcely pass through the waves. He could hear nothing but the slosh of air within his ears. He could feel nothing but the cloying tug of torn weeds and boundless surges of tide and current. No amount of thrashing about with his arms caught hold of Aisha.

    For that moment, he was unarmed, in a world outside his control. He had left behind land and air both, to an otherworldly domain unfit for humans. All senses but one became useless to him: the sense of being watched. The great immensity of unmeasured depths below, where Saphira¡¯s unloved children lurked in wait of easy prey.

    He had to twist, kick, and surface. He sucked in breath as the sailors chucked a rope at him. What he saw first was bubbles breaking the surface beside him and beneath, a hint of red.

    Lucius dove once more, straight for the frantic hue. His arms found hers, their bodies wrapped tight across one another and he wrestled her back to the surface. He breached first and hauled her up second. Aisha cried out as she sucked in breath, and swung her arms around for stability. Wet hair stuck across her eyes and it fell to Lucius to grab hold of the rope tossed to them. Sodden hemp ripped through his grasp before he took hold of it and Aisha with his other hand.

    ¡°Furl the sails! Throw anchor!¡± Captain Bodin shouted. Two sailors remained at the other end of the rope and they hauled Lucius against the current, but the rest scurried to slow the ship.

    ¡°I hate ships!¡± Aisha screamed into the night. Then she threw her arms around Lucius¡¯ neck and pulled herself onto him. For a moment, his head was shoved beneath the water, then she had her own grip on the rope.

    Lucius bobbed back up as the anchor(1) sank down in search of the seabed. With too little slack, the lead tip caught upon some stone and jerked the ship backwards. The two swimmers nearly lost hold of the rope as the hull twisted across the water. Both of them roared and screamed, water garbling their words to mere noise. It was by the brawn of the sailors that they were dragged back to the ship.

    For every sail furled, every rope tied off, another hand grabbed onto the lifeline, until at last they cast netting over the side and scrambled down to the waves. Lucius and Aisha lacked the strength to climb the cord of hemp, but the sailors managed to reach down and grab fistfuls of cloth or limb. They pulled them up and onto the netting.

    Lucius blindly groped his way up, hand over hand until his feet could catch the loops of rope. He offered a hand down, grabbing Aisha by the wrist and she his. With strength not yet sapped by safety, he hauled her onto the net as well. A moment later, they both rolled onto the deck and stared up at the moon like washed rags.

    Lucius bellowed out in savage joy as his pounding heart at last slowed. Aisha joined the noise by coughing up water and grime, the gritty taste of algae in her mouth. The crew laughed, driving away their own fears of meeting the same fate, but Captain Bodin kept a level head. He clapped his men on the arm and shoved them back to undo all they had done. To draw up the anchor, to open the sails, to regain the speed they had lost.

    I watched the flurry of commotion, and how the bedraggled pair laid across the wood, and I said, ¡°They need a fire and a change of clothes.¡±

    The captain frowned and nodded. ¡°Get the cook pit going,¡± he ordered, and we forced the two of them below deck. Tarps were hung up for privacy as the bits of kindling became a hint of warmth. With so much tar and hemp and wood exposed, the blaze hardly sufficed, held by a barrel of sand as it were. Lucius and Aisha sat opposite each other, salt water dripping from their hair as they clutched dirty tunics to their bodies and shivered.

    Fatigue and drunkness had been washed from their minds. Shame held Aisha¡¯s gaze down to the fire, and embarrassment kept Lucius¡¯ there as well. Any errant glance aside seemed to show him more of the girl¡¯s flesh than he was prepared for. The noise of sailing seemed louder for them, feet pounding the deck like a drum and canvas slapping with the wind.

    It stifled their conversation.

    As much for his own sake as to take their thoughts off Aisha¡¯s mistake, Lucius spoke. ¡°Never did like swimming very much.¡±

    ¡°That was my first time in salt water,¡± Aisha mumbled.

    ¡°You swam in the oasis, right?¡±

    She nodded. ¡°When I could. Sometimes I would get in trouble for it. The temples always seemed to be random about whether the goddess permitted it on any given day. I think they were hiding fears of drought.¡±

    ¡°Drought in a desert? Why, I¡¯ve never heard of that before.¡±

    She sniffed a laugh, which tickled something wrong and she sneezed. She wiped her face again with the stained tunic and fidgeted. ¡°Thank you.¡±

    Lucius found himself unable to respond to her thanks. Every formulation of, ¡°You¡¯re welcome,¡± seemed wrong in his mouth and the moment passed uncomfortably. ¡°At least this was a better reason than the first time I took a swim in the ocean.¡±

    At last, Aisha lifted her head and smiled at him. ¡°What happened the first time?¡±

    ¡°Master Amurabi tossed me in to prove a point.¡±

    ¡°And you still follow him?¡±

    Lucius laughed. ¡°Of course. He succeeded in proving his point.¡±

    ¡°It must have been a wiser point than this Jacque you met,¡± she said, twisting some of her hair around her hand and wringing more drips from the ends.

    This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

    ¡°If only I had met Amurabi first. Would have saved me a few months of hunger.¡±

    She stared at him, her smile morphing to disbelief. ¡°No¡­ no, don¡¯t tell me you actually went west of the mountains to live like a savage.¡±

    ¡°I mean, I wouldn¡¯t call it a very savage life. More a state of nature. Savage was what Edvin did to me when he heard I snubbed his sister like that.¡±

    ¡°This doesn¡¯t sound like the kind of story that is good to help fall asleep¡­¡±

    ¡°No, it¡¯s probably not. Do you want something cozy instead? I could tell you about the first time I had roast dragon.¡±

    Aisha¡¯s expression twisted up in a mix of envy and discomfort. ¡°I think that would just make me despair that we didn¡¯t even have warm food for dinner,¡± she said, looking again at the fire between them, hardly fit to light a lantern. ¡°Just don¡¯t leave me on a cliffhanger, will you? Sleep is going to catch me eventually.¡±

    ¡°No promises.¡±

    ~~

    The Ashe family gave him the sword he requested, an adult sized infantry blade, but strung him along with delaying tactics. They offered him a cloak for his journey, and a meal to set him off, then had the doctor make tutting noises about his healing. Ruby thought keeping him in their hospitality longer would make the spark of defiance go out, while her sisters both hoped it wouldn¡¯t. A riled up boy the age of their daughters was not something they desired under their roof.

    This resentment was picked up on by Edvin, and in his childish way, amplified.

    While Lucius sat in the palace courtyard, scouring his clothes with a bucket of water and thinking about the journey, the little lordling tracked him down. ¡°I hear you have a sword now, cripple. Got one gifted to you?¡±

    ¡°It wasn¡¯t a gift, it was a reward,¡± Lucius said, setting aside his shirt to dry. In truth, it needed more cleaning, but the action brought him over to the weapon, just in case.

    Edvin smirked and crossed his arms. He hadn¡¯t come alone. One of his lackeys accompanied him, as did Patrocles, his tutor, to which he asked, ¡°You can¡¯t be any good with a sword if your right arm has been cut off, can you, Sir Patrocles?¡±

    The older man stymied his tongue and answered the question, trying to not look at Lucius but rather to scout around for any of the ladies Ashe. No higher power made itself available to him. ¡°It¡¯s possible, m¡¯lord. Some men are born off-handed, and it is not such a loss as it might have been.¡±

    ¡°But that takes years of practice, no?¡±

    ¡°All things take practice, m¡¯lord.¡±

    ¡°More years than this brat has even been alive, I¡¯d say.¡±

    ¡°Not quite so many as that.¡±

    ¡°Patrocles, you say that like this brat had a sword in his hand while still in the crib.¡±

    The tutor grinned. The tug across his face exposed several scars that hadn¡¯t healed right, giving him a scowl that would have terrified a normal boy. ¡°He wouldn¡¯t be the first babe to have such a life. That¡¯s more common in Skaldheim than here though. To answer your question, I wouldn¡¯t think a miner would have much time for training, no, m¡¯lord.¡±

    Edvin sneered. ¡°So he took from my aunt something he isn¡¯t even fit to use. So childish, don¡¯t you think?¡±

    ¡°I can use it,¡± Lucius said, pulling his still damp trousers on. Normally, not an advisable course of action, but he could see where it was going with Edvin and the nodding sycophant beside him.

    ¡°Like you used that knife to do¡­ what exactly? Claire did all the real work saving the girls, so why is everyone fawning over you?¡± Edvin asked.

    ¡°Maybe I shouldn¡¯t have done anything. You people forced me here, abducted me from my¡­¡±

    The boy pounced on Lucius¡¯ lapse. ¡°From your what? Your troupe of wanderers and pickpockets?¡±

    That struck a nerve within Lucius. He balled his hand into a fist, anger trembling inside him. ¡°How about I prove that I can use it just fine? That¡¯s what you want, isn¡¯t it?¡±

    ¡°Are you challenging me to a duel? Do you here that? Patrocles? Drevin? The cripple is challenging me to a¨C¡±

    ¡°Do not call me a cripple, you worthless dog!¡±

    That returned the blow, mirrored the anger. A moment later, and to Patrocles¡¯ dismay, the two boys faced one another with wooden training swords. The sword instructor had made the assumption that Edvin would win overwhelmingly. The noble boy had years, height, weight, and proper training on his side. The only thing tipping the scales in Lucius¡¯ favor was his stigmata, the ability to heal, which to Patrocles was merely the hope that Edvin couldn¡¯t hurt him too badly. The man even entertained the hope that allowing the fight would earn him some favor, for keeping Lucius in the palace longer.

    ¡°En guarde!¡± Edvin barked.

    Lucius had no idea what the foreign words meant, but he understood Edvin pointing his sword at him. He put his own own weapon up, just as the noble charged at him with a downward hack. Lucius stepped back, letting the end of Edvin¡¯s stick miss him. He swung back, only to have his weapon nearly knocked from his hand by a zealous parry. Let alone their age difference, one arm was no match for two. Edvin lunged and Lucius twisted out of the way, and their duel went on.

    Of the four people there, only Patrocles came to understand what was happening. Lucius, who he had first seen as a dirty mess in an alley, was untouchable, in so far as a duel between children went. Something inside him was broken, after all the pain and suffering he had already gone through. Even the heaviest swings of Edvin¡¯s swords never made him flinch. He never shut his eyes. He watched and reacted. Lucius had no fear of being hit.

    Edvin, for all his other advantages, was soft. He jumped away from any riposte. He struck away Lucius¡¯ weapon like he wanted to break bones. His blocks and guards took enormous, twisting lunges to keep the weapons away from him. Within five minutes, Edvin, still in somewhat formal clothes, could barely breathe. His attacks grew ragged and brutal, while Lucius became more and more accustomed to evading those basic cuts Patrocles had drilled into the noble.

    ¡°Stop running!¡± Edvin screamed.

    Lucius lunged in, holding his sword like he was going to flick it forward. Just as Edvin swung his stick across to knock away the attack, Lucius pumped it back. The two weapons passed by each other, and then he smashed it forward. The wood cracked against Edvin¡¯s brow, splitting the skin.

    ¡°Cease the fight,¡± Patrocles barked.

    It infuriated Edvin. Skill was thrown out the window. With a scream, he waylayed the boy. The moment he closed the distance, he stuck Lucius'' blade as hard as he could. Nearly from his hand. It forced an opening and Edvin grabbed hold of Lucius by the hair. Lucius reflexively tried to shove him away, but with his missing arm. He screamed in pain. They fell, Edvin atop him.

    The noble brat pummeled down, beating Lucius¡¯ face bloody.

    Patrocles didn¡¯t pull him off. He picked up Lucius¡¯ fallen training sword and broke it across Edvin¡¯s chest. The crack struck silence throughout the courtyard, broken by the washboard rasping of the children¡¯s breath. His face was a storm. ¡°Have I taught you nothing?¡± Patrocles demanded. ¡°Your uncle would be ashamed to hear what you just did!¡± The knight spat on him as Irina Ashe, Edvin¡¯s mother, made her appearance.

    ¡°What is the meaning of this, Sir Patrocles?¡± the dark haired mother demanded.

    ¡°You¡¯ve raised a brute without the wit to know when he¡¯s being advised,¡± he told her, and he unclasped his cape from his shoulders. Together, with the broach shaped after the family crest, he thrust it into her hands. ¡°I evidently must step down from my post. I¡¯m glad you have found a replacement for me already. May Claire help this family more than I can.¡±

    After that, the Ashe family had a choice, confront their own failings, or grant Lucius¡¯ wish. They tossed him out with a merchant carriage headed west.

 2-9 - Rules of Nature

    The two of them awoke the next morning, having nearly fallen asleep beside the fire, and emerged to see that misfortune had followed them to the morning. The Aillesterran pirate ship still sat on the horizon. One by one, they joined me at the back of the ship, frowning at the lurking predator.

    ¡°I think we have your midnight swim to thank for this,¡± I mused once my pupil had joined me. ¡°That, and whoever is captain of that ship is a very brave man.¡±

    ¡°Or woman,¡± Aisha said, strolling towards us as she tied her hair up in a high bun.

    ¡°Unlikely, given the Aillesterran culture,¡± I muttered to myself. Vassermark barely had women captains, and the country was nearly ran by that gender. She didn¡¯t hear me though.

    Lucius asked, ¡°You¡¯re not going for another swim, are you?¡±

    ¡°Not today,¡± she said, and planted her hands on her hips, a new light in her eyes. ¡°I thought this might happen, and, after sleeping off the wine, I have an idea.¡±

    Lucius and I exchanged a look. ¡°Go on?¡± he said.

    ¡°You,¡± she said, pointing at me. ¡°You¡¯re a wizard, aren¡¯t you?¡±

    ¡°I prefer the term scholar.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯ve got the robe and the unknowable knowledge to bargain with the emissaries of the gods. You¡¯re a wizard.¡± I still don¡¯t know why she didn¡¯t cite my physical appearance. I had the same intenseness of reality that Golden had.

    ¡°What¡¯s your point?¡± I asked.

    She lifted up her chin and ordered, ¡°Prepare some wizardry to keep the sea monsters away from us, and we¡¯ll detour to another of the sea lanes. When the pirates follow us, either they get eaten themselves, or they¡¯ll get eaten when they run away.¡±

    To my surprise, I had to actually think her proposal over. I had been distracted with thoughts of boarding them and killing them all, but had been troubled by the idea that we couldn¡¯t actually force them to get close enough for combat. If they were skittish, we would never catch them. Lucius and I were of a mind that the last thing permissible was to show them the way to Hearth Bay.

    ¡°Aisha,¡± my pupil said, his voice soft and condescending. ¡°Magic isn¡¯t something that can just be forced out like that. Even I, with my own stigmata, can barely control the rate at which I heal.¡±

    She frowned. ¡°I can see that, Mr. One Eye. He hasn¡¯t told me what his stigmata can do, but his attitude says enough that he has plenty of tricks up his sleeves. So, I think I¡¯ve given a perfect solution. Can you do it?¡±

    ¡°Girl, there are things below these waters older than mankind itself. Beings with forms that would strike terror into your heart to even comprehend. Tentacles and thorns, mouths within mouths and eyes on every side. Creatures able to swallow you whole without killing you, able to preserve your life for days, weeks, months even, until it has settled down to digest. Creatures which obey no master but the strong. There is good reason that sailors fear the open sea.¡±

    She was not implacable in her bravery. I could see the color fade from her face. And yet, before Lucius could interrupt and thank her for the courageous idea, she said, ¡°You didn¡¯t answer my question though.¡±

    I grinned. ¡°Of course I can do it, but you¡¯ll be the one to convince the captain of it.¡±

    ¡°Mas¨C Amurabi! You can¡¯t be serious,¡± my pupil blurted out.

    I threw up a hand dismissively. ¡°Why not? It¡¯s a good idea. It¡¯s easier to drive off a sea serpent than to pin a ship into a corner. Especially one that¡¯s faster than us. That¡¯s a slave ship. They¡¯ve got dozens of oarmen aboard. If they felt like it, they could overtake us within the day, and then where would we be? With one good fighter trying to protect us all? And that¡¯s if they¡¯re interested in fighting us in the first place. They probably are just scouting the way north, with orders to report back to the Cyclops. The fishing villages along the way have more to fear than we do. If we mislead them, we might sink their entire fleet without having to lift a finger.¡±

    ¡°Would they even follow us?¡± Lucius asked.

    Aisha shrugged. ¡°Why wouldn¡¯t they? How would they know we¡¯re between the sea lanes? I¡¯m sure they would follow us no matter what we did, if their plan is to chart the way.¡±

    Lucius looked from me to her, and back again. He relented. ¡°Well, bring it up to the captain when he wakes. He spent the whole night navigating. He won¡¯t be up for a while.¡±

    I nodded. ¡°I imagine we¡¯ll have to throw anchor tonight and hope for the best.¡±

    Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

    The two young ones drifted away, ready to await Captain Bodin¡¯s awakening. I thought this would give me time to ponder how to actually drive off a sea serpent, without angering Saphira, but my time came under assault from the doctor. He exacted from me a promise for a discussion of pain reducers and anti-inflammatories, which was my own fault for having commented on the issues of liquor as a painkiller.

    In half privacy, Lucius and Aisha strolled the deck, treating it like some noble¡¯s garden rather than a strip of decking no longer than two houses end to end. ¡°You¡¯re doing better,¡± he said.

    ¡°Only a little. I just, sort of, packed the troubles down and away. I¡¯ve had my cries, I¡¯ve done my soul searching. It still hurts. I¡¯m still anxious whether Raymi will be fair to the Medini¡¯s. I don¡¯t know what I can do about the pain though. There are things I can do to be useful though.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re a bard, aren¡¯t you? Shouldn¡¯t you be composing epic poems about my victories?¡±

    ¡°Oh? You mean like how you lost your eye?¡± Lucius winced. ¡°How you lost the most important duel of the siege?¡± He hung his head. ¡°How you got saved by a girl?¡±

    ¡°Hold on!¡± he said. ¡°You were that girl, that¡¯s not fair.¡±

    She laughed. ¡°Tell that to all the people of Vassermark who will hear the true story of Lucius von Solhart. They won¡¯t ever suspect that I¡¯m talking about myself, now will they? You¡¯re the hero, not me. Don¡¯t worry though, I¡¯ll be sure to make everyone fall in love with you, the frontline commander.¡±

    ¡°Everyone?¡±

    She paused and smiled. She chose to play coy. ¡°No promises on everyone. Now, if we¡¯re stuck here waiting for the captain to wake up, why don¡¯t you continue your story? I¡¯ve never met a man who chose to go feral in the woods.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯ve never even seen woods.¡±

    ¡°So tell me about them.¡±

    <hr>

    The iron mines that made Jarnmark prosper dotted the eastern slopes. The miners had a generational slosh to their residences, following the discovered ore veins. Like the floor of a banquet hall, the vermin scurry from one dropped piece of food to the next. It gave the hills a mottled look, a mismatch of old growth trees, farms, and fallow scrubs. The land could hardly keep up with the movements of people, could hardly find the fast growing seeds to repopulate the ghost towns with trees.

    Lucius was dumped at the edge of civilization and marched west with all the determination a child could muster. He was lucky the merchant didn¡¯t happen to take him to his home town. A passing glance at a family member might have broken his foolishness and sucked him back to a forgettable existence. I would never have found him.

    Beyond the farms laid a realm of hunters and trappers. Mountain men of different sort entirely from the Black Keep lived nomadic lives in the mountains. Young, mostly. To slay a bear and haul its carcass back to civilization took strength quickly lost with age. Lucius mistook their cultivated footpaths to be natural however. He thought it normal for lines of dirt to tread nearly straight through the weave of birches and pines, ever winding up the rocks.

    His first night came to an end with him still eating a bundle of meat and cheese given to him by the Ashe family as a parting gift, a funeral offering of a sort. That first night, he didn¡¯t know hunger, only the discomfort of rocks and roots digging through the woolen cloak in his sleep. Even the weather abided him, the wind slow and the air only chill.

    The next morning, he awoke with the vague impression that he ought to hunt. That was what people in the woods did, so he ought to do it. He had a nearly blunt sword and a strap of leather to serve as a sling. With no sense of how to hunt, he merely chose a direction and began walking west.

    He missed every bird he spotted, even the songbirds. Hour by hour, his own incompetency began to manifest before him. It haunted every step he took with the sure knowledge that he couldn¡¯t stab dinner to death, and he couldn¡¯t hit a bird with a stone if his life depended on it, quite literally.

    The sun set on him, casting the green glades into gloom and darkness as he sat and stared at the strap of leather and his own hands. It gnawed at him, it burned inside him. Whenever his thoughts drifted from the immediate, front he hunger inside him and the blisters on his fingers, he heard the sneering of the children of the Ashe family. He felt the pain in his face and chest where Edvin had struck him. He remembered Frederika crying against his side.

    It took him hours of sitting, huddled arms around knees in the darkness and cold before his mind finally lingered on what he should have done to start a fire. He slept in the protection of a pine knell and awoke with an empty stomach. Fundamentally, his problem was that he was not left-handed. Ignorance and childhood aside, he simply didn¡¯t have the coordination to put a rock through a bird¡¯s head.

    On the third day, the pains of hunger began to set in, which drew in the demon of regret. He began to wonder if he had made a mistake, if forsaking the chains of civilization had been too rash. His hunting had been fruitless, his supply of packed food run out, and he had come to realize the Ashe family sent him out on expectation that he would die.

    Nature did provide for him however. West of the peaks, days of hiking beyond the farms of Jarnmark, Lucius did find unspoiled bounty. Nothing more than a berry bush, but enough fruit to fill his stomach as he gorged by the handful. It sustained him the day, but on the next he had picked it clean. Hunger returned as he tried to practice with the sling. Desperation pulled the neurons in his head to a fine tension like tuning a lyre, forcing them to suck in the knowledge and apply it as more days passed.

    His will broke in the second week, but his aimless wandering through caribou paths had taken him far and away from the gentle mountain pass he had used. The mountains stood high, bleak, unforgiving. They cast night across the land late into the morning and made the wind cold and howling. A wall put up by nature stood between him and civilization.

    He killed his first bird on the ninth day and ate it raw. His hunger permitted no less. It marked a savage turning point for him though, for he had finally learned the art of the sling. So far from his homeland the animals scarcely knew what a human was, just some bipedal thing they saw here and there. Birds had no reason to care about fur trappers, which left them complacent and easy targets.

    Danger truly came when he met something as large as himself and just as famished; a spring-time bear.

 2-10 - Boy Meet Wizard

    ¡°You people have gone mad. Suicidal too. I might even go so far as to say heretical!¡±

    Captain Bodin did not care for our proposal, even after I spent the entire day figuring out how to make it work. A much more productive day than Lucius and Aisha, who had barely gotten past explaining to her what a bear was. He didn¡¯t have the storyteller¡¯s wit to work in the basic forestry education she would need, and his story nearly ground to a halt with questions upon questions. Rather than an enamored half-dream, Aisha had become somewhat confused by the whole affair, which at least prepared her for verbal combat with the captain.

    ¡°It¡¯s not suicidal if there¡¯s a good plan,¡± she said. The ship was being brought to shore. The sailors wanted to moor and interplay with a fishing village they had spied. The night of cold food left them with a hunger strong enough to ward off fear of the pirates. It was nearly all Bodin could do to keep the men rotating shifts on and off the ship, lest the Aillesterrans attack it in the night.

    ¡°Man does not have control over the realm of the gods. We are stewards of the land and visitors to the sea. I wouldn¡¯t expect a Giordanan like you to understand,¡± he spat back at her, and then spat some more orders at his crew, as though without a recent tongue lashing they wouldn¡¯t know how to do their work well enough.

    Lucius stepped in. ¡°Why don¡¯t you bring your acolyte over and we¡¯ll discuss it with them? Who prepares the deep oil you burn?¡±

    A remarkably unassuming drunk of a man was summoned, though to my surprise I could not smell any liquor on his breath.(1) That did nothing to change the way he staggered and swayed. Captain Bodin introduced him as Honung, and I set my attention on him. ¡°Tomorrow, I mean for us to depart from the sea lane. At the very least, we will have to snuff the deep oil, lest the paths be muddled.¡±

    Honung scratched at his chin, a bulge of fat like a collar had been fitted round him to compress his face. ¡°That¡¯s a risky proposition, Mister Amurabi, Sir. We¡¯re getting close to the homeland, yes, but we still have whale pods now and then.¡±

    ¡°Whales don¡¯t attack ships.¡±

    ¡°No, but the whale hunters do,¡± Honung said.

    Aisha leaned over to Lucius to ask, ¡°He means fishermen?¡±

    ¡°No, he means the sea serpents.¡±

    She twisted around to turn her confusion on him. ¡°How big are they?¡±

    Lucius glanced over his shoulder and nodded to the open sea. ¡°Biggest one that¡¯s ever been killed was over three hundred feet in length. Some say they get even bigger, big enough that when they wrap around a ship, their twisting body can snap the masts off. Even if they don¡¯t break the keel or something, the sailors end up stranded and starve out.¡±

    ¡°Look,¡± I said to the dull-witted alchemist, ¡°First of all, the chances of us being attacked are slim at best. And even if a sea serpent does decide to attack us, it will do so by constriction. We will have plenty of time to stab poison into it and save the ship.¡±

    Honung snorted. ¡°If you had such a magical poison. Even the grand cathedral doesn¡¯t claim to have something like that!¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s of my design. Now you must realize that if you do nothing,¡± I said, turning on the captain primarily, ¡°you will be responsible for bringing the pirates safely to Hearth Bay! We can¡¯t lose them, we can¡¯t fight them off safely, this is our best bet, if your career means anything to you.¡±

    Lucius stepped in and cut through the argument. ¡°Captain, sleep on it. We can¡¯t do it until tomorrow anyways. Who knows, maybe they¡¯ll attack us tonight and save us the trouble.¡±

    All involved grumbled and split apart. Rowboats were being arranged to the village and the crew could already smell the ale in the air from the local tavern. Perhaps they were dreaming of the odor, but they certainly did find alcohol to drink and used it to chase off the thought of the lurking pirates. Captain Bodin stayed aboard the ship, as he felt it his duty to do so. I too had to stay behind and prepare the poison. The privacy helped the process.

    The three young ones, and most of the crew, escaped to the village of Walpole. It took barely an hour after arriving at the tavern with the richest scent of cooking food before the locals had Aisha up on a table singing and playing an instrument for them. Lucius and Sammy. The fare was little more than stewed vegetables with a bit of lard for seasoning, but hungry men made good eaters.

    Between mouthfuls, Sammy said, ¡°You know, I didn¡¯t think you would be so open with us.¡±

    ¡°Why wouldn¡¯t I be?¡±

    The doctor paused to tie his hair back anew as he chewed down a mouthful. ¡°We haven¡¯t known each other for very long.¡±

    Stolen novel; please report.

    ¡°You gave your word to a Divine Beast, didn¡¯t you? That¡¯s reason enough for me. The point is to make you trust me, so that I can trust you.¡±

    ¡°Not much of a savage at all, are you?¡±

    Lucius snorted and washed his stew down with some ale. ¡°I learned that lesson the first time. Mankind¡­ we¡¯re nothing as far as nature is concerned. We¡¯re the same as the rats hiding beneath the floorboards. That writer? Jacque? He was mistaken.¡±

    Sammy arched an eyebrow to ask the question, his mouth occupied with food.

    ¡°He thought that the natural state for humans was alone and above any material needs. That all our wants would be satisfied by the bounty of nature. He could scarcely imagine why humans would be compelled to sacrifice their natural rights in exchange for civil rights, as he put it. I don¡¯t think I¡¯ve ever heard something so arrogant before. Alone in nature, it¡¯s not humans that have all their wants satisfied. It¡¯s not even bears. It¡¯s dragons, and gods.¡±

    <hr>

    Young Lucius fled from the spring time bear, only for it to pursue him. It innately sensed that he too was a predator, and the bear¡¯s instinct was to preserve its territory. The two of them charged over hills and between trees. He couldn¡¯t even find a tree worth climbing. The branches of birches proved too high, and the needles of the pines too dense.

    With roars and growls at his heels, he fled back up the hills and into the mountains(2). He broke through the branches, finding himself ont on a caribou trail, let alone a human trail, but upon a rabbit¡¯s path. Foliage ripped at him, tore at his eyes, and betrayed him. His foot didn¡¯t land on dirt. His step went straight through empty air and off the side of a ravine.

    Worse even than the claws of a bear, the word itself bludgeoned Lucius as he tumbled down across the rocks. One blow snapped his leg in half, ripping from him a scream of pain that echoed through the woods. It crippled him more than missing an arm, and left him writing upon the dirt without the strength to pull his own sword free.

    The bear slowed and crawled down, picking its way from roots and rocks to get closer to him. In its head, the image of Lucius morphed from a competitor, to perhaps a meal. It forced the animal to think and consider, and force itself through the abstract mental transformation. Then a scent struck its nose. Its head jerked up. It bleated in fear and spun.

    Before it had bolted more than three steps, a flash of moss green flew through the air. It landed on the bear with the force of a crashing ship. Earth flew up like cannon fire had struck it. A forest dragon, aged and proud, ripped the crying bear in half. Tooth and maw shredded entrails. Gnashing shattered bones. Bit by bit it swallowed the bear and filled its serpentine stomach until barely a third of the famished animal remained, spread among a mess of blood.

    And then the monster was at peace. It licked lips. It cleaned its claws. It languidly looked at Lucius, broken upon the ground, and found itself disinterested. The thing didn''t even bother to take meat with it, for it knew that anywhere it went, more could be found at a moment¡¯s notice, always within reach of its claws. It simply had no need to kill the boy, for its stomach was yet full.

    The lord of the forest left him there in the ravine. Broken, trembling, unable to breathe. It slipped back among the trees, sliding and snaking without so much as touching a branch despite a girth of two draft horses put together.

    Eventually, Lucius could hear it no more, and began to take action once more. The ache in his leg throbbed as his stigmata tried to knit the bone back together. Blood had pooled beneath the skin, bloating the limb black as though with rot. When he set the bone, poorly, with sticks and strips of his shirt, he screamed again and was tormented by fear of another dragon coming. None did, and his gift from the goddesses endeavored to save his life.

    It came at the price of emaciated him. It drained his stomach of its scant food and cannibalized the fat from his body. When that was not enough, it ate at blood and muscle and organ and left him with a mind numbing ache of hunger. The only thing he could do to sate it was to dig at the remaining bear carcass. To strip muscle and fat and gnash it between his teeth. Unable to walk, he couldn¡¯t even think of making a fire, so he ate it raw, and the more he did, the less he cared about propriety and etiquette.

    He chewed the gristle from the knuckles of the bear to fill his stomach.

    Exhaustion put him to sleep where he laid. Thirst forced him to crawl downhill when we woke. The movements of his leg still brought bursts of pain, amplified by shuddering fear. Every shadow, every groan of trees, made him see the dragon once more. His heart slammed from one side to the next within him, making his head throb with the emotions, but the needs of his body drove him through the fear.

    Nasty with blood, brutish in appetite, and too aware of how short he would live, he stuffed his face into the first stream he found and tried to suck it dry. Mud filled his mouth until he coughed and sputtered, and had to move on to deeper water. It invigorated his body. It soaked into his clothes and weighed him down, but it feigned to him a full stomach, and so he drank more and more.

    Like that, some unknown amount of time passed for Lucius. Days, weeks, neither me or him truly know how he survived in his desperate barbarism and fear. He never made it back over the mountains by his own power, for the dragons preferred those slopes and he didn¡¯t have the courage to sneak past them. Something else eventually caught his eye, a remnant of civilization past which he hoped might still be real. He found a road. He found way markers upon them. Moss covered and weather worn, but undeniably human.

    He followed the path, and walked straight over ancient foundations without knowing it, for trees had long since replaced the timbers and stone. One thing remained of the village that once was; the Lumius Temple that I had just arrived at.

    <hr>

    <ol>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">Honung, we found out afterwards, had a malformation of the inner ear. He wasn¡¯t a drunk, but the slightest change in thirst or sickness and he would lose his sense of balance entirely. The world would swim. I shall touch on him again at a proper time. It would not do to spoil the story at such a time.</li>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">Bears are faster going uphill than downhill, due to the relative lengths of their limbs. I would have advised he run in the opposite direction.</li>

    </ol>

 2-11 - The Blessing Of The Sea

    The thorny memories of hunger dredged up a thirst in Lucius, and while he told the story to Sammy, and then to Aisha when she joined, he drank until he could no longer taste the bite of alcohol. It caught up with him, drove him to inadvisable sleep, and left him somewhere in the village after a walk for fresh air went awry. The rare blessing of drunks came to his aid however, for his dignity at least, and woke him before the first rays of light.

    Some poor villager¡¯s flower garden had become his bed, strewing his woolen cloak with dirt and petals. His only inclination of time past was the parch in his mouth, the pain in his head, and the shift in the stars. It was his fortune that Captain Bodin had to rest and recuperate from the exertion of his stigmata, for the ship still rested at anchor.

    He found me at the docks, for the middle of the night was one of the few times I could take off my hood and scarf. It afforded me the opportunity to smoke my pipe, which was pleasant despite the poor quality of the tobacco. ¡°Not quite an adult yet, are you?¡± I asked as he walked over to me, looking about as though someone might come scold him.

    ¡°I¡¯m a good deal more of one than I was.¡±

    I pointed my pipe stem at him. ¡°When you speak, you should take better care to use words that say more than that. When you aren¡¯t engaging in sophistry at least.¡±

    He winced and paced around, eventually taking a seat on the bench beside me. ¡°Did I¡­ do anything I should regret?¡±

    ¡°Only that you didn¡¯t embellish your story properly. You told it too blandly(1). If those two were not already invested in you, they would have been terribly bored. Otherwise, you performed well.¡±

    ¡°Well, at the least there¡¯s that, and my clear head now. I suppose I chose a soft patch of dirt to sleep on as well. Better than the sands.¡±

    ¡°May you never learn what a hangover is.¡±

    He grinned back at me and thumped his chest. ¡°Are you done with the alchemy?¡±

    ¡°The active portion, yes. I¡¯m waiting for the reaction to finish now. If I had a means of controlling the temperature it would be done by now, but the best I could do would be to boil the concoction, and that¡¯s far too hot. I have it sloshing next to the keel, letting the sea mix it.¡±

    To that, he nodded. ¡°So, her plan will work?¡±

    ¡°I can make it work, yes. The question is whether we let it remain her plan.¡±

    Lucius folded his arms and squinted his eyes at the horizon. There was a sliver of darkness that cut between the stars and their reflections of the water. The night had proven to be shockingly bereft of mist, and we could see the northern reaches of the Jarnmark Mountains, the span of coast that snaked all the way to the Ice Sea and on to Skaldheim. ¡°I think it is fine being her idea.¡±

    ¡°It would make you seem to be the clever one, no?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯d rather be a good leader than a clever schemer. Bringing competent people to my side is the most important skill I can have, isn¡¯t it? Let the whole world know I listen to those around me and give them the credit for it.¡±

    ¡°Very good,¡± I said. I had taught him something at least. ¡°It will fall to you if a whale hunter appears.¡±

    He spun. ¡°If a whale hunter appears, we had better get away from it.¡±

    ¡°Of course, we¡¯ll try to. But, the best way is to stab poison in through the flesh. In the mouth preferably.¡±

    ¡°If I have to get into its mouth to poison it, it will eat me.¡±

    ¡°Bite you.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll die!¡±

    ¡°Only temporarily.¡±

    ¡°And what am I to do about regrowing my eye then? Do you propose to stab it out again?¡±

    I paused and smoked my bowl down to cinders, and said, ¡°Alright, you make a fair point. I¡¯ll find another solution. Maybe there is a way to convince it to attack the Aillesterrans? That would be the cleanest solution by far, no?¡±

    ¡°Master, have your plans to pit two enemies against each other ever worked out?¡±

    I frowned at my pupil. ¡°Well, there was the time when¨C¡±

    ¡°That doesn¡¯t count, and you know it.¡±

    Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

    ¡°Oh begone with you, back to the ship. Make yourself useful before the sun comes up. The sailors will be prepping for sail soon enough,¡± I ordered, and he proceeded down the dock. With a bit of waving and lantern light, he convinced the men to send a rowboat out for him, and take him back to the ship. There, he worked with the disgruntled crew, those who hadn¡¯t been permitted to drink nearly as much as the others had, and learned from them what he could. Knots, fastidiousness, rudimentary judgements of angle and wind catch. By the time the sun came up, and the rest of the crew boarded, he had been thoroughly invigorated.

    He greeted us with sweat on his brow and a smile on his face. ¡°They¡¯re still following us,¡± he said, pointing to our naval stalker.

    Aisha glared at him, her hair unbrushed, her eyes bloodshot. I could feel her headache just looking at her. ¡°Well, aren¡¯t you cheerful and chipper.¡±

    ¡°Sorry, I do heal. Alcohol is a poison.¡±

    ¡°A better solvent than a poison, if you ask me,¡± I said, emerging back to the deck behind two sailors tasked with carrying my cask of poison up. ¡°Careful with that,¡± I barked at them. ¡°If that drops, it might explode!¡± That put the fear of the gods in them, though it had no means of combustion. I simply didn¡¯t think it needed stating that the pirates would run us down eventually without it.

    ¡°Is that everyone?¡± Captain Bodin called out as the last rowboat was hauled aboard. We had some newly wealthy villagers wave us goodbye, and cast out the sails. The Sea Bird¡¯s Rest broke free of the anchoring with ease, and once more began a northward travel. There was a good degree of tacking, this way and that, fighting winds that didn¡¯t quite want to oblige our journey, but for as much as it slowed us down, it slowed our pursuers as well.

    Around the time the sun reached its zenith, the captain called us to the prow and pointed at a shadowy lump upon the horizon. ¡°That is the Donjon,¡± he said. ¡°If we¡¯re going to do this, we should make the switch between sea lanes here. There are two docks on that rock, one for visitors, and one for prisoners. On the east and the west. Those to be detained in the Donjon, are brought in circuitously from the west to prevent escape, which means the two lanes are close enough to kiss here, but don¡¯t actually cross. We¡¯ll jaunt over, then use the wizardry to return to our normal course. That way, we¡¯ll hardly lose any time.¡±

    Lucius nodded, not taking his eyes off the dismal prison island. ¡°And your stigmata? Will we be able to sail through the night once more?¡±

    The captain nodded. ¡°I¡¯d prefer it that way. The whale hunters are less active at night. We¡¯ll just take the chance to cross over. I suppose we¡¯ll cause a bit of a stir with the guards, but what are they going to do? Gossip?¡±

    ¡°Excellent.¡±

    The plan seemed to captivate Aisha, who had little else to do on that leg of the journey but to strum some notes for the pleasure of the crew. She kept staring at the growing rock, until the sharp corners and buttresses depicted themselves from the sea mist. ¡°You put prisoners there?¡±

    Lucius had joined her with a pair of bread loaves on the verge of staleness, one of which he handed over. That stopped her music, but the crew couldn¡¯t complain. ¡°Only the very worst.¡±

    ¡°Murderers?¡±

    He laughed. ¡°Revolutionaries. Worst thing you can do is threaten the government. Nobles see it as a knife pointed at their own throat.¡±

    ¡°Does Vassermark have a history of revolution?¡±

    ¡°From the lower classes?¡± he asked with a gesture at the Donjon. ¡°No, and they want to keep it that way. Why else would I have to go to all this trouble? The only changes in power come from marrying into the royal family¡­ maybe killing all their step-siblings. The rest of the world took a lesson from King Hassa.¡±

    ¡°So you¡¯re saying that if you trip up, you¡¯ll get a one way ticket right back here?¡±

    He struggled to smile after that. The island loomed on the horizon like a tombstone. ¡°That¡¯s right. Especially since they can¡¯t just kill me.¡±

    Sensing a slight emotional misstep, Aisha bade him sit beside her and said, ¡°From what you¡¯ve told me, they could be rid of you by simply convincing you to walk out into the wilderness and be a savage. Worked before, didn¡¯t it?¡±

    He choked down his bread and said, ¡°It worked once, and I learned my lesson.¡±

    ¡°Why don¡¯t you tell me more about it?¡±

    ¡°As I recall, I had just gotten to the good bit, hadn¡¯t I?¡±

    ¡°Meeting Amurabi, yes.¡±

    Before he could begin, the ship was rocked. Something slammed into the hull from beneath, throwing it aside. Aisha shrieked, the sailors bellowed, all hands went to rope and rail to hold on as the Sea Bird¡¯s Rest bobbed and swung. The mast creaked, straining the knots that held it so.

    ¡°Did we hit a rock?¡± Lucius shouted, his attention to the wheel.

    ¡°There are no rocks this far south of the Donjon!¡± Captain Bodin shouted back.

    The perpetrator emerged from below, one after another. Great slabs of mottled gray they were. Streaked with wrinkles, dotted with barnacles like any great vessel of the sea. They breached the waves and swam about us, rolling through the crests of water, and one by one they blasted brine into the air.

    Aisha screamed and fell. Lucius had to grab her lest she hit the deck or fall overboard again. ¡°Monsters! Sea monsters!¡±

    The sailors all shared a laugh. ¡°That¡¯s the blessing of the sea,¡± one said to her, as the brine rained down onto her, spattering her clothes and hair.(2)

    ¡°Those are whales. Playful, but harmless,¡± Lucius said, without saying a word about her hammering heart, nor her embarrassed blush. He held her by the shoulders and eased her up, keeping her back to his chest as the pod of sea mammals swam about us. ¡°It¡¯s good luck. They¡¯re smart animals, one of Saphira¡¯s best creations.¡±

    Of course, the presence of whales was nothing but bait to draw their hunters in closer to us. For all that they enjoyed seeing the enormous creatures dance through the waves, and feel the swells from the flaps of their tails, it drew to us worse things than pirates. I thus conspired with Honung to be a bit more liberal with the pouring of my so-called wizardry.

    <hr>

    <ol>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">I confess I improved the telling of his story somewhat. Removing the slurred speech was the least of my troubles in recounting.</li>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">For as much as a whale¡¯s blow is indeed brine, it also contains their mucus. I was perfectly glad to have my scarf over my face. I deigned to not explain this to Aisha, who gaped at the animals like she was seeing a Divine Beast.</li>

    </ol>

 2-12 - Predatory Tactics

    The Lumius Temple west of the mountains had been built strongly, I suspect as a bastion against dragons. The timbers aged, cut from old growth heartwood, soaked in swamp water to cure them over the span of years, and sturdily fastened like the rib cage of a beast about the hall. While construction has certainly improved over the decades, the sheer quality of material can scarcely be matched. And so it was, that for all these outward defenses, it had become home to a godling, like the furtive hiding of a hermit crab.

    At the time of Lucius¡¯ discovery of us, I had yet to venture inside. Choosing to take my time preparing for the destruction of the divine leech, I and my other pupil had made camp in one of the other ruins of the village. Once it might have been a tavern, but the weather had torn down half the chimney and collapsed the kitchen entirely. The lightest rain seemed through the mossy boards, but it was better than nothing while I made my preparations.

    It was my pupil, Ezra, that spotted the young gremlin. Dirty, bewildered, and unable to form words; but, the last was from confusion not ineptness of mind. ¡°Master Amurabi, there¡¯s a savage here,¡± Ezra called to me. She had been sent to fetch firewood for us, and didn¡¯t see the need to even drop the bundle.

    ¡°There are no savages in these lands, only foolish hunters.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ve never heard of a little boy working as a hunter. He¡¯s even only got one arm.¡±

    That drew my attention from the delicate carving, enough that I emerged from the ramshackle hovel and looked over the boy. Lucius impetuously said, ¡°I¡¯m not little,¡± which only made me more certain of who he was.

    ¡°Well, I can hardly imagine there are multiple boys your age with a single arm. I thought you were the pet of the Ashe family?¡±

    Lucius¡¯ face went red with anger. It boiled up inside him so fiercely, he didn¡¯t know what to do with it, whether to storm off or attack me or not. ¡°I am nobody¡¯s pet!¡±

    ¡°Slave then, would you prefer that term? How did you end up here? Did they send an expedition or something? Has some fool come to slay a dragon? Where is the rest of the Ashe family?¡±

    He sneered and had the audacity to turn up his nose at me. ¡°I¡¯m not a slave either. I¡¯m here by myself.¡±

    ¡°A runaway then.¡±

    ¡°Free! Nobody owns me, and nobody shall!¡±

    He didn¡¯t seem to be even yet in puberty, not a hair on his chin nor a crack to his voice. ¡°Well, you look like you¡¯ve been having a dreadful time of your freedom. Shouldn¡¯t you go back to your parents or something? There are monsters out here.¡±

    He stared back at me, keeping his impulses in check. I can only imagine what went through his mind, the frustration with his parents who sold him, the minstrel who passed him on, and then how his stint of freedom had gone. ¡°I learned a few things.¡±

    I don¡¯t know how he did it, but he chose words that struck directly at me. I don¡¯t think he had ever met a scholar or an engineer or the like before, much less a wizard, which is why it caught my attention so much that he would use those words. A tangential admission of failure, but a defiant one. With my curiosity piqued, I ordered Ezra to stop standing around and stoke the fire some more, before it guttered out and left us to the elements. Then I asked him, ¡°And what have you learned?¡±

    Despite never once hearing a schoolmaster¡¯s voice, he understood that he was being tested. He appraised me, choosing between his memories, and settled upon saying, ¡°A dragon won¡¯t eat you if it¡¯s already full.¡±

    I stroked my beard. ¡°No, they won¡¯t. They aren¡¯t obligate eaters, as they say. So, what can you do with this information?¡±

    He chewed his lip and squeezed his hand into a fist. The fatigue and hunger had him nearly at his wit¡¯s end, but it also gave a certain desperate edge. ¡°I could use it to sneak back through the mountains and go back to Jarnmark.¡±

    ¡°If you had a great deal of courage, yes. So, why are you here?¡±

    ¡°Because that place is no better than here.¡±

    ¡°But, Jarnmark has people. Your family I presume, employment, the temples, armies to protect you. There are no dragons in the east.¡±

    The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

    ¡°The armies never protected me from the people there.¡±

    ¡°And yet right now, you seem to be cold, dirty, hungry, and on the verge of sickness.¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t get sick.¡±

    I arched an eyebrow. ¡°You don¡¯t?¡±

    ¡°Never. Not even when my arm was smashed.¡±

    I confess, at this time I saw him as little more than some stimulation for Ezra, to teach her a thing or two about managing people beneath her. To some degree, I pitied him, for he had gone out into the wilderness with neither the tools nor the knowledge to survive. Had he truly been a savage, his parents would have taught him the ways, but he had a city breeding that left him bereft of such things. ¡°You saw what the girl did just now, didn¡¯t you? Bring me as much wood and I will fill your stomach for the night,¡± I said, and turned my back on him.

    Lucius wanted to curse me, for the impossible task. It was a rude thing, and he barely had the vocabulary to express it. With but a single hand, gathering deadfall was more than twice as difficult for him. Any normal child would have balked and cried, complained and tried to get food without the work. Lucius turned his back on the village and went back to the woods. He stripped off his shirt, gritty as it was, and fashioned it into a sling into which he piled branches. Perhaps at some time earlier in his life, he had seen a forester out with a back rack to carry heaps of firewood, but the most he could imitate was the use of his shirt grasped together in his one hand.

    Some two hours later, he cast the pile down before us, defiantly. It was a meager pile, with branches barely fit for kindling. Without any steel tools, he had been unable to cut down larger branches to carry, so he could claim only that which he could snap off with hand and foot. It sufficed however.

    ¡°Feed him,¡± I ordered Ezra.

    ¡°You can¡¯t be serious, master!¡± she cried, drips of stew on her chin.

    ¡°He held up his end of the bargain.¡±

    ¡°You made it too easy on him! This isn¡¯t some roadside inn with spare room in the bed, you¡¯re doing real work here.¡±

    ¡°If the boy understands a shred of what he sees, then that is his knowledge to earn. Now, feed him.¡±

    Ezra gritted her teeth and groaned, glaring daggers at young Lucius. That did nothing but make him keep up his defenses, like a turtle withdrawing to its shell. He didn¡¯t say anything back, and waited. He had delivered the firewood, which Ezra should have been thankful for because it saved her the next day¡¯s labor, and he was due payment. The stew we had that night made quite the impression on him, for it was his first experience with spicy food. I had brought with me some dried peppers from Drachenreach, giving the deer meat some flavor mixed with the vegetables. Ezra and I were fans of it, and she grinned, watching Lucius try to not admit his mouth felt ablaze.

    The food was hearty nonetheless, with meat and root, and enough clean water for him to replenish himself. While he ate, I stole a few glances at his bare chest. His shirt still laid wrapped about the wood, and so I saw his stigmata. ¡°Your sigil there,¡± I said, pointing at the divine marking. ¡°What does it do for you?¡±

    ¡°It makes me heal quick.¡±

    In my experience, there were at least a dozen things he could have meant by his simple statement, and I did not expect a boy his age to have the intellectual vocabulary to explain the difference. ¡°Might I have a look at it?¡±

    ¡°You might¡­ for breakfast tomorrow.¡±

    I grinned a toothy grin that might have made him think I would eat him. ¡°You drive a hard bargain, and you¡¯ve made me quite interested. I accept.¡± I beckoned him over to Ezra¡¯s dismay, and read through the magic imprinted upon his body. The last thing I expected was what I found. He had been precisely right. His stigmata made him heal. No caveats or catches.

    I had found a diamond in the rough, and he had found a jeweler able to take the dirt from him to make him shine brighter than any star.

    <hr>

    ¡°So, who¡¯s this Ezra?¡± Aisha asked, flatly inspecting him as the Sea Bird¡¯s Rest drew past the Donjon.

    ¡°My senior pupil.¡±

    ¡°Oh? So you¡¯re not the wizard¡¯s prodigy?¡±

    He laughed so much the crew thought he was insulting the dead. The Donjon certainly had their collection of dead on display as well. Hard to see in the setting sun, but across the southern wall, they had a collection of hanged corpses, those who had been convicted of treason against the crown. The guards killed them by tossing them off the side with a rope around their neck. If their head didn¡¯t pop right off, their corpse was left. By the time we sailed past, there were some two hundred stuck to the stone side, like so many charm necklaces in a swindler¡¯s cart.

    ¡°No,¡± Lucius said. ¡°If anyone, Ezra was the prodigy.¡±

    ¡°And where is she now?¡±

    He frowned and wrapped his arms around the ship railing so that he could peer at the dim horizon. ¡°I don¡¯t know. Master Amurabi should know, but he hasn¡¯t told me. It doesn¡¯t matter, we aren¡¯t exactly friends.¡±

    ¡°Oh? Is that so?¡±

    ¡°Would you be friends with a less skilled junior who stole your master¡¯s attention away from you?¡±

    ¡°Point taken. Well, night has caught up with us. I think now is the time for me to steal a bottle of rum. I don¡¯t think I¡¯ll be able to get a wink of sleep if I¡¯m thinking about giant serpents attacking us.¡±

    ¡°They won¡¯t,¡± he promised, and the two departed from one another for the night, going separately though he wished he could join her. Instead, he came to the back of the ship, to where I and Honung were watching the waters. He in prayer, me in scrutiny.

    ¡°We¡¯re being followed,¡± I said.

    ¡°Yes, by pirates.¡±

    ¡°No, by a whale hunter.¡±

 2-13 - A Fresh Pound of Flesh

    It shouldn¡¯t have been possible, that we all agreed on. That it was happening, we also all agreed on.

    Whale hunters, though I shall henceforth refer to them by their proper name, Boidae Aquatilis or the Giant Sea Boa, have a curious hunting pattern due to the difference in depths between where they prefer to live and where they hunt. They have gills like a fish, and it is speculated they have more incommon with sharks than they do with snakes. Their inhalation mechanism in fact is not particularly well suited for their size, working only due to the increased concentration of dissolved oxygen due to the colder temperatures of the bottom. Every moment they spend near the surface is akin to a human standing atop a snowy, treeless peak; but, that¡¯s where they trap whales.

    If the pod dives, the sea boa can immediately give chase and devour one of them. The whales have figured this out as well, and know to stay at the surface and flee. Thus, it becomes a chase where only the healthiest whale can survive, and then only if they don¡¯t need to dive and eat soon. The Sea Bird¡¯s Rest was only faster than an injured whale if the winds cooperated.

    That night, the winds were in the right direction, but hardly enough to puff our sails. We could see the twin eyes, like glossy pearls, sway from side to side, slithering after us through the water.

    Captain Bodin could see it clearest of us all, thanks to the blessing of his stigmata. His thoughts were hardly more poignant for it. ¡°It was that pod earlier, the one that bumped us. They drew it to us. Sea¡¯s blessing my ass, they¡¯ve rubbed their trail off on us and escaped!¡±

    ¡°Mind you don¡¯t blaspheme,¡± Honung said, peeling his forehead from the deck. He seemed to think prostrating to the open ocean would get his goddess¡¯ attention, when it could scarcely be got in her high cathedrals.

    Lucius asked, ¡°If it¡¯s following us, can¡¯t we just pour the poison now? It will swim through and become ill, if nothing else.¡±

    ¡°I only made enough to pour once. We won¡¯t be able to cross the sea lanes safely if we use it now,¡± I explained. We were on a ship, not in an alchemy lab. Procuring the proper materials was technically possible, since the active ingredients all came from fish beneath us, but the ship was not equipped with trawling nets, and it would take time beside.

    ¡°Then what do you propose we do?¡±

    ¡°Nothing. We aren¡¯t certain it will bother to attack us before our departure from the sea lane. Best case scenario, when we do pour it, the beast becomes slowed and chooses easier prey,¡± I explained, gesturing beyond to the pirate ship. Their deck lights glimmered like orange stars.

    ¡°Two birds, one stone,¡± Lucius said with a nod.

    Captain Bodin scoffed. ¡°If we don¡¯t lose speed before then and goad it into attack!¡±

    It was Honung that saved us from the captain¡¯s pragmatic fear. ¡°We would have no control over that regardless. Captain Bodin, Sir, the best you can do is keep us in the western sea lane and hope the passage of previous ships keeps it disoriented.¡±

    ¡°Rest assured, I will stand here and watch that it doesn¡¯t come up on us. Go, steer us well. It will certainly catch us if we hit a rock.¡±

    Captain Bodin scowled, and stormed off to the wheel, taking it back from his first mate whom he sent to sleep. The moment his hands grasped the wheel, I noticed a change in his standing, in the magic about him. He had activated his stigmata. To my eyes, I saw a great many dancing motes of light leave his body, trailing out behind him and into the water. They flowed behind, reached a certain distance, and then leapt overhead to the front to flow past once more. In this way, he took in the nature of the water around us without much need of vision. It was even keener than daytime, by my reckoning.

    ¡°Well, for as long as the two of us are here,¡± I told the boy, ¡°I should teach you the spell I used. It will prove useful in the future.¡±

    ¡°Spell? So it was magic?¡±

    ¡°Everything in this world is magic. That was lesson three I gave you. For all your recollecting you¡¯ve been doing, did you forget that?¡±

    ¡°Lesson one,¡± my pupil said in a dry tone. ¡°Trust only yourself, for you have no greater ally. Lesson two, learn from the world, for there is no other source of knowledge but experience. Lesson three, everything is magic.¡±

    ¡°Very good.¡±

    He folded his arms. ¡°You know, there was that scholar we met who believed the world was entirely useless to teach anything, that all it could do was provoke a memory already innate within us.¡±

    ¡°An idiot,¡± I pronounced. ¡°He mistook a fleeting recollection from a life past as a universal truth. Remember lesson two.¡±

    ¡°So¨C¡± he nudged the cask. ¡°Is it magic? Or alchemy?¡±

    ¡°Alchemy. Nothing the temples of Saphira couldn¡¯t cook up if they had a mind to. I suspect they have in the past and simply don¡¯t teach men like Honung how to do it because it might undermine the integrity of the sea lanes,¡± I said, and set about explaining to him the precise compounding and distillment I had used of standard reagents.

    At the end, he said, ¡°That sounds like you¡¯re so carelessly working with it that you couldn¡¯t possibly end up with anything helpful, but you¡¯re making poison, so I guess that checks out.¡±

    ¡°Poisons are much easier to make than medicine.¡±

    ¡°Have you explained this to the doctor?¡±

    ¡°Not yet, I think I¡¯ll tease him along a bit more before I do. He¡¯s quite the thrilling study actually.  I believe that were I to give him a fresh corpse, he¡¯d waste no time in pulling it all apart to see for himself.¡±

    ¡°Depends on how you got the corpse.¡±

    ¡°That it would.¡±

    Lucius rose and paced the deck, his gaze to the ladder down. ¡°I should sleep. If it means to attack us, it will do so later rather than sooner. Better to be rested if I do have to jump in and stab it.¡±

    I produced my pipe from my robe and set about lighting it. Sleep wasn¡¯t nearly so necessary for me, but I advised him, ¡°Had you intended to sleep, you should have pressed it and joined the girl in her cabin.¡±

    Even in the moonlight, I could see his cheeks color. ¡°She would have rebuked me and you know that!¡±

    ¡°She would have, but that doesn''t mean she wouldn¡¯t have accepted. Think about it from her perspective.¡±

    ¡°What? That she owes her life to me?¡±

    ¡°That she doesn¡¯t want to be seen as a floozy! You must know she¡¯s conscious of that, given her profession. The stereotypes.¡±

    ¡°Oh, what would you know of young people?¡±

    I huffed and sucked on my tobacco. ¡°I was young once too.¡±

    ¡°Oh yeah? How long ago?¡±

    ¡°Impudent brat,¡± I growled at him, and he escaped, down to the crew hold where a hammock had been assigned for him. The rumor of the snake preceded him, bringing with it ill rest and whispering. He never made it to his bed that night, something far more demanding of him presented itself.

    Aisha made eye contact with him from the door of her cabin and held it a moment. Without a word, she stepped back into her cabin, and left the door open. Lucius was but a boy. His impulses may as well have had an iron chain around his throat and dragged him over, to find her sitting, knees to her chest, on the straw mattress provided her. The silver moonlight left half of her in shadow, only revealing a glimmer of the liquor bottle as she looked over at him.

    The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

    ¡°You people just can¡¯t let me have a good night¡¯s rest, can you?¡±

    ¡°You heard?¡± Her cabin was small, a shallow thing squeezed against the hull, with a tiny plug of glass overhead to let the light in. The bed itself was little more than a box to contain straw and a smell hinting of mold. The closest thing to a seat for Lucius was to plant his rear upon a ledge meant for candles. It gave him just enough space to face her.

    She pointed at the window. ¡°You¡¯re practically over my head, and the captain wasn¡¯t keeping his voice down.¡±

    ¡°We¡¯ll be fine.¡±

    ¡°Oh, I¡¯m sure I¡¯ll be fine. You¡¯ll jump in to save me, won¡¯t you?¡± The moon nearly hid her sly smile.

    ¡°Preemptively this time.¡±

    ¡°Would this be your first time fighting a sea monster? Or have you faced one before?¡±

    ¡°First time for everything. I¡¯m more experienced with dragons and humans.¡±

    ¡°Not even trolls?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ve never been that far north, though I once met a trollkin, a halfbreed.¡±

    That gave her pause, and she delicately asked, ¡°Which parent was the troll?¡±

    ¡°Neither, both were trollkin themselves.¡±

    She leaned closer. ¡°And their parents?¡±

    ¡°Didn¡¯t ask, don¡¯t really want to know. Master says it¡¯s a persistent gene, gets passed down for generations.¡±

    After another pause, she asked, ¡°So a bunch of generations ago¨C¡±

    ¡°Quite curious about that, aren¡¯t you? Not exactly a field of study I ever pursued.¡±

    ¡°Trolls are like ten feet tall though, at the shortest! That would be like a dog and a hare!¡±

    ¡°Stranger things have happened.¡±

    ¡°Oh yeah? Like what?¡±

    ¡°Bear-spiders.¡±

    ¡°Bear-spiders?¡±

    ¡°Doesn¡¯t look like you¡¯re going to be falling asleep soon¡­¡±

    ¡°Not with a sea snake hunting me, no. Tell me a bedtime story, why don¡¯t you?¡±

    <hr>

    The best material with which to make a binding circle is the creature you intend to bind. This is somewhat arcane knowledge, because generally speaking, I¡¯m the only one who has a use for it. The rest of my kind being deceased, humanity relies on cruder methods of steel and fire. They plead with the gods for intervention should all else fail, and in the case of godlings are generally successful.

    With no humans west of the mountains, the issue had never been brought to the attention of the Divine Beasts, much less the gods. In such shadows of perception, the godling had grown. It had suckled out vestiges of life and woven them into itself again and again, until it dared to venture out to eat. Then it did more than eat, it made new life.

    One such monstrosity was still in the proximity of the village, and I tasked Ezra with felling it. Not that I am some monster who would send an eleven year old girl to fight a bear, I gave her a proper weapon.

    ¡°What is that?¡± Lucius asked.

    ¡°Shut up, it¡¯ll hear us.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re louder than I am.¡±

    ¡°To make sure it gets through your thick skull, now shut up.¡±

    What she had looked quite like a shaft of wood with a hole drilled through it. It seemed blackened within, as though scorched by fire, but that was nothing more than graphite lubricant. The magic of the device was in the stock, the contraption beside her cheek that could compound the spring loaded flick of a mallet through successive ley rods into a lead slug, multiplying the force several orders of magnitude. She had a hand cannon.

    ¡°Okay, but what is that,¡± Lucius asked, pointing at the misshapen creature. It staggered as it tried to move, smudging wads of silken webbing between a pine and a fallen birch. Some threads went across elegantly, others broke and tore beneath a clumsy paw. Only half of its body had the waxen hair and chiten to manipulate the threads, and it lacked the intelligence to know which half.

    ¡°Prey,¡± Ezra said. She stuck her tongue out one side of her mouth, adjusted the way she was hunched around the hand cannon, and tried to steady her breathing.

    ¡°You¡¯re not going to eat that, are you?¡± Lucius asked, breaking her concentration.

    ¡°Would you please shut up?¡±

    ¡°Can¡¯t you just tell me what it is?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t know! Master does, but he didn¡¯t tell me. Now shut up so I can kill it,¡± she snapped back at him, and her voice carried too far, too well. The creature looked over at them with five bloodshot eyes, the fur molting from its face and its teeth longer and sharper than ever. ¡°Crap!¡± Ezra shouted, and stuffed her cheek back to the stock. She pulled the hammer and blasted off a round. The lead flew true, but at the time, I had not implemented rifling to the bore, so the lead ball deformed on impact and came tumbling from the barrel. It flew at great speed, but veered from the true line.

    The slub punched through the abomination¡¯s shoulder, bursting muscle and chitin. It howled as thick blood gurgled from the wound, but did not fall. It came charging at them instead, barely limping.

    ¡°Reload! Help me reload!¡± Ezra shouted as she tore out the pouch of slugs. The ramrod went flying. ¡°Get that!¡±

    Lucius leapt for it, grabbing it up as she fitted the shot cloth to the round and stuffed it into the mouth of the hand cannon. Without knowing the operation of the thing, all he could do was hand it over as she fumbled. The act of reloading was opaque to Lucius, who had no familiarity with it in the least. He had not even heard of the material ley in his life. What he understood was that Ezra had done something to injure the beast at a distance, like an arrow without a bow, and she hadn¡¯t abandoned it. Resolved that she needed time, for he had seen arrows slay a bear once, he did not flee from the monster.

    He stepped out before her, lifting up a stick between he and it.

    The abomination swatted him aside like a person might flick an insect from their dining table. Even the greatest knights in the land would have struggled with but a stick against such a monster, so his pain could only be expected. That burst of agony, of being smashed through the branches of the pine tree, bought Ezra the time she needed.

    She screamed as she fell backwards, hefting the hand cannon up like a spear as the monster fell upon her, and she blasted. The second roundstruck the monster in the face, ripping between the rotten flesh between bone and chitin and driving through the mush that constituted its brain. Gore exploded out the back. The creature smashed into the ground at her feet and gagged, the convulsion squirting more blood from the wounds before it laid still.

    Ashen faced and unable to breathe, much less cream for help, she had to force herself back to her feet and choose between reloading a third time, and finding Lucius. His croak of pain washed the choice from her mind, and she ran to him. The needles and cracked wood had ripped his shirt and skin. The blood dripping from his body ran like sweat as he worked one joint after the next and found them still in working order.

    ¡°You idiot, what did you think you¡¯d accomplish like that?¡± Ezra demanded as she pulled him from the mess.

    ¡°Thought I would buy¨C¡± He grunted in pain, the exertion making his entire body shake and tense as he hissed.

    Ezra abandoned the abomination¡¯s corpse and made Lucius drape himself over her back, much to his manly chagrin. She was older than him, and a fair bit larger. Running him back to our camp was well within her powers, and so she did.

    ¡°Dislocated ribs,¡± I pronounced after prodding him a few times. ¡°Lay him down and let him rest. Get a clean rag to wipe the blood away before it festers. It won¡¯t kill him.¡±

    And so I left the two of them by the fire, so that I could go to the abomination¡¯s corpse and perform my grisly alchemy. Ezra fetched water from the town well and did a crude cleaning first as she boiled more water to clean afterwards with. She tried to be somber and delicate, and still drew out whimpers of pain at first. When she switched over to the boiled water, the noises stopped.

    So did the bleeding.

    Every scratch and cut across his back had sealed shut and his breathing had returned to normal. The only price seemed to be a deep sleep thrust upon him before night began. She tried afterwards to stay up and berate him for the scare, but sleep shut her eyes long before he rose.

    I was still awake, the runes I had to carve to create the logic circuits(1) were quite tedious. ¡°Better already?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m hungry.¡±

    I gestured to the pot, which had rather cool stew available, this time without the spice. ¡°That was very clever of you,¡± I said as he spooned himself out a bowl.

    ¡°Nearly dying?¡±

    ¡°Changing Ezra¡¯s impression of you.¡±

    ¡°Did I?¡± he asked, keeping his eyes on his food.

    I grinned. ¡°You heard of that in a story, didn¡¯t you? And recreated it.¡±

    ¡°So what if I heard a story? Lots of people have heard stories.¡±

    ¡°Because it got you another meal, and something more valuable than money, good will¡­ what¡¯s your name, boy?¡±

    ¡°Lucius.¡±(2)

    ¡°Would you like to study under me as an apprentice, Lucius?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t want to work for anyone.¡±

    I set my carving aside and folded my hands together. ¡°You¡¯re quite a bit too young to be on your own. You lack the knowledge and the strength. I won¡¯t force you, but you have a good deal of talent that I would like to foster.¡±

    ¡°Why should I care what you would like?¡±

    ¡°Because, I can offer you things you would like.¡±

    ¡°Like money? Is that what you¡¯re going to suggest?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯d start with your missing arm,¡± I said, pointing a finger at his exposed stump. It had a fresh inch of raw flesh more than the morning. It nearly reached to his elbow, well beyond where it had been hacked off so long ago. As the adage goes, every man has a price.

    <hr>

    <ol>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">By the time of your reading this, you may have heard of such a thing as logic circuits in regards to digitized computation. I assure you this was more rudimentary than can even be called analog. I was working in the language of logic and meaning, for there is little other way to craft magic.</li>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">As noted previously, he had another name which I have omitted for clarity of the narrative.</li>

    </ol>

 2-14 - Chasing Storm

    ¡°How long did you live missing an arm you could have had back?¡± Aisha asked, leaning over on the rocking hull of the ship as she watched Lucius.

    ¡°Nearly two years. With enough food, everything comes back.¡±

    ¡°Even your heart?¡±

    ¡°Yeah, I¡¯ve had my heart ripped out. That was a land dragon, big horn coming off its snout, gored half my chest off.¡±

    ¡°How did you eat if you didn¡¯t have a chest?¡±

    Lucius scratched his chin and tried to remember. ¡°I think Master dumped my body in a barrel of mead and that was good enough.¡±

    She arched an eyebrow. ¡°Well they don¡¯t call it liquid bread for nothing. You can come back even if your head is cut off?¡±

    ¡°Learned that the hard way, yeah.¡±

    ¡°How?¡±

    ¡°Heretic hunting on the Skaldish border. One of the raiders caught me with my helmet off and¨C¡± he sliced his hand across his throat.

    While their conversation had gone on, the weather had changed. The wind picked up till it whistled against the windows. The creak of rope was like an army camp getting set up. It put Lucius at ill ease, and forced tension into their conversation. It was possible that Aisha was about to invite him over, but the stiffening of his body didn¡¯t go unnoticed.

    ¡°So, this thing, this godling you¡¯ve called it, what are they?¡±

    ¡°Little gods,¡± he answered.

    She pouted.

    He cleared his throat. ¡°Newborn gods, yet to grow to the strength of Saphira, or Lumius and the others. The gods are living things, they have to grow into their power.¡±

    ¡°And Amurabi¡­ kills them in the cradle?¡±

    ¡°Would you want to live in a world with evil gods?¡±

    She frowned and rolled her head to the side. With her eyes fixed on the bobbing moonlight, she said, ¡°No, I suppose absentee gods are better.¡±

    ¡°If only.¡±

    ¡°What?¡±

    ¡°I think I storm is coming. If it starts raining, we¡¯ll have to bail water.¡±

    She blinked, bringing her mind around to the new line of thought. ¡°That would be bad.¡±

    ¡°This would be the worst time for winds to blow us off course, what with the¡­ you know¡­ whale hunter following us.¡±

    ¡°And you¡¯re just going to leave me hanging? Mid story? Not to know how the brave little boy slew the godling?¡±

    Lucius grinned and stood up. A particular lurch of the ship made him stumble, and he had to throw out his hand to grab the deck joist. It made him tower over her, halfway on top of her. With the beat of his heart, words failed him. And then, like every dreamer who missed his chance, he said, ¡°There¡¯s always next night. Gotta leave you hooked, don¡¯t I? Coming back for more?¡±

    She sighed and shook her head. ¡°Get out of here and make sure we don¡¯t sink. That will give me some peace, don¡¯t you think?¡± she said, and sent him from her cabin. He left as though two anchoring chains had him, one pulling him back and the other pulling him back to the deck. His need for knowledge won out that night, and he stepped out to the wave slick deck.

    The wind had doubled, and doubled again. Captain Bodin barked orders to furl sails, to change course, he tore at the wheel as the Sea Bird¡¯s Rest slipped left and right between the swells. The night had declared war on us, just as we veered from the sea lane. Not because the route itself was dangerous, we were in open water above a great chasm, but because the winds made it so.

    ¡°What¡¯s happening?¡±

    ¡°The wrath of the goddess is upon us!¡± Captain Bodin spat back at him. ¡°She must have realized what that blasted wizard did and has spited us. You¡¯ve made an enemy of the sea herself!¡±

    ¡°Nonsense!¡± I screamed back at him, the wind augmenting my voice as it whipped the words from Bodin¡¯s lips. ¡°We¡¯ve done nothing to bring her attention to us.¡±

    ¡°You bastardized her protection.¡±

    ¡°We haven¡¯t even used it yet.¡±

    ¡°Well she still knows. She¡¯s a goddess!¡±

    I wanted to fly into a rage at him, grasping at fragmented memory and superstition. I couldn¡¯t even puff my pipe to calm myself, because the flying rain had already soaked it. ¡°I¡¯m telling you, it¡¯s not us that has her attention, it¡¯s the beast. The moment we pour the poison, we will break free of the storm.¡±

    Honung stomped over to us, whipping brine from his face and brushing his hair back. He had his sleeves pushed up and his trousers cuffed, and looked about ready to dive off the side of the ship than stay on with us. Had he been able to see a shoreline besides the Donjon so far behind us, he might have. ¡°That snake is bigger than you think it is, Amurabi. You pour that poison and you¡¯ll just offend it! Like a¡­ like a¡­ a squid inking to run away, you¡¯ll just tell it that we¡¯re out of tricks and easy prey!¡±

    Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

    Lucius stepped in, putting his hand between us. ¡°Wait, what of the other ship? If the storm is behind us, it should have overtaken them, yes?¡±

    ¡°Damned if I know,¡± Captain Bodin said, gesturing behind us. ¡°Even I can¡¯t see anything back there. Soon we won¡¯t even see the stars. We¡¯re sailing on faith.¡±

    I huffed. ¡°Should I have made you a compass first?¡±

    ¡°I have one! It¡¯s useless. That¡¯s how I know this is the wrath of the goddess,¡± he said, jabbing his finger to a glass orb he had beside the wheel. The needle inside swung and wobbled so much the weight of it banged about, pointing every which way.

    I wanted to throttle him. There was nothing about a magical storm that would affect a magnetic compass, his was simply engineered poorly. My spare thoughts went again to a mechanical compass, one made by a spun flywheel on a gyroscope, set to always point due north, or whichever direction one might choose. No jostling or magnetics or magic could make that falter, but the requisite precision of ball bearings may as well have been impossible.

    ¡°I tire of this,¡± I declared, and threw back one sleeve. I extended my hand, showing the dark, wrinkled flesh of ages past like I was brandishing a sword, and I grabbed the captain by the head. With thumb and pinky pressed to his temples, I gripped him so tightly I nearly lifted him off the ground as I pressed magic into him. His eyes to be precise.

    When I let go, light had suffused into his eyes, a glittering blue like arcing electricity. The light of the night redoubled in his vision, and doubled again. After a moment, it was too much and he screamed. Lucius had to jump on the wheel, clumsily fighting the waves to keep us pointed in the rough direction of forward travel. All the while, Captain Bodin staggered and covered his eyes. Honung had to grab him before he toppled off the railing.

    ¡°What did you do?¡± he demanded.

    ¡°Open your eyes and see,¡± I spat back at him.

    With some shred of courage he looked to the world again, and saw it as though in daytime. The experience is hard to describe in words, but after a moment, he appeared almost transcendent. Perhaps it had some coupling with his stigmata, a bit too much sensory input, but he wasn¡¯t a good captain for nothing. The best Rackvidd had to offer even.

    ¡°I can see the storm. It¡¯s like smoke across the floor of the world,¡± he said, staring slack jawed off the aft of the ship.

    I shoved him to the wheel and Lucius handed it off. ¡°If you can see the storm, then sail us out of it. Follow the currents. Keep the beast off us, and I won¡¯t have to use the poison.¡±

    Captain Bodin took it with vigor, jerking the ship and curving it through a rut between waves. The storm surges rose on either side of us, enough to wash over the decks, and yet they did not strike. Every crest moved with us, fell by the wayside, and Bodin laughed.

    Lucius grabbed me by my robe and shoved me to the back, to where the cask was. ¡°So it won¡¯t catch us? We both know that¡¯s a lie.¡±

    I turned him away, pulling our shoulders together against the wind. ¡°You¡¯ll have to fight it off. We¡¯ll coat your sword with the poison, tie a lifeline to you, and send you in.¡±

    ¡°Master, are you drunk?¡±

    ¡°No! I¡¯m pressed for time. That man might be a fool, but he was right that this is a magic storm. We¡¯ve caught somebody¡¯s attention.¡±

    ¡°If someone was coming after you, you should have taken another ship!¡±

    ¡°Golden must have done something stupid, must have gloated to the wrong being. There¡¯s no other explanation for why any of the angels would know I¡¯m here.¡± Unfortunately, in the scheme of things I never found out if he was the cause. By the time I returned to Giordana, he had already fled, but that is a story for the future.

    ¡°If this is your problem, then you should fix it!¡±

    ¡°Oh? So I can arrive at Hearth Bay at the mercy of that bitch angel? No thank you! This isn¡¯t a godling, it¡¯s just a monster.¡±

    ¡°A monster that will strand us at sea if it doesn¡¯t kill us outright. Are you still going to hoard your magic when pirates are putting us in chains?¡±

    ¡°I will stop hoarding my magic when there isn¡¯t a suitable alternative.¡±

    ¡°Suitable alternative? You¡¯re tossing me off the side like bait!¡±

    ¡°Poisoned bait!¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s not better.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s plenty better, it will actually kill the beast.¡±

    ¡°Just pour the poison in now to drive it off.¡±

    ¡°I can¡¯t, the currents will disperse it. It¡¯s in a hunting frenzy now, some mild irritation won¡¯t even be noticed. It needs to be delivered right to it, and you¡¯re the man for the job.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m always the man for the job, aren¡¯t I?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s right.¡± I laughed at him. The argument was pointless, it was the rage of a young man. He and I both knew he didn¡¯t have a choice, not while Aisha was on the ship and without means of escape. I could save myself just fine. He could fight his way free. The rest of the humans were doomed if one of us didn¡¯t act, and he knew better than to wait for me.

    ¡°Get my sword,¡± he shouted. He shoved off of me and turned to the crew, repeating his cry. ¡°And you, tie the anchoring line to me.¡±

    Honung blinked, rain gushing down his face. The storm was catching up to us. ¡°But you¡¯ll just sink.¡±

    ¡°Without the anchor!¡±

    Sammy came running up from below deck, clutching the infantry blade Lucius had used at the siege. He sprinted across the deck, losing his footing at the last moment and tumbling over his feet and across the slosh of sea water. Lucius snatched him by the shirt and hauled him back to his feet. The boy gulped down his fear and held the blade out for him. ¡°You need this?¡±

    Lucius took the handle and wrenched it from the scabbard. ¡°Yes, because apparently I¡¯m going fishing.¡±

    With a bit of prying, we popped one side off the cask and he doused his blade in the poison. It came out black and smoking, the steel rusting as we watched. ¡°What did you make?¡±

    I chuckled again. ¡°Best to put it back in the scabbard for now.¡±

    He shoved it back into the oiled sheath as I vanished below deck. They trussed him up in the anchoring line, tying thick knots behind his back as best they could, while the giant sea boa drew closer and closer.

    ¡°You¡¯re insane, you know that?¡± Captain Bodin asked, glancing over his shoulder. He was the only one aboard that could see the monster clearly, and his ashen face reflected it well.

    ¡°Shouldn¡¯t you be encouraging me?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll encourage you all you¡¯d like!¡±

    The head of the snake broke from one wave to the neck, crashing through and opening its maw. It didn¡¯t roar, it gulped air and gave itself fresh strength to burst towards the ship.

    Lucius felt the fear, like anyone else. He simply had the weapon to deal with it. ¡°Remember this, you¡¯ll never see anything like it again!¡± he shouted, and jumped off the back of the ship.

 2-15 - Man versus The Sea

    Lucius¡¯ bare feet hit the stormy surface and oblivion enveloped him. The clouds had covered the moon, and lightning was yet distant flashes. The sea hit him cold and hard, swallowed him whole. With no ground for footing, he had no stance to take, no way to defend himself until the tidal tug of the ship grabbed him by the chest. The rope went taut and hauled him after it like a giant had taken hold.

    He broke the surface once more, skipping up from a wave long enough to suck in breath before going under once more. Twice more and he figured it out. He managed to get his eyes open, to lock gazes with the snake just as it surged up towards him. It saw him, as a lion might see a mouse; less than a morsel. The snake didn¡¯t even open its great mouth as it swam past, pumping its body to charge after its beleaguered prey.

    A turn of the rudder from Captain Bodin swung him about like a trailing kite, inadvertently smacking Lucius into the monster. The scales rasped against him. The hydraulic forces hammered him again and again into the body, bouncing and rolling him off of it until his hand found one of the creature¡¯s spines. The first one snapped off, breaking like glass in his hand. The second he found by the base and held on long enough to tear his poisoned blade free.

    That he stabbed into the snake¡¯s body, spearing it through the scales and into the undulating muscle. The cut itself was trivial. When he gripped the blade with both hands, letting go of the spine and releasing himself to the water, the drag shoved him down yard after yard. The edge of his sword opened up a bloody gash like tearing a seam through fabric. Salt water rushed in, mixed with the poisoned unguent, and burned the monster¡¯s flesh from the inside.

    The snake writhed, head breaching the waves to thrash about and screech. Had that been enough, these monsters wouldn''t have been so feared. Sailors of today would not need arm themselves with punt guns and grapeshot off the back. In the mere moments it took for the snake to turn about and spot the little ape thing clinging to it, the wound had already scarred over.

    But the poison was in it. My poison.

    The snake spotted him the moment the anchoring line went taut and jerked him onwards. Like a fishing lure flashing in the lightning, Lucius flailed in the water, sucked in breath, and braced himself for the strike. One would be forgiven to believe a deep sea creature such as a giant sea boa would have poor eyesight. They would, if they were strictly biological creations. Nothing that large and old remains strictly biological however.

    It snapped jaws shut around him with the precision of a diving hawk felling a mouse. Rows upon rows of serrated teeth lamped around him, meshing and scything down to the bone, but not through. He jabbed the tip of his spear up through the beast¡¯s pallet. Hot blood spewed onto him. The jaw muscles jerked back wide. The tongue flicked forward, ejecting him as though it had bitten upon an anchor, which in a sense he was.

    Lucius flew out screaming in pain and frenzy both, one leg maimed by the bite. Before he could get his senses, much less before his stigmata could heal him, the snake struck again. Not at him, but at the anchoring line. It grabbed hold and ripped, rolling about itself and twisting the rope as it sawed through. Lucius was spun and snapped free. Into the mass of aquatic flesh he fell, no longer tethered to the Sea Bird¡¯s Rest. The well trained fighter he was, he stabbed again.

    This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

    He thrust and cut. Scale and spine battered and cut him to pieces as the two of them turned the sea black with blood. Lightning flashed, cutting the murk in violent hues. He fought with the stomach eating fear of going under, of not coming back up. He fought to keep from drowning, from becoming muck beneath the ocean forever healing and never dying.

    And we watched him do it from the Sea Bird¡¯s Rest, sailing away in the storm, unable to turn back for him because the gusting wind had snapped our sails free. The ropes and binding had broken from the sea goddess¡¯ wrath and we had to sail on or fight the waves, which would have broken the ship and sent us all to watery graves.

    The beast roared. It circled and dove, slapping its tail through the tides and sending up plums of froth like cannon shots. Lucius had no chance against it in open water, at distance. No way for him to outswim it. He had no choice but to cling to it and stab at it. To grip it by the body and rend it open. He spilled its blood and sapped its life while it sought to grind him apart, to crush him between loops of its own tail. He cut and fought with god-killing ferocity.

    When we found the anchoring line slack, the distance to the fight too long, we knew what had happened. It was Aisha, fresh to the rain and red eyed that screamed. With me not in sight, she grabbed hold of poor Honung, who himself was more interested in holding the poison at the ready the moment the waves slowed and it could be put to use. ¡°What have you done? You¡¯ve killed him!¡±

    Scabbed over wounds on her heart burst anew with fear. The lifeline she had found herself clinging to hung slack in her grasp as the anchoring line from the ship. Lucius was her means of safety after the sins of her brother, her path forward. And there, she conceived it lost, him dead, and worse that he had died to protect her. A rational mind would have understood that Lucius needed the ship in one piece as much as her, but mere humans can so rarely see beyond themselves.

    In the midst of that storm we saw one thing. We saw the snake retreat, that it dove down and to the depths. It fled for safety. Perhaps it took Lucius with it, or perhaps it realized what a pitiful meal he would make. Even devoid of battle, he was not safe. When the rush faded, the adrenaline waned, he was still caught by waves larger than houses. He was tossed up and down until the salt water scoured not just his burning wounds, but choked his breath and left him nothing but a speck floating in the night.

    Either way, it was not us who dragged him from the storm. The gales and waves passed him over as he floated half-conscious in the water, and calm seas did not suck him below. Lantern light drifted over him, illuminating his cold and pallid body before habitual pity descended to fetch the perceived corpse. It was a net from the Aillesterran pirates that fished him out and threw him upon a deck once more. The thump of his ragged body upon the wood jettisoned some water from his chest and brought on a coughing fit enough to shock the crew.

    The captain rolled Lucius onto his side and kicked him in the chest, a quick way to clear his lungs. The man held a light to his face, rousing his mind to wakefulness as the Aillesterran looked him over. ¡°Well, what do we have here? I think we got ourselves some bait.¡±

 2-16 - Negotiating With A Letter Of Marque

    Not for the first time in his life, Lucius found himself tied bodily to the mast of a ship which had no brig. One of the spare rigging lines had been looped around him until he seemed to wear more hemp than wool. That made him the most dressed person aboard the entire vessel. The sailors around him wore nothing but pants akin to the hanma style, tight around their midsections but open and loose down to their ankles. I have my suspicions about their ability to dry off after a spray, but it was their custom, and let them climb rigging well enough.

    The second most dressed person on the ship was either the woman aboard, for she had a strap of cloth across her chest at the least, or the captain who had a gold threaded vest on. The sun had colored all of their skins bronze from southern heat, which did them little good as the temperature steadily dropped on the journey north.

    While I had managed to teach Lucius a few languages, Aillesgo was not one of them, and the lyrical chatter between the woman and the captain went straight over Lucius¡¯ head until the vested man squatted down and knocked him on the head with a cane to get his attention.

    ¡°Were you the fighter?¡± The captain¡¯s speech was thick with accent, several of his phonemes entirely wrong, but close enough to be understood.

    ¡°Shouldn¡¯t you ask if I¡¯m nobility?¡± Lucius responded, squinting up at the man. His missing eye was itching, burning with the salt water as his stigmata instigated it to heal.

    ¡°Are you?¡±

    ¡°Which answer keeps you from killing me?¡±

    The captain grinned and laughed. ¡°I like you. Were you the one who fought the snake?¡±

    Lucius shifted, tried to get some better breathing room in his bindings. ¡°Why do you think that? I ended up overboard is all.¡±

    ¡°I think that because you weren¡¯t grateful to be saved. You were too calm. I think you meant to go overboard. You¡¯ve got a blessing from the goddesses too,¡± the captain said, jabbing Lucius in the chest.

    ¡°What of it?¡±

    The woman stepped over, her head blocking the sun. She was older than Lucius, and had a healthier shape to her body, one that said she ate well and lived well. It let him easily imagine how she kept the captain¡¯s favor, but his only inkling of her duty on the ship was the golden charms woven through her hair. ¡°What¡¯s it do?¡±

    ¡°Makes me float.¡±

    ¡°Liar,¡± the woman said.

    ¡°And so what if I am?¡±

    The captain grabbed him by the chin and tilted his head around. ¡°How¡¯d you lose the eye?¡±

    ¡°In a duel.¡±

    ¡°For honor?¡±

    ¡°You could say it was for his sister.¡±

    ¡°Ah, so sad she¡¯s not here.¡±

    Aisha was almost close enough to see them, but entirely unable to help. Lucius pulled his chin free and asked, ¡°What are you people doing this far north anyway?¡±

    ¡°Fishing.¡± Half the crew of the ship laughed, even the ones scraping the deck clean. ¡°And look, I caught a vassish man.¡±

    The woman leaned down, putting her hands on her knees and letting her chest dangle in front of Lucius. He at last couldn¡¯t ignore it, and only then saw the stigmata she had engraved across her skin. It was complicated, the forgotten runes twisted around themselves again and again. Though he couldn¡¯t read enough of it to be certain, he recognized it as a weather manipulation ability. ¡°Do you value your life?¡± she asked.

    ¡°Are you offering it back to me?¡±

    ¡°For a price.¡±

    ¡°Every man has a price.¡±

    She grinned and put her hand on his head, gently squeezing until she had a fistful of his hair. ¡°Become mine¡­ my thrall.¡±

    Lucius stopped himself at the last moment from spitting in her face. He had to swallow it before he could say, ¡°Why don¡¯t you let me think about it? I¡¯ve lost too much blood.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s not a bad gig. We¡¯d just have to put you in iron. You know how to sail?¡±

    He forced his sneer to become a grin. ¡°Not really. I¡¯m more a fighter than a sailor.¡±

    You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

    ¡°Mercenaries are fine too. Minato, get some good in him please,¡± the woman said, standing back up and strolling past him.

    To Lucius¡¯ surprise, the captain obeyed. The man barked orders in his foreign tongue, and some of the idle sailors ran to comply. He scrutinized them anew, spotting bracelets and anklets on most of the sailors, but he couldn¡¯t spot any kind of hierarchy among them and the un-cuffed. Eventually, one emerged from below deck. He had a bowl of boiled rice, still wet and crunchy, in one hand, and a jug of something alcoholic in the other. I hesitate to call it sake, though it was fermented from rice. To do so would insult a great many brewers. To put it lightly, the pirates did not offer him their best rations, nor did they feed him or untie him.

    They left it sitting in front of him, getting cold and soggy, and yet still appetizing enough that his empty stomach wanted it. Hours passed as he indignantly tried to not look at it, getting chuckles from the crew as they casually continued their pursuit of the Sea Bird¡¯s Rest. After the sun reached its apex, the woman returned to him and sat cross-legged in front of him.

    ¡°Have you thought over my offer?¡±

    ¡°Plenty,¡± he said, and looked away from her. The first thing that caught his eye was a gull, standing peculiarly on the ship railing and looking back at him. It didn¡¯t flutter up when a sailor passed by, or even flinch. It looked like a puppet, which is precisely what it was. My puppet. Lucius cleared his throat quickly and turned back to the woman. ¡°So why are you negotiating with me instead of the captain?¡±

    She smirked and teetered the liquor bottle with a finger. ¡°I¡¯m better at languages than Minato. He¡¯s busy with the chase too. You Vassish take such strange routes through the waters.¡±

    Lucius tried to shrug, as much as the rope would allow. ¡°The water is deeper here. Bigger threats. I hear the seas east of Giordana are shallow, they can nearly be waded.¡±

    ¡°At low tide, yes, if you don¡¯t mind the coral. The weather is much better too.¡±

    ¡°The weather was fine here, until you changed it unless I¡¯m mistaken.¡±

    She laughed. ¡°And what makes you think that?¡±

    ¡°Your stigmata.¡±

    ¡°My stigmata only lets me know what storms are coming.¡±

    ¡°Liar.¡±

    She smirked. ¡°Are you sure?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ve seen that stigmata before. It doesn¡¯t have half the complexity, and it certainly wouldn¡¯t give you this much authority.¡±

    The woman licked her lips. ¡°Maybe you¡¯re right. Maybe you¡¯re worth more than an oarsman. Too bad for you that my offering price isn¡¯t going up.¡±

    ¡°What price are you offering? A full stomach?¡±

    ¡°Your life.¡±

    Lucius snorted. ¡°Sparing my life to enslave me is no benefit to me. I¡¯d rather you slit my throat and tossed me overboard.¡± Unfortunately, he wasn¡¯t so lucky.

    ¡°True, but it won¡¯t be your whole life, just the next five to ten years. You¡¯re young. You¡¯d do well as a sailor, mercenary¡­¡±

    ¡°Pirate,¡± he finished.

    She grinned, giving a distinctly feline impression. ¡°We¡¯ve a¡­ how would you Vassish call it? A letter of marque.¡±

    ¡°So that makes it all better, does it?¡±

    ¡°Doesn¡¯t it?¡±

    ¡°It just means your nobles gave you forgiveness ahead of time to be evil.¡±

    Her smile vanished. She stood up and kicked over the liquor bottle. Its contents splashed out, gurgling over the deck as she looked down at him. ¡°You think you¡¯ll be rescued if you buy time, don¡¯t you?¡±

    ¡°Won¡¯t I? How could you blame me for such a wish?¡±

    Out from a pocket of her pants came a knife. A slender thing the size of her little finger and sharp enough she could have shaved him. She leaned down and put the edge to his lip, letting him taste the warm steel. ¡°You know, an oarsman doesn¡¯t need his tongue to do his work.¡±

    He pressed his head back, hard against the mast of the ship. It didn¡¯t get him away from her carving blade. ¡°That¡¯d be your loss.¡±

    ¡°Not hearing you anymore?¡±

    ¡°Having me as an oarsman.¡±

    ¡°As opposed to what? You¡¯re not pretty enough to be a bed slave.¡±

    ¡°From the looks of it, I¡¯m the only other person on this ship with a stigmata. You should be spoon feeding me and begging me to tell you what it is¨C¡± he shrank back again as she pressed the tip past his lips, prodding it beyond his teeth. ¡°I won¡¯t be able to tell you if you cut my tongue out!¡±

    She scowled at him and pulled the knife from his mouth. ¡°Illiterate pig. How about I let you starve as we chase down your friends and kill them?¡±

    Lucius licked the blood from his lips. It did nothing but put the taste of iron in his mouth. The slice kept dripping blood. ¡°Can you even catch them?¡±

    ¡°Of course we can. Their mast broke last night,¡± the woman said as she vanished the knife back into her pocket. ¡°Hold tight, we¡¯ll have a whole line of you soon enough, and we don¡¯t need all of you as slaves.¡± She walked off after that without saying anything more, but she had said enough.

    All the while, my avian puppet had stood and listened. Once it was disturbed and forced to fly to the other side of the ship, but it soaked in the memory of the conversation and afterwards departed. With a few flaps and soars, it left the pirate ship and returned to the Sea Bird¡¯s Rest, where I extracted the information from it, and began developing a counter strategy. The whole affair left me in a mix of relief and despair, to know that the storm was not divine in origin but to have also been forced into using some of my magic. It would leave traces behind, traces that could be studied and deduced from. I had no choice in the matter, unless I wanted to delay all my plans until I found a replacement for Lucius entirely, and I had already invested a decade into the boy.

    Meanwhile, Lucius sat aboard the pirate ship, tied firm to the mast. He listened to their foreign speech, only able to appreciate some of the tunes they sang for their rhythm alone. His stomach growled empty, hungering for the congealing rice paste left before him. He didn¡¯t break. He had starved before and found himself well acquainted with the hardship. He kept his mouth shut and got what rest he could, until that evening, when they caught up with the Sea Bird¡¯s Rest.

    No ley cannons blasted off the back of the ship to scuttle them, nor did I bombard them with magic. The defense of our vessel was remarkably mundane. As far as the local Divine Beasts were concerned.

 2-17 - A Lesson In Magic

    While Lucius was a prisoner, we were quite busy aboard the Sea Bird¡¯s Rest. The crew were trying to repair the storm damage. Captain Bodin had to catch up on sleep then resume steering the ship. I had to prepare a rescue plan for my pupil, with only the help of my budding medicinal apprentice, whose only relevant skill was steady hands.

    By means of some scattered grains after the storm dissipated, I had attracted a small flock of gulls, and begun tampering with them. One such purpose was the spying puppet I sent south to the pirate ship, but the vast majority were requisitioned for the purpose of collecting the viscera left behind by the giant sea boa. The broken scales, the jagged spines and fins, all still drenched in blood and poison. They didn¡¯t make for my best reagents, but they were what I had.

    One person aboard the ship was unoccupied, unfortunately. Aisha Canta descended upon me wordlessly, after rising from her collapse of exhaustion. She stared at my work, as I turned the monstrous body parts into charms, and tried to divine my purpose with them. It was undeniably clear I was working to save Lucius, so she couldn''t berate me on that front, however, I could only take so many hours of telling her to go away and getting no response.

    At last, to pacify her, I offered to explain Lucius¡¯ initiation, all those years ago. I was still feeling out just how much use Aisha would be to us, but I saw merit in beginning to disseminate information about the true threat to the world, that which the kingdoms needed to rally against.

    <hr>

    When Ezra awoke the morning after, she leapt from her sleeping roll as though the memories had struck like lightning. She didn¡¯t find a poor, maimed boy shivering with fever and on death¡¯s door because he had protected her, she instead found Lucius peeling carrots. He was tossing the vegetables into a fresh pot of simmering water, and the skins into a pan to simmer with a dollop of lard.

    The sight gave her emotional whiplash from relief, to confusion, to merely impressed he could, by means of having the blade fixed against a table, skin the vegetable with but a single hand. She had slept through his learning phase, and gotten reasonably skilled at it. While not the most luxurious of meals, far from civilization it did fine to fill our stomachs. Ezra was still trying to wrap her head around what to say when I returned to our shelter with two fat grouse in one hand.(1)

    ¡°Fill your stomach and get ready, today¡¯s the day,¡± I said, tossing the birds on the ground next to the fire.

    ¡°The day to do what?¡± Lucius asked.

    ¡°To kill a parasite,¡± I said, gesturing for Ezra to breast the birds out and get them in the pan. They were lean pieces of meat, and I didn¡¯t want the lard to be wasted.

    With some muttered assent, Ezra took the seat next to Lucius at the lichen covered table. After puncturing the guts of the birds, she deftly ripped them apart and peeled the meet from the bone.

    Once he finished the last carrot, he leaned over to ask, ¡°What¡¯s a parasite?¡±

    ¡°It means it lives inside other creatures. Like worms.¡±

    That idea nearly made him sick, to imagine something crawling through his guts. ¡°So, it¡¯s small?¡± he asked, gripping his belly.

    Ezra rolled her eyes, decidedly coming to the decision to not thank him for his chivalry. ¡°Maybe if it was in you.¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t have any in me.¡±

    ¡°Yes, you do. We all do.¡±

    ¡°Do not!¡±

    ¡°Everyone has little tiny parasites in them, else they¡¯d have diarrhea. You do too.¡±

    Young Lucius nearly claimed to have such movement problems, but his good sense caught up with him before his tongue flapped. ¡°Then that must not be what we¡¯re doing.¡±

    ¡°No, it¡¯s not,¡± Ezra said. She slapped the bird breasts into the frying pan atop the coals, and blood immediately sizzled with the lard. ¡°We¡¯re not here for human parasites, we¡¯re here for world parasites.¡±

    ¡°Godling,¡± I said, arranging my various instruments and reagents for one final inspection. They were all correct, but a single mistake could let the thing escape and I had no interest in giving it a chance at my throat. From the very first moment it would realize something was happening, it was to be too late. Like war, the battle was to be won before the first charge. ¡°How much do you know about religion, boy?¡±

    He frowned, looking first at the skillet and then to the mossy roof. ¡°Well, there¡¯s the goddess Saphira, and everyone knows the sun god, and¡­¡±

    ¡°And the wolf goddess of the north, and the dragon of the mountains, and the trickster of the east. Whether Shepherd counts is up for debate, but she¡¯s certainly worshiped as a goddess in the south. They are the six divines that rule over this world. To put it simply however, they aren¡¯t the only gods and goddesses out there, in the darkness which knows no sun. Jealous little worms, they sneak into the human world to eat and grow, and maybe one day supplant the gods.¡±

    ¡°So, monsters,¡± he said.

    ¡°Yes, but very terrible monsters. If left alone, they would become disasters. Many people would die. So, I kill them first.¡±

    This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

    He frowned, trying to fit the idea into his framework of the world, and struggling. It wasn¡¯t like crime and justice. It wasn¡¯t like a hunter and prey. This was his first taste of war; a preemptive strike. ¡°Well, if it¡¯s a monster, that¡¯s good, right?¡±

    Ezra¡¯s groaning made me laugh. ¡°Yes, you can think of it that way. Now eat up. You¡¯ll have some running to do. If this all goes to plan, we¡¯ll be back in Podrest tomorrow. I¡¯ll even pay for a day in the baths.¡±

    Ezra jumped up, dropping the handle of the pan, which Lucius snatched from the coals. ¡°No more sleeping on dirt?¡±

    ¡°No more sleeping on dirt, if the two of you can run fast enough.¡± Only after the three of us ate, did they understand what I had meant with that statement. The bones of abominations were then handed to them, heavy and glowing with infused magic. I lead the way to the temple.

    The weather was calm and dreary that day. The sky, a gray haze mixed with the swaying canopy. I was glad it wasn¡¯t raining, it left the dirt firm for running upon, and mud would have done nothing to slow the godling, only mire us.

    ¡°It will try to escape the moment I begin. Anything of the temple it breaks, you must run to and stab with one of the bones or legs,¡± I said, drawing from my bag the crux of the spell. I had procured a padlock from Donjon, as it was an aged prison even in those days. That rusting heap of iron didn¡¯t seem impressive to the boy, but it would do the job.

    ¡°Stab?¡± He held a shaft of bone like a dirk, still pink with life and, to my eyes, throbbing with energy. The boy couldn¡¯t imagine stabbing a stone wall with it.

    ¡°You aren¡¯t stabbing the thing itself, but piercing the essence. Trust me,¡± I said, though I knew I was asking a lot of the boy. If Ezra had not been beside him, resolutely nodding obedience, I doubt he would have taken one step from my side or perhaps ran for the hills. Everyone the world over has seen a stigmata of at least some modest ability. The fact that magic is infused throughout the world can plainly be seen.

    To feel it is another matter. Imagine someone taking a knife to a painting and carving away the pigments. They scrape it off in chunks and flakes, ruining it entirely to reveal that beneath the crude painting is not a canvas but a mosaic more dazzling than the art that had masked it. That might approximate the sensation Lucius felt when I pressed the padlock to the door of the temple and rewrote the memory of the place.

    I changed it from a holy site, to a fortress, to a prison. I touched it at its core and realigned its essence and in this world, the idea of essence overrides the world of things(2). The idea of imprisonment passed through the stone and changed it like a ripple. Loose mortar spilled out from the foundation as the temple shrank down, pulling in on itself. The roof timbers groaned, bending like rib bones. The bell from the tower was cast off, crashing to the ground near us.

    Then the godling awoke. It stormed from the subterranean mausoleum, where all the corpses of the faithful of old had been interred. It came from where it had desecrated and devoured them. From tunnels it quietly bored beyond the sight of the sun, from webbings and traps of all things divine.

    It screamed. Bone-chilling, knee shaking fear, beyond anything rational or comprehensible. It forced fear into the body till the children nearly vomited. But it was merely fear. As long as they had hope, it remained just that, never falling to the pit known as despair. ¡°Remember what I told you. This isn¡¯t something you can run from. It is something to be defeated!¡±

    The godling threw its body into the inner wall, smashing apart the window. Glass and lead lath sprayed out. Stone too. ¡°Secure it!¡± I screamed, not taking my hand from the padlock.

    Ezra went first. She was older, and had worked with me before. She took it upon herself to prove her faith in my methods. The girl sprinted past Lucius, giving him her backside as she pounced upon the broken window sill. She didn¡¯t even glance at the black spears of chitin that stabbed out from the hole in the temple-prison, the carapace claws trying to rip the wall apart. She leapt and stabbed the stone with a hand claw recovered from an abomination, just as I had told her.

    It sank into the stone, smearing through it like she was grinding a stick of chalk against the surface, and left behind a black smear before the effect took hold. The masonry piece flew back into the air, reversing the previous trajectory to return to where it belonged. The fact that a godling¡¯s limb was in the way mattered not; the stone ripped through with ease and slotted in not just where it had been, but multiplied across the window gap. The wall sealed up, breaking the claws of the beast off. They showered blood across the ground as it screeched in pain, but that was just the start.

    ¡°The other side,¡± I bellowed.

    The good example proved enough for Lucius. He screamed a warcry, like many an amateur fighter, and charged as the spider-like creature threw itself against another window. He slammed the bone down through the keystone of the window arch and fell on his side as it launched back. He watched it fly, and made eye contact with the godling. His sight reflected back eight times. Scarlet gems in the shadows.

    Corpse-eating gems the likes of which he wouldn¡¯t see again for almost twenty years.

    Lucius froze. He locked up in shock and uncomprehension. The blood of the beast sprayed across him, staining his muddy clothes red and all he could do was shuffle away. Ezra had to handle the next two windows and then slap him. She hauled him to his feet and shouted, ¡°If you keep laying around, you¡¯re going to die.¡± I believe it was the act of stuffing the next bone shard into his grasp that did it. It gave him something to hold onto, an action to take, a way to fight on his own behalf.

    I still remember the way the birds fled, the rodents too. Even the insects got out of their holes and scurried away from the death throes of the godling. The screams got worse. For every arcane stake they drove in, the temple grew smaller. It shrank and shriveled until the godling had no room to move, none to exist. It crushed until blood oozed from between the rocks and pooled on the ground and even the screams became squeaks and gasps. It twitched in pain, yet unable to die.

    I sent the children away when I began the process of actually killing it. The two of them stumbled off to a river that we had used for washing, and dropped into it. The cold, mountain stream poured over them and wiped the blood and the sweat and took from them the fire of combat. It cleansed them, leaving behind the memory and the knowledge gained.

    ¡°This is what you do?¡± Lucius asked, eyes unfocused to the sky.

    ¡°Sometimes,¡± Ezra responded, ringing her hair out.

    ¡°You people are crazy.¡±

    She scowled at him. ¡°If you knew what we knew, and kept living your life like usual, you¡¯d be the crazy one.¡±

    <hr>

    <ol>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">The same magic which I can use to spy through a bird can also kill it. In fact, using it to hunt is considerably easier.</li>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">Manipulation of the world of things by the world of ideas is the exact same mechanism by which Lucius¡¯ body never forgot how to shape itself when it healed. Lesser forms of healing simply increase the rate of cell division and repair, which quickly kills the host through cancer.</li>

    </ol>

 2-18 - Leftover Knowledge

    Captain Bodin cornered me the evening after Lucius¡¯ capture, when I made the mistake of going to get dinner. ¡°What have you been doing to the birds? Is it some kind of stigmata?¡±

    I would have been more irritated by the interruption if the food had been appetizing in the least. They were handing out soldiering biscuits, those dreadful bricks of hardtack. ¡°I¡¯m tracking how close the other ship is to us.¡±

    He laughed in my face. ¡°I can damn well see how close they are to us. The secondary bow snapped. We¡¯re at half sail. Damn near standing still. They could be on us as soon as they feel like it. What good is your tracking going to do us?¡±

    ¡°About as much as your complaining.¡± I didn¡¯t bother explaining what I had actually been doing. He had no need for that information.

    ¡°We¡¯re still between sea lanes. You might not have noticed, you foreigner(1), but we¡¯re sitting bait for another whale hunter to show up. And who¡¯s going to save us then?¡±

    ¡°You have the poison.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s all been dumped. You only brewed enough for a normal detour, not for this laggardly mess.¡±

    ¡°I believe it is your responsibility to navigate us safely, not mine. I¡¯m a passenger, an engineer and a scholar, not a sailor.¡±

    He jabbed me in the chest with his calloused finger. ¡°You¡¯re the reason we¡¯re in this mess!¡±

    Aisha said, ¡°It was my idea, not his.¡± She had been sitting on a crate set beside the crippled mast. An appropriate height for sitting, but what lay beneath her rear was spears packed in straw to keep their edges keen. Normally, they were kept below deck because normally the seas were safe. The closer the pirates had come to us, the more the crew had wanted their defenses at hand.

    Captain Bodin scowled. It was clear he was more comfortable taking out his frustrations against me than her, but he turned on her all the same. ¡°Then, do you have a means of escape for us?¡±

    ¡°If they wanted to overtake us, they would have by now. They¡¯re not interested in us, or this ship, or what we have aboard. All they want is the path north. I say we keep the way we¡¯ve been going. Stay between the sea lanes. If we¡¯re lucky, the next monster will attack them instead of us. It¡¯s like a coin toss, isn¡¯t it?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯d never bet my life on a coin toss.¡±

    ¡°But you would fight outnumbered? Against foreigners with stigmata you know nothing about? You don¡¯t even have your best fighter anymore.¡±

    ¡°Outnumbered? Hah! You don¡¯t know that. This ship is fully manned, and larger too¨C¡±

    ¡°Clumsier is what it is. Those pirates are faster than us.¡±

    ¡°Because they have oarsmen if they fall behind!¡±

    ¡°So they outnumber us!¡±

    ¡°One free man is worth three slaves.¡±

    ¡°But they have a sailing crew too! Don¡¯t let your pride blind you. A coin toss is better chances than a fight.¡±

    By this time, I had chewed apart my first bite of biscuit, and spoke up. ¡°Our chances will actually be better than a coin toss. Now that I have a better grasp on this sea monster, I will be able to send it away.¡± it required something else to distract it with, either the pirate ship or a whale pod, but it made our chances far better than a coin toss. Excluding a gambler¡¯s coin anyways. Those show up whichever side they wish. ¡°But there are two other plausible scenarios now.¡±

    ¡°Oh really? And what are those?¡± Captain Bodin asked, his tone like he was entertaining a failing con artist.

    I held up two fingers. ¡°First, we might come upon a patrolling naval ship. If they see us so far out from the sea lanes, they¡¯ll take us for brigands or the like. Getting arrested by them will preserve our lives.¡± I put my middle finger down. ¡°Or, the pirates catch up to us and extract the path through torture.¡±

    That took the color from his face, along with the smug and the spite and everything else. Left him a shell of a man, and gave me the opening I needed to escape the deck and return to my room. Sadly, this did not bring me solace. The young doctor was in my room. With all the emotions above deck, I had nearly forgotten, and was soon accosted with questions once more.

    ¡°How did you learn this organ¡¯s function? What tools did you use to determine this scale¡¯s composition? Why does this carry more memory than that? Are these runes the same as stigmata?¡± and on he went, extracting information from me in exchange for his steady hand carving logic circuits into the recovered bits of sea boa.

    Then he asked me a question which provoked some thought from me. ¡°How was this information lost from the world if you knew it so long ago?¡±

    I could have given him the trite answer, that for many years it was too expensive to make copies of scrolls. It was certainly a correct answer, when coupled with a few fires here and there, along with mold and vermin doing their share of damage. Papyrus had a shelf life much shorter than the vellum used for temple texts. Sammy had worked hard enough to earn a better answer however. He was quickly becoming a sort of fresh apprentice, and I figured I could make use of him.

    I asked, ¡°Do you think smart people live longer?¡±

    His hands stopped moving. He frowned at his tools and the patterns he had copied into the monster flesh. ¡°It would keep you from dying to something stupid, wouldn¡¯t it?¡±

    ¡°You just survived a small war. You saw plenty of men, smart and dumb alike, live and die. All of it, generally speaking, over something dumb. The auxiliaries were conscripts, caught up in the demands of nobility by virtue of their place of birth. The voluntaries did the math when they signed up that the money they would get paid would be worth the risk. Then the dice fell, some lived and some died. The only person whose intelligence mattered was the one making decisions on where to march, how to sneak around danger, how to trick the enemies, and so on.¡±

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    ¡°Lucius.¡±

    ¡°As well as Medorosa and his various subordinates. The intelligence of the fighters mattered far less than their ability to endure an empty stomach, sores on their feet, and uncomfortable beds. It¡¯s quite likely that the ones favored were in fact those of dull wit. The less going on between their ears, the easier they would conserve their strength to win the fight at the end.¡±

    ¡°But not all people go to war.¡±

    ¡°You think being smart helps in politics? It gets you an arrow in the back, or poison in your drink. You can¡¯t assassinate all of your enemies, so you have to take out the most dangerous ones. Therefor you¨C¡±

    ¡°Kill the smart ones,¡± he agreed. ¡°But, surely it¡¯s better to be smart.¡±

    ¡°Certainly. It just doesn¡¯t mean it extends your life.¡±

    ¡°Surely you aren¡¯t saying it¡¯s bad to be smart.¡±

    ¡°Not in the least.¡±

    He frowned. ¡°But you are saying it gets you killed.¡±

    I grinned. ¡°Only if people know you¡¯re smart. You¡¯re smart yourself, so let me ask you a question. Has anyone ever in your life liked you better because you were smart? Setting aside people like me who make their judgements on utility, even on interpersonal levels, it repulses people because nobody likes to be another''s inferior in intellect. Not a person they have to spend particular time with at least. Just ask yourself, how many friends does a librarian have?¡±

    ¡°Can¡¯t say I know very many librarians.¡±

    ¡°Well, it¡¯s not many, and typically only because they attract people of their own intellect. My point is, the smartest people know better than to let on that fact, because the first thing they realize is how little they know. If they know they¡¯re wrong, what point is there in correcting someone assured of their own fallacy? And so, over many years, with even the slightest confounding problems, it¡¯s quite easy for knowledge to be lost. Sometimes, such knowledge is even its own destruction.¡±

    ¡°And yet, here you are.¡±

    ¡°Because I haven¡¯t picked any fights lately.¡±

    <hr>

    Jacque was a very smart man, but not yet to the level of brilliance where he could have saved himself. Hardly any amount of intelligence could have prepared him for what transpired back in Podrest after I departed from him. Mere weeks apart, he elated in the highest joy and then the lowest despair a man could know. While some might speculate about outlandish scenarios of torture and loss, there is one simple reality that recurs throughout time and civilization.

    Ruby was with his child, and then lost it.

    I doubt there was any particular reason, which plagued the writer¡¯s mind all the worse. It didn¡¯t fit into his schema of life, of people, of proper behavior. The world had teased him and crushed him Worse, it made the reality of their relationship undeniable to Ruby¡¯s sisters, and their disgust for him multiplied.

    Jacque drank himself stupid in their wine cellar. They kicked him out of the palace after that. His name was known in town and he opened lines of credits at taverns and pubs, each proprietor expecting the Ashe family to repay his debts. This only lasted until word of his disgrace spread around town. The precise cause was kept confidential, and even he did not profess what had happened, no matter who asked. The words stuck in his throat.

    When at last he made up his mind, he had to steal himself back into the palace. Even the guards didn¡¯t want to let him in, but his escapades with the young Ashe had more than once required some nimbleness and youth on his part, so he knew which windows were left unlatched and which walls could be scaled and so on. So on a night where he forewent the wine, and carried with him only a certain determination to seek out a more primitive truth the only way he knew how, he returned to his paramore.

    She had grown faint since their departing, spending most of her days in bed as she was that night, as steeped in melancholy as he had been in alcohol. This left her with a clearness of mind, unfiltered even by the haze of love, and made for a very detailed journal of the events afterward. ¡°You came back,¡± was her greeting.

    ¡°I must have flattered myself to think that I was acting out of character tonight,¡± he said, strolling across the rugs and taking a seat beside the viewing window. It was a beautiful thing, but the lacing and felt had worn thin from many years of taking tea there. His picking at it only served to unravel it faster. ¡°I thought that I had reasoned my way above such common human things, and that tonight might be something of an adventure.¡±

    ¡°Returning to my bedside is hardly an adventure, Jacque.¡±

    ¡°Indeed. In some ways, it is a paradise I should always seek, time and time again. But, I think it will be some time before I ever come here again.¡±

    ¡°My sisters won¡¯t hold their ire forever. Only¡­¡±

    ¡°Long enough to marry you off to some noble.¡±

    She nodded.

    ¡°That¡¯s what they think is proper, and I no longer have the heart to argue them out of it. No matter what I say, they have two recourses now. First, to society at large. By which, they of course mean the other nobles, the other keepers of power who support one another above the common man. And second, they believe themselves armed with proof that the goddesses disapprove of us as well.¡±

    ¡°Oh, Jacque¡­ it wasn¡¯t the goddesses. These things happen sometimes. I wasn¡¯t being exactly responsible with myself before I knew¨C¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t blame yourself, Ruby! It¡¯s better to curse the divine than that, at least they won¡¯t mind the admonition. What¡¯s more, the truth doesn¡¯t matter. Only the perception, the justifications, what they can say to other people. They have a pretext to turn the swords of the guards against me, against us. What strength do words have against steel?¡±

    ¡°But it is words that motivates that steel!¡±

    ¡°No, what motivates that violence is self-interest. Maybe I was wrong about these things, about people and society. There¡¯s something astoundingly real about¡­ well, about the reality we find ourselves in! Humans simply aren¡¯t rational. They are two-faced opportunists. The same man will pound his chest and proclaim his loyalty to Jarnmark in the face of the guards, and a moment later haggle down smuggled liquor to sell to those very same guards while talking about how the Ashe family had no right to put such and such tariffs in place.¡±

    ¡°Jacque, you can hardly blame people for inconsistency when the world is inconsistent. They have no framing, no true guidance. Even the gods don¡¯t agree. That¡¯s what makes your writing so compelling.¡±

    ¡°My writing didn¡¯t save our child,¡± he said, sending both of them into a malaise. ¡°I think perhaps that my work has been too theoretical.¡±

    ¡°What do you mean?¡±

    He frowned and waved his hand through the air. ¡°Do you recall that scholar who visited some months ago? I¡¯ve been thinking of him, of his travels. He pursues knowledge and takes action with it! If nothing else, he spreads what he learns. That man has changed the world, whether he knows it or not, and learned a hundred things more than I can cooped up in a place like this.¡±

    Ruby blinked. She caught the main thrust of his words and almost fell out of her bed when she moved towards him. ¡°No, no Jacque, you can¡¯t mean to leave me?¡±

    He stood up and clasped his hands behind his back. ¡°Ruby, you know I can¡¯t stay regardless. I need to point myself towards something, and take action to fill in these gaps of reason I have.¡±

    ¡°Just stay a few more months with me! Some weeks at least. Jacque, don¡¯t make this goodbye. Please, I can¡¯t take that. Please, don¡¯t do that to me.¡± Tears pooled in her eyes and her cheeks swelled scarlet as she dug her nails into the sheets of her bed to keep herself upright.

    Jacque kept himself resolute. ¡°It won¡¯t be for long, my love. I¡¯m going to the capital, to the high cathedral. I will seek an audience with the emissary of Saphira and get some answers.¡± He never did come back to her.

    Unfortunately for humanity, he left behind his writings when he left, and they ended up in printed circulation through all the wrong hands.

 2-19 - The Witch On The Sea

    The witch of the pirate ship sat a stool down across from Lucius and sat down, one leg over the other knee. She had on a short skirt, her dignity maintained only by the shadows of dusk, which left just enough that a fertile imagination could connect the shades of color. She grinned down at him, chin in her palm. ¡°You Vassish worship the goddess of the seas, don¡¯t you?¡±

    Lucius dragged his gaze upwards to look into her eyes. ¡°We¡¯re a seafaring people. It¡¯s not surprising those angels set up shop here. What about you? A trickster god?¡±

    ¡°Our goddess Titania rules over luck and fertility. She¡¯s worshiped as a harvest goddess in places.¡±

    ¡°Her symbol is a phallic mushroom.¡±

    The witch laughed. ¡°An old one, maybe. So what? I wanted to ask you if you Vassish fear death on the sea, or if you think that brings you to the embrace of your goddess or something?¡±

    Lucius pressed his head back against the mass in an attempt to look up at the fading sky. The bowl of rice was still across from him, but pilfered by birds. His stomach sat empty save for the acid. ¡°Everyone goes to Shepherd and gets sorted from there. It doesn¡¯t matter where you die, so long as it isn¡¯t in the belly of a beast.¡±

    That gave the witch pause, a genuinely unexpected answer. ¡°I¡¯ve never hear that one before.¡±

    His smirk just made her more curious. ¡°Well, think about it. How would your soul move on if it¡¯s trapped inside another body? Did you think these sea monsters just happened to get so big? It¡¯s because they swallow their prey whole. That way, they get to digest the soul as well as the body.¡±

    ¡°If that¡¯s true, shouldn¡¯t you be afraid of being on the sea?¡±

    ¡°Who says I¡¯m not? I¡¯m a soldier, not a sailor.¡±

    ¡°And what, you got washed overboard in the storm? And they just left you to die?¡±

    ¡°Well, we were being attacked. They didn¡¯t have time to turn around and get me. Surely you saw the whale hunter?¡±

    The witch frowned. She had the full-lipped pout that any courtesan would cultivate. ¡°The snake¡­ Yes, we did see that. Your guardians make it quite difficult to come this far north. Must be so nice to hide behind monsters while you exploit the rest of the world.¡±

    Lucius laughed so hard one of the sailors almost came over and beat him. ¡°That¡¯s rich coming from an Aillesterran. You hide in your forest conclaves so well you even close up the roads! If someone wants to put a stop to Vassermark, they can just march on our cities and we¡¯ll meet them in the field of battle. But only Skaldheim and Drachenreach could dare to do that. Not a bunch of religious pirates.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s better to avoid a fight.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s better to win a fight.¡±

    ¡°You know, Vassish boy, I don¡¯t think we¡¯ll get along.¡±

    ¡°And what are you going to do about that? Kill me?¡±

    ¡°What if I do?¡± Out came the knife again.

    He shrugged, as much as he could in the bindings. ¡°Better that than me leading you to my countrymen, don¡¯t you think?¡±

    ¡°Maybe I take some things away from you then. I could cut your thumb tendons. You¡¯d never fight with a sword again. Or¡­¡± she pointed the knife between his legs.

    ¡°You wouldn¡¯t.¡±

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    ¡°Wouldn''t I?¡±

    ¡°The thumbs maybe, but you¡¯d scare your men off if you went below the belt,¡± Lucius said, jerking his head towards the nearest sailor.

    ¡°Fine, you live for now, Vassish boy, but only because if that serpent attacks again, I¡¯m having you tossed off the back as an offering. Understand?¡±

    Lucius snorted and smirked. He said nothing as she left and took her stool with her. Eventually the sun set, and both the pirate ship and the Sea Bird¡¯s Rest had to slow to a crawl. It was too deep of water to throw anchor, but if either ship grew complacent, the currents might ram them upon some hidden rock in the darkness. It was a tense shift of hours, lit by some few lanterns and only a few men.

    And so began his escape.

    Rope is a temporary binding at best, particularly for someone dedicated enough to dislocate a few of their ribs in order to bend more. He huffed and squeezed and shimmied, and worked himself down the tube of hemp. Sliding his rear across the deck, he skidded out flat across the ship until his head slipped below the highest loop. Then he was free. One loop after the next cinched to the mast and gave him the room he needed to roll out.

    Stifling a groan of pain as his body tried to put itself back together, he got to all fours, then up to his feet, and straight for the man controlling the rudder.

    He stood a fair chance of throwing the man over, snapping the handle of the rudder, and jumping overboard. This would have positively saved the day, so long as I spotted his blond head fighting the waves.

    They hadn¡¯t tied him in the center of the ship for nothing and his escape didn¡¯t go unnoticed. The captain of the ship, Minato, stepped out before him, one hand on his slender sword and one holding a bottle of sake. ¡°Makes you float, does it?¡± he asked, gesturing towards Lucius¡¯ chest.

    ¡°Something like that,¡± my pupil said, eyeing the nearest railing of the ship now that he knew his game was up.

    ¡°I guess maybe we should have fed you properly. Seems that you¡¯ve already starved and become skin and bones.¡±

    ¡°Or maybe that girl should have cut my thumbs instead of just threatened it.¡±

    ¡°Maybe, but then we would have had to listen to your moaning. Besides, I like this better. You¡¯re a fighter, aren¡¯t you? A man like you wouldn¡¯t ever give up on his people without a fight, am I right?¡±

    ¡°More or less.¡± The captain had drawn closer to Lucius, the ship swaying beneath them. With light wind, however, no waves had splashed over the deck, and the foreign timber stayed firm beneath Lucius¡¯ feet. He never had been good at fighting aboard a ship though, and he knew that fact.

    ¡°Honor, am I right? Something Kasumi wouldn¡¯t understand. But, this isn¡¯t a journey fit for honor. It¡¯s not really a fight. We¡¯re brazenly spying¡­¡±

    ¡°So you are after the sea lanes.¡±

    ¡°Did we ever say otherwise, Vassish boy?¡±

    ¡°So do you have a point you¡¯re coming to? Because if you¡¯re going to stab me, you¡¯ll have to¨C¡±

    Minato ripped his blade from the sheath, darting forward as his end of the deck rocked upwards. The sword was a simple thing in appearance, but expertly crafted down to the unblemished polish of the edge. He had all the force, all the momentum. The deck was falling away from Lucius¡¯ feet, leaving him floundering to retreat as Minato¡¯s steel lashed out.

    It cut through his tunic, into his chest and shoulder, but not deeply. The blade had ripped some tendons but not caught an artery. It hurt like fire, but Lucius threw himself at the captain. Minato¡¯s draw technique had closed the distance, but had left him holding the blade backwards in his off hand. All he could do was hammer it down on top of him, but Lucius dove forward first. Minato¡¯s forearm struck him on the wounded collarbone, but the blade only tangled with the back of his tunic.

    Lucius¡¯ good hand shot out and got a fistful of silk, but not enough to bind. It forced Minato to reel back. Lucius slammed his leg into Minato¡¯s calf, shin to muscle. The foreign captain hissed in pain, eyes shut for an instant. Lucius let go to grab again, his right arm dangling useless from the wound. He caught nothing but air. Wind gusted between the two of them, kicking Minato away as he launched off nothing but wind.

    ¡°Very good! What a thrill, to clash for life and death on a night time ship. But, the advantage is¨C ah!¡±

    Lucius abandoned the fight and dove over the side of the ship. As gracefully as he could with one good arm and one good eye, he arced over and slipped into the dark sea. The pirate crew scrambled to get a light on him as he kicked his legs and pumped his arms. He tried to stay beneath the surface, but blood trailed up behind him like an arrow. It pointed right to him.

    Eventually he had to come up for air. No matter how quietly he tried to slip between the waves, the Aillesterrans had kept watch. Silently, they sent him a parting gift. An arrow soared through the sky and into his back, barbed and heavy of shaft, it stuck into his lungs.

    He coughed, hacking up blood immediately as the salt burned inside him. His stigmata flared to life, but his blood loss proved faster. And so, in nothing but moonlight, Lucius died at sea.

    But, his stigmata did keep him afloat.

 2-20 - Regaining What Was Lost

    On our return from the temple of Lumius, the mountain pass took us along a particular cliff that overlooked much of Jarnmark. Butchering the godling had taken me much of the previous day, and to Ezra¡¯s despair, we had to spend an additional night in the woods, so it was early morning as we trekked the mountains with the goats.

    ¡°Come on now, before the dragons warm up for the day. That hand cannon isn¡¯t going to do much against a dragon,¡± I said, striding on ahead of the kids.

    ¡°You¡¯re going to get me a big bed, right? A goose feather bed. Extra soft,¡± Ezra said, stumbling along behind me. Her mind drifted with the clouds, imagining what pleasures of civilization awaited her at the city. That was well enough, for it kept the weight of her mind off her shoulders, and thus the hike easier.

    Lucius was the quiet one, because every step we took was a step back to humanity. It was back towards his parents who had sold him off. It was to Master Wilhelm how tossed him aside to curry favor. It was to the Ashe family who didn¡¯t even see him as human. All the things he had turned his back on, and now he carried the knowledge that he had failed to do even that. He had not survived on his own, only by clinging onto me.

    ¡°Oh, yes, a very large bed. The largest.¡±

    ¡°Really?¡± Ezra asked.

    ¡°No, of course not. You¡¯re a child. I would never take you there and debauch you like that.¡±

    Ezra¡¯s brow furrowed together as she tried to understand what I meant, but she was only just beginning puberty and had no true conception of what a brothel was. I didn¡¯t explain to her why such an establishment would have the best beds in the city, even better than the Ashe family¡¯s own. ¡°But, the bath at least¡­¡±

    ¡°Oh, yes, we¡¯ll have the day at the bath. You¡¯ll have to scrub down until you smell like a blue blood.¡±

    ¡°What¡¯s a blue blood?¡±

    ¡°An outdated term.¡±

    ¡°But, what is¨C¡±

    ¡°Come on now, we can set our way by the smoke stacks. Even better than these meandering logging roads. Look, smelters all through the valley. Someone must have found a good vein here. Maybe something better than iron.¡±

    Ezra sighed and moved on with the conversation. ¡°What? Like silver?¡±

    ¡°Like wolfram, but that comes from tin mines, not iron, and Vassermark is rather deprived of tin for now. At the least, they have lead¡­ so long as I can keep them from using it in their drinking water.¡±

    ¡°Why would you drink lead? Does it taste good?¡±

    ¡°Quite the opposite, it tastes like stupidity.¡±

    That broke Ezra¡¯s grasp. She was too tired from the hike up and down the mountain to think about deep subjects and wordplay. It was just as well that her mind flew away, back to dreaming of a soft bed, because I turned my attention to the young Lucius. He hadn¡¯t spoken at all, and it was clear that he was ruminating rather than planning. When I found a suitable edge, a sheer drop beside the road as though we lorded over the land from a king¡¯s balcony, I stopped.

    ¡°Lucius, was this trip the furthest you¡¯ve ever been from where you were born?¡±

    Ezra wasted no time in dropping her rear upon a stone and resting, but the boy shuffled near me and worked up an answer. ¡°Yes, sir. I think so.¡±

    ¡°So you¡¯ve never been across the sea?¡±

    ¡°No. I wanted to go, though. Cost too much money.¡±

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    ¡°Ah, money. Always an issue and irksome enough to make you want to fabricate it. Regardless, I have enough to take us across the world. You¡¯d like that, yes?¡±

    He glanced over his shoulder, to where the scraggly trees still hinted at a forest. ¡°To do more of that?¡±

    ¡°At times, yes. More often, it is to find certain people. I assure you, this was the exception to my activities. I¡¯m a scholar, not a fighter.¡±

    ¡°Seemed to me like you were pretty good at fighting.¡±

    ¡°I have some tricks, but I am nothing compared to the true masters of the martial arts. I¡¯d like to introduce you to some of them. I think your stigmata gives you a great predisposition for it.¡±

    He frowned and looked at his feet. ¡°How am I supposed to fight with only one arm?¡±

    ¡°You¡¯d be surprised. Most fighting is done with the mind. It¡¯s all about understanding your weapon, your body, what you can do and what they can do. If you have a grasp of those things, then it¡¯s just a matter of taking the proper actions with a firm spirit and cutting your foe down.¡±

    ¡°But I can¡¯t hold a sword.¡±

    ¡°Would you like to be able to?¡±

    He perked up. ¡°Can you give me my arm back?¡±

    I grinned. ¡°Me? No, you¡¯ll have to get that back yourself. But, I can help the process.¡±

    ¡°Then help me!¡±

    ¡°I will, I will, but such help would make you quite indebted to me, don¡¯t you think?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll work it off,¡± he promised, resolutely nodding and squaring off against me to show his determination. Of course, I¡¯ve never met a child who properly understood what taking on a multiple year obligation meant; but, in this case I was happy to take advantage of him.

    ¡°Well, I¡¯ll have to take your word on that. For now, you shall be my youngest pupil.¡± I held out my hand, clasped it around Lucius¡¯ and shook it. It pumped him full of hope and new vigor. His face beamed with the idea of being whole once more. The intoxicating allure of health, wealth, knowledge, and power. By taking hold of my hand, he was grabbing onto a future where anything could be in his grasp.

    Then I threw him off the cliff.

    At first, he didn¡¯t even understand what had happened. He stared up at me. He swung his arm and kicked his legs. Then the wind really started to pick up, howling past his ears and thrashing his ruddy clothes. His stomach leapt inside him and he screamed. Wordless, fearful noise burst from his lips and vanished into the wind. He tumbled through the air. His feet caught jutting rocks, bouncing him off. He caught a glimpse of Ezra peering over the side, in as much shock as he was.

    Then one of his spins cracked his head against the slab. That dulled his thoughts and stopped the screaming. A moment later, he hit the base. Flat upon the stone, not even the cushion of needles and dirt. The impact passed through him, liquifying his insides such that he didn¡¯t even bounce. There was no sensation of pain, the trauma was too abrupt to process pain. One moment he was falling, the next his blood no longer flowed inside his skin, but outside it.

    Then his stigmata began putting him back together.

    <hr>

    Like driftwood, Lucius had floated from the ships and washed up across an exposed rock. A whole forest of the obsidian spires speckled the sea there, like a geological city sunk beneath the waves. THe stone had pulled him from the current like a gold paneer¡¯s sieve, and enabled me to find him there.

    As he experienced it, there was a burning in his body, a sticking pain through his ribs. When he tried to haul himself up, his back muscles seized and twitched. Memory of hours past returned, not quite lost. The sun crept up from the horizon, giving some warmth to his body that had been soaking in the sea. Enough to make his clammy fingers bend again as he reached back and took hold of the barbed arrow.

    He yanked it out and got only the shaft. The tip remained lodged against his ribs.

    ¡°Fuck. That¡¯s not good,¡± he mumbled, before strength faded. Blood drooled from his wound and into the water, pulling him to a half-conscious drift. He thought about the past, stirred on by all the stories he had told Aisha. The difference between memory and waking deteriorated as his stigmata sealed his wounds and made blood from sea water.

    What drew him back to the flesh and blood, the there and then, was a gull picking at his stubble beard. The beak poking and biting at his chin. He snatched it by the neck, causing a flurry of squawks and flapping of wings. The gull scratched him with its legs until he lifted it up and glared at it. He groaned and narrowed his eyes. ¡°You¡¯d better be Master¡¯s,¡± he said, and chucked the bird back into the sea. It tumbled and splashed into the water before bobbing back up.

    Lucius grunted and set his head back down, lacking the strength to pick it up, nor the motivation to.

    The creature tucked its wings, strutting across the water like nothing wrong had happened. It preened itself a moment, undoing the ruffled feathers and side-eying him. All ingrained behavior, the kind of underlying programming that a good spell took advantage of. Soon enough, it spread its wings and took off, flying away to find the Sea Bird¡¯s Rest once more and report in.

 2-21 - Inappropriate Laughing

    Aisha was screaming at me. ¡°You killed him?¡±

    ¡°I assure you, he not only was perfectly alive when he left this ship, but also when he escaped their ship. Further, he is alive right now,¡± I said. I had brought a chair from the captain¡¯s cabin to the back of the ship and kicked my feet up on the railing to watch the approach of the Aillesterrans.

    Aisha wanted to tear her hair out, all because I had passingly compared Lucius¡¯ sorry state to the day I healed his arm. I had fully meant it when I said he would get it back himself. By throwing him off the cliff, his stigmata was forced into full swing. He was in one complete piece, hairless as a newborn, by the time we hiked down and found him. No harm, no foul as they say.

    ¡°You make a habit of this, don¡¯t you?¡±

    ¡°A habit of what?¡± I asked.

    ¡°Abusing his life.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s not abuse if he¡¯s not in danger.¡±

    ¡°He¡¯s in pain!¡±

    ¡°Pain is temporary.¡±

    ¡°Shepherd save me, you fucking monster!¡± She threw up her hands and stormed off.

    It gave me some few minutes to enjoy my pipe and watch the sea roll by, before I was interrupted again. Captain Bodin marched over, arms crossed and scowling. ¡°We can¡¯t bring this out any longer. We¡¯ve had the strangest luck, but it has effectively run out.¡±

    ¡°I wouldn¡¯t say our luck has been particularly abnormal. We simply compensated.¡±

    I knew he thought it strange we had gone a full day between the sea lanes without mishap, but people have a tendency to think bad events are more common than they are. ¡°If we go any further, they won¡¯t need to follow us to find Hearth Bay. We¡¯re about to come across fishermen. Local traders. Yachts. They¡¯ll have their pick of who to follow, and when to slip away with their knowledge.¡±

    ¡°Let them. They¡¯d only go back the way they came, and perhaps their luck won¡¯t be so good on the way back. That was always one option.¡±

    ¡°If we let that happen, we¡¯ll be hanged as traitors.¡±

    That gave me pause to think. It would take a fair amount of time for such a thing to come back to bite Vassermark, and frankly it was a miracle no one had snitched and sold out the sea lanes by now. If the Aillesterrans were willing to send exploratory ships like this, they had aims on the capital, perhaps establishing trade with Skaldheim by sea after suppressing the Vassermark navy. That would cut Jarnmark off and cripple the entire economy.

    But, I had back up plans to seize control of other kingdoms that I could enact, and the expectation was the king would give Lucius an assignment at the frontier. He would have to be summoned back for a trial of that sort, and that¡¯s if they didn¡¯t find out by the arrival of a naval siege. It was the commoners on the ship that would get executed as a show of force, not our problem.

    ¡°The real problem,¡± I said, ¡°Is that Lucius is about five miles south of us, having his toes nibbled by fish. If that stigmata user on the pirate ship throws another storm at him, he doesn¡¯t have much to hold onto.¡±

    ¡°So, we have to circle round,¡± Captain Bodin said, scratching his chin. Stress seemed to be making some of his hair fall out, or perhaps gave him a shaky hand with his razer that morning. It was hard to tell the difference.

    ¡°Indeed. Even without pirates on our heels, I think you¡¯d cripple your own career if word got out that you abandoned your primary passenger to Saphira¡¯s embrace.¡±

    He scowled at me, and began barking orders at his crew. To their dismay, the Sea Bird¡¯s Rest began a slow curve through the ocean. We must have caused some surprise aboard the ship, perhaps as much as Lucius¡¯ ill-fated escape. By us turning back to meet them, we forced the decision to them, be it to fight or flee with what knowledge they had. We couldn¡¯t have caught them, damaged as our ship was, if they chose to flee.

    They met our turn with a turn of their own, swerving to one side and gently cutting in to meet us. Sailors on both ships grimly got to their weapons, their spears and their bows. Evidently, they had enough motivation to reach Hearth Bay that they accepted our challenge.

    Once my pipe burned out, I slipped it down my sleeve and rose. ¡°Honung, get the bait barrel ready, would you.¡± I had given the alchemist my share of the ship¡¯s rum, which he had used to swamp his thoughts. Any less, and he might have begun questioning his obedience to the temples, the goddess, to his own learning. What we had done was assuredly blasphemy. Still, he got the repurposed barrel ready. Originally there had been provisions of food in it, now it had sea serpent viscera to chum the waters with.

    Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

    As our ships began to draw close, I walked to the prow of the ship, for better viewing. Aisha was there too, peering at the pirate vessel. ¡°They have a woman aboard,¡± the redhead said.

    ¡°She¡¯s the one with the storm stigmata. It¡¯s a shame.¡±

    ¡°What? That she¡¯s a woman?¡±

    ¡°That I won¡¯t be able to study her ability in any detail. I may never see it again. The fact that we aren¡¯t currently in a storm is ample evidence that she can¡¯t use it freely, or at least not quickly, and I doubt we will be taking prisoners.¡±

    She sighed and leaned on the railing. The ships were still quite far apart, the fact that she had been able to spot Kasumi was quite remarkable, but her mind went elsewhere. ¡°I don¡¯t think I know a single woman who owns a ship in all of Giordana.¡±

    ¡°No reason to think she¡¯s the owner of that ship.¡±

    ¡°No, but it does happen, doesn''t it?¡±

    ¡°Aillesterra is quite fond of gambling. It¡¯s not unheard of for a woman to end up in possession of quite large fortunes. Ships included. Mercantile fleets are a form of gambling themselves.¡±

    ¡°And Vassermark?¡±

    ¡°Captaining tends to get outsourced to men looking to make a name for themselves. Women stay in the cities and manage the affairs. There are perks to their more¡­ expansive marital families.¡±

    ¡°How sisters stay family?¡±

    ¡°Yes. It makes men somewhat more disposable than you would think. It¡¯s like having a harem in a sense, and yet notStill, if one man wants to go off and make a fortune in the Ashfall Mountains for instance, he can be confident that his wives are taken care of by the other husband. Should he make that fortune, all rejoice. So, captains tend to be men, and the ship owners tend to be their wives. Wealth accrues like that.¡±

    ¡°Wasn¡¯t exactly looking for an economics lesson.¡±

    ¡°Then you shouldn¡¯t have asked.¡±

    ¡°Your plan is going to work, isn¡¯t it?¡±

    ¡°Of course it is. Would you like an explanation?¡±

    ¡°No.¡±

    And so we left it at that, and I was truly beginning to like her. She was different. Or maybe I was just tired of the doctor boy latching onto my brain like a lamprey. Her and I watched the two ships approach in companionable silence. After I refilled my pipe, Captain Bodin thought it necessary to harangue his crew. They had the sails set just right, everything tied off and the rudder set, and so he marshaled them to the deck. Not one man slept below deck.

    ¡°Listen up, men. This is more than just a fight. This is the kind of pivotal moment that could determine the fate of nations, of kingdoms and wars. It¡¯s one of those tiny moments that no historian will remember, but will shape history nonetheless. It¡¯s something you¡¯ll brag about to Shepherd, whether you meet her today, or forty years later with grandkids running about you.¡±

    The sailors didn¡¯t grin. They stared back with scowls and tight frowns. The larger men, who had been aboard with the captain longer, nodded with his words. It reassured the younger crew. A necessary show of courage like they were defenders at a city wall. The spears they had seemed shorter than most, which I figured made them for throwing rather than forcing off boarders. They had enough to do both however, many of them holding one in either hand.

    ¡°This fight is on our terms however! They¡¯re the ones coming to us. They have to board our ship, and are we going to let them do that?¡±

    ¡°No!¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s right. These foreign pirate bastards, we¡¯re gunna send them to wet graves today! Might even take their ship ourselves. Wouldn¡¯t that be something? Who wants to be a captain?¡± That shocked the men. ¡°Whoever brings me that captain¡¯s head, he gets the ship! How¡¯s that sound?¡±

    The crew threw up their weapons and roared, filling the sea with their vigor.

    I cocked an eyebrow at Aisha, who just shook her head and sighed. Then I gestured to Honung at the back. The pirate ship had nearly twice as much sail out as us, and was cruising in fast. Before they overtook us, we could see them furling sails to match speed, some few oars scraping at the waves to modulate their speed. Their captain, Minato, seemed to be haranging his own men, prepping them for the assault.

    Then Honung kicked the barrel of inscribed gore off the side of the ship. It struck the water like ink. Blood exploded through the water impossibly fast. Captain Bodin shouted something about preparing for attack, but my focus was on the depths. Water surged up, rocking us to the side as we sailed away from the organic bomb. The pirates sailed right at it, directly into the growing roil.

    Then the giant sea boa leapt out of the water. It hammered the side of their ship with its head, jolting them to the side harder than striking rocks. The pirates screamed in panic as the serpent circled around them. I believe from the very start, it snapped their rudder off by a constriction. The sailors rallied to fight if off, weapons already in hand, as the serpent crawled over top the deck to bind around it.

    They loosed arrows, barbed and vicious but unable to pierce the creature¡¯s blubber. They slashed with swords, hardly breaking scales, and they stabbed with spears too few. Before they could even open the wounds Lucius had left upon it, the creature had entwined itself with their ship and broken their masts. Oars splintered like branches on a falling tree.

    The very nature of the ship which made it so much faster than the Sea Bird¡¯s Rest left it as fragile as an egg within the serpent¡¯s grasp. Men were still trying to wrangle the rowboats to safety when it twisted and broke their keel.

    I confess, I was laughing as I watched. It didn¡¯t engender me to the crew who had just stoked themselves into a battle frenzy and puffed their chests out on aspirations of captainhood.

 2-22 - Cyclopean

    Lucius had to be woken up by the arrival of the rescue crew, a pair of hesitantly cheerful sailors on a rowboat, while the Sea Bird¡¯s Rest was anchored nearby. The rocks were dangerous for a large ship for the very same reason they had pulled Lucius from the current. ¡°What? No blood? Did you not get in a fight?¡± he asked, waving them over. He rose as the sailors nervously chuckled.

    He had to dive into the water and swim over. With how hungry he was, grace eluded him. He flopped through the water like a confused dog, but eventually grabbed on and was hauled in. The water in his clothes made up for the weight he had lost in the last day.

    ¡°You know,¡± one of the sailors said as Lucius rolled in the bottom of the boat and caught his breath. ¡°That robed guy, the wizard, he kept saying one ridiculous thing after the next, and then he was right every time.¡±

    ¡°He has a tendency to do that. Helped quite a bit in Rackvidd. Tell me you brought food,¡± Lucius responded.

    They handed him hardtack biscuit, which he didn¡¯t even have the energy to complain about. He barely had enough energy to chew through the so-called nutrients.

    ¡°Just row,¡± the other sailor said. ¡°I say, the sooner we get them to Hearth Bay, the sooner we¡¯re free of this madness and back to normal.¡± A short time later, a ladder was tossed over the side of the Sea Bird¡¯s Rest. It clattered into the hull and they grabbed on to steady themselves. Lucius went up first, managing to keep his feet and dignity as the crew followed after and hauled the rowboat up too.

    It was Aisha who formed the welcoming committee. She stood across from him, pouting with her hands on her hips. She looked him up and down and saw the blood staining through his shirt despite the ocean wash. She stepped over and picked at it, opening up the sliced cloth to look at his flesh. When she saw that it had sealed up with only a little scar, she let out her breath and grabbed onto him. ¡°You¡¯re unbelievable.¡±

    ¡°Thanks for worrying about me,¡± he said, his mouth lost in her hair as he returned the embrace.

    A moment later, some lingering sense of propriety made her push him away. That just made the crew snicker more. ¡°Well, why don¡¯t you tell me about what happened?¡±

    ¡°Over some food, I hope?¡±

    ¡°The captain is going to take us to shore. We¡¯ll have a fire and some proper rest. Can you wait until then?¡±

    ¡°For food? Yes. I¡¯ve gotten a taste for rum though.¡±

    Aisha laughed, her smile infections. ¡°I suppose we can see to that. They¡¯re not out of the stuff yet.¡±

    Lucius was tired, and that dragged his defenses down. He stood no chance against his desire to grin back, to chase her below deck and into the shadows. If he had more strength in his legs, he might have caught her and carried her off to her cabin to press the moment and see where their desires could go. His foot buckled on a step instead, sending him tumbling and rolling. He banged one body part after another against the ship, rousing the other half of the crew before Aisha could drag him off to the supplies.

    The next thing he kissed was the lip of a rum bottle. The liquor burned in the back of his nose and in his belly and he passed it back to her as she sat beside him. He was still wet from the swim, his clothes tacky with water that clung to her dress as she put her back to his shoulder.

    Her cabin was further still, and required the momentous task of standing up. The thought of that made him tired, and the next swig of rum loosened his tongue. ¡°Shouldn¡¯t you hate me?¡±

    Aisha bristled, her back muscles tensing. ¡°Why would I hate you?¡±

    ¡°I took advantage of your brother, didn¡¯t I?¡±

    She snatched the bottle back from him. ¡°Were you the one that put a spell on him? Did you put those ideas of grandeur in him?¡±(1)

    ¡°I don¡¯t have that kind of power. I just heal. Nothing more. Sometimes I wonder whether I can even use my tongue well.¡±

    Aisha rolled her head back and rested it against his shoulder. ¡°There¡¯s something to be said for the strong silent type¡­ but, that¡¯s because most men are fools, and a fool can at least pretend to be wise if he keeps his mouth shut.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m going to keep fighting.¡±

    ¡°Of course you are. What else would you do?¡±

    This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

    ¡°No, I mean I¡¯m going to keep fighting my way to the top.¡±

    Aisha twisted to look at him. ¡°The top of what?¡±

    ¡°Everything. I can¡¯t afford to stop, and I¡¯m afraid that at some point, to do that I will have to do some very bad things. I¡¯ll have to kill my enemies, but I¡¯m afraid at some point I¡¯m going to have to betray my allies. I may even have to point my sword at them.¡±

    ¡°You should focus on getting allies you don¡¯t need to betray.¡±

    He reached over and put a hand on her leg. ¡°Those are hard to find, and you don¡¯t always get to choose your allies¡­ sometimes, you end up sailing to a foreign land with someone you barely know because someone is trying to put you to death.¡±

    Aisha laughed. ¡°I think your tongue is working just fine.¡±

    ¡°Well, that¡¯s one worry to put to rest.¡±

    ¡°And the other you should focus on is your stomach. Look at this,¡± she said as she picked at his hand. ¡°You¡¯re emaciated. Skin and bones. I can see your tendons. Are you a geriatric or something? A prisoner?¡±

    Lucius pulled his hand back, glancing at it in the scant light. ¡°You know, farmers have hands like these, when times are tough.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re not a farmer, you¡¯re supposed to be a hero. You are supposed to command attention just by walking into a room. You should inspire awe at a glance and right now, the only word to describe you is bedraggled. You need a haircut, you know that?¡±

    ¡°And a doublet or something. I¡¯m not sure what the fashion is in the capital.¡±

    ¡°A shave,¡± Aisha said with a nod.

    ¡°A new sword.¡±

    ¡°Some perfume to not smell like the horse you ride in on.¡±

    ¡°A refresher on all the noble banners and court sycophants.¡±

    ¡°A proper eyepatch.¡±

    Lucius didn¡¯t respond. His mouth hung open, empty of words. When Aisha twisted around again to see why he had stopped their little game, he tore at the rag strapped around his head and prodded at his grisly socket. ¡°Oh, shit.¡±

    That put some strength in him, put his feet beneath him too. He clambered up the nearest ladder and stuck his head above deck. Captain Bodin was already bringing us into a port. In just an hour, according to him, we¡¯d be docked, which had me pondering my pipe out at the prow. I noticed Lucius looking at me. He looked at me with two eyes.

    I sucked on my pipe, and in a cloud of exhaled smoke, I said, ¡°Oh, shit.¡±

    The moment he knew I understood the issue, he wrapped the rag around his head once more. He nearly went back to Aisha¡¯s side, but she had vanished into her cabin and shut the door. Instead, he sought out our other companion.

    Sammy sat at the back of the ship, playing backgammon with Honung. Lucius didn¡¯t look long enough to see who was winning, they had a messy boardstate, and said, ¡°I need a doctor¡¯s help.¡±

    When it came to Lucius, doctoral help was decidedly unusual, and Sammy had long since figured that out. There was also far less risk of harming the patient than normal. Evidently happy to escape whatever bet he had put down with Honung, he said, ¡°Sure, now? Or after you eat?¡±

    That gave him pause. ¡°Before, I think.¡±

    ¡°Well then, to a cabin?¡± Sammy said, snatching his silver back from the game board with a grin.

    Soon, the three of us sat down beside an oil lamp in my cabin room. Lucius took the bed, sitting over the edge and holding a carving knife like he was an arena better holding his lot. ¡°Don¡¯t you have a painkiller or something?¡±

    I shook my head. Sammy said, ¡°We have rum.¡±

    ¡°How drunk do I have to be for this to not hurt?¡±

    ¡°Drunk enough that you¡¯d probably start healing the poison,¡± I answered. ¡°You can bite down on your belt. Surgery without painkiller is common on a battlefield.¡±

    ¡°But, we¡¯re not on a battlefield!¡±

    Sammy shrugged. ¡°We kind of are. We got attacked by a sea monster and fought off pirates. You¡¯re the weird one, needing something amputated for show at the court.¡±

    Lucius turned to me. ¡°We could just say it healed after fighting. That is what happened.¡±

    I shook my head. ¡°Better they underestimate you. Means you¡¯re more likely to best them.¡±

    ¡°Well, what if we wait till after we dock? Find an apothecary, drug me up there?¡±

    ¡°And let him spread rumors about why you so urgently needed poppy milk?¡±

    For a moment, it looked like Sammy might propose some alternative solution. Perhaps, a way of purchasing late at night that wouldn¡¯t arouse suspicion. Then he said, ¡°If you just deal with the pain, you can have your meal with Aisha on the shore.¡±

    Lucius bit down on the leather. I pinned his shoulders. The doctor carved out his eye.(2)

    Once the pain subsided and we could pull the gag from his clenched teeth, we dabbed up the blood and sent him back to the deck where the sailors were tying the Sea Bird¡¯s Rest off at the dock. Lucius staggered out as drunk as if he had three bottles of rum, but it was nothing more than shock and pain and a bit of bloodloss. He had the blindfold freshly fitted to his face and tried to find Aisha with his good eye, but the redhead was already ashore. Quixotic to say the least.

    He had only one thing to do before going out to join her, and that was to dispose of the evidence. So he tossed his eye over the side and into the ocean. It hit the surface and vanished. It should have sank, but it ceased to be the moment it was enveloped by the sea.

    That was definitively not a good sign.

    <hr>

    <ol>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">She should have confronted me about this, but I think she was afraid to know the answer.</li>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">Rather than a painkiller, we in fact went the opposite direction and poisoned his eye to blind him before the ocular extraction. This was so he didn¡¯t have to see the knife approaching him.</li>

    </ol>

 2-23 - Neck Stretching

    Lucius had a growth spurt after I threw him off the cliff. It was part of the healing process. Every cell in his body was stimulated by the damage. Had I been able to feed him enough, he might have added a full head of height to himself from the ordeal. Sadly, it was nothing but an additional to fingers or so, but at his age that was a marvel nearly as great as the return of his missing arm.

    The flesh was pink and raw, like a newborn¡¯s. The skin rubbery soft, the tendons weaker than expected. He could lift it up and wiggle his fingers and put on clothes, but he could not fasten a button with it. Remarkably, that did little to dampen the joy he had as he bounded down the streets and back again. The development of strength, lacking after so long missing the limb, was of utmost importance for him, but he could hardly get past the spectacle of having ten fingers once more.

    My first order of business was fattening my coin purse once more, which was reasonably done at the time. I had a stipend as a royal engineer, as well as lucrative investments in the many merchant guilds of Vassermark. While it took me the better part of a day to prove my identity and squeeze out of those misers some coin, it can also be said that it only took me a day to arrange our travel expenses without so much as a single coin of debt accrued.

    Afterwards, I found him staring out the window of our inn room. He had a wistful gaze west to the mountains, to the fires and the mines. His mind had at once gone to the miserable thorp of miners that had spawned him. ¡°Will we be gone long?¡± he asked.

    ¡°I should think so. A very long time. Things are quite settled here for the time being. It¡¯s a peaceful place, Jarnmark, by and large. Out of the way, you know?¡±

    Slumped on the windowsill and half listening to cart drivers and fish mongers, Lucius asked, ¡°How big is the world, anyways?¡±

    I could see this was going to be a long conversation, so I took a seat. Ezra was already busy getting us tickets to the north, so I enthused the boy. ¡°Smaller than it used to be, but still takes a good number of years to travel across. Of course, that depends on how great a hurry you¡¯re in. A determined ship captain could go all the way from Titanrest in the north to the temples of Aillesterra in two moon cycles, but the rest of the journey would be hard going through the mountains. We aren¡¯t going to all those places, not yet.¡±

    ¡°Are the other places better?¡±

    ¡°In some ways, in other ways no. I hope you won¡¯t be too homesick. People tend to always be particular about the place they were born. They like the holidays they grew up with. They like the desserts they got as children and they like their own subtleties of privacy and community. The things you take for granted stick with you the most, even if every people in every place has their own particulars that are merely a bit different.¡±

    ¡°Shouldn¡¯t you be talking about what an adventure it will be?¡±

    ¡°Lucius, the adventure has only just begun! What¡¯s more, I don¡¯t think you have the time to wonder about what dragons you¡¯ll fight, and princesses you¡¯ll woo.¡±

    He turned and scrunched up his face at me. ¡°What do you mean?¡±

    ¡°I mean,¡± I said with a devilish smile. ¡°The first thing you need to worry about is studying. I¡¯m going to take that little head of yours and stuff it full of math and poetry and history and science. I¡¯m going to pack the ideas into your skull till it bursts, until you¡¯re drunk on the ideas of your betters and wielding them like a sword in combat. I¡¯m going to make you learn until you¡¯re more exhausted than hauling iron ore out of a mountain for a week!¡±

    He frowned, somehow sensing the effort I would demand of him despite not an honest day¡¯s schooling in his whole life. Everything he knew had been picked up here and there, from lectures and harangues. He had been taught by his parents, by the temples, by the actors in Wilhelm¡¯s troupe. All at random, and typically focused on skills. How to fetch water and cook a stew. How to fish and what he could eat of what he caught. How to control his expression to act in a play. These things had come with the sort of rambling wisdom of old people, and enough had stuck that he knew how to read and how to count and so on. This gave him an idea of what more there was to know.

    ¡°And then what?¡± he asked

    ¡°And then¨C¡±

    Ezra threw open the door. I had never been in the habit of bolting it, no matter how common cutpurses were. With how little I sleep, it hardly matters. She didn¡¯t care about that though, and ran in to say, ¡°There¡¯s to be a hanging!¡±

    Lucius didn¡¯t even blink. I thought perhaps he should have been more interested in the spectacle, but he had seen plenty before. I scowled at Ezra and asked, ¡°You didn¡¯t get distracted did¨C¡±

    ¡°We have passage aboard the Andalusian Crest two days from now,¡± she said, holding out a little scrap of paper torn down the middle as a receipt. ¡°They say it¡¯s a knight they¡¯re hanging for treason.¡±

    Lucius frowned. ¡°The Ashe Family is?¡±

    ¡°Yes, can we go see? It¡¯s about to happen. The whole place is a crowd.¡±

    Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

    I clicked my tongue at her and shook my head. ¡°Haven''t you seen enough men die?¡±

    Ezra rolled her eyes and groaned. ¡°But this is an execution, a hanging! It¡¯s different. Totally different from thieves and highwaymen and pirates and stuff getting stabbed. This is intentional.¡±

    I huffed back at her and took a moment to compose my thoughts. I wanted to give her some wisdom about idolizing the power of the state. I wanted to break this notion that there is something special just because a government body does it. She was my student, she should have known better than to play along with such childish notions as worshiping the state. I didn¡¯t want to be too hard on her however, because even adults fall victim to the folly, and lately some had been speaking about this mad notion of a ¡°civil contract¡± that formed the authority of the state.

    Before I could tell her as such, Lucius asked, ¡°Did you hear the name?¡±

    Ezra frowned, twisting her lips in a most child-like pout as she searched the tops of her eyelids for the answer. ¡°Patrick from Lees? But I¡¯ve never heard of a place called¨C¡±

    ¡°Patrocles?¡±

    ¡°Yeah, that¡¯s it.¡±

    The young boy bolted from the room so fast he nearly left an apparition behind himself. Out the room, through the hall, down the stairs, to the street he went. After his growth spurt, we had yet to even get him proper clothes, which made him look all the more shabby as he pushed into the mill of people. Men scowled at him and shoved him out of their way. He stumbled through horse pies. He barreled into more bodies and carts than he could count as he crossed the port city to get to the execution grounds.

    The Ashe Family had a plaza outside the walls of their palace. One of those subtle, military requirements that old cities have. While it was dressed up with statues and a fountain, the purpose was the entwining of the major roads such that troops could be marshaled and marched in any direction they might be needed. The cobblestone therefore also provided plenty of space for the free people of Jarnmark to gather and listen as their murderous thrall read out the charges.

    Lucius had to dive into the crowd like he was pushing through new growth forest, squeezing between trunks and branches till he could almost get his head into the air and hear what was being said.

    ¡°-- and found guilty of the following crimes. Assault of Edvin Ashe, first born son and prince of the Ashe Family. Dereliction of duties with respect to the protection of the realm, when he abandoned his post. Conspiracy to aid in the escape of another known fugitive of the law. And, lastly, the profaning of the symbol of Saphira during his interrogation. For these crimes, the sentence is hanging by the neck until dead.¡±

    The crowd was quick to murmur about the knight as they marched him out on the gallows. Many people knew him, mostly as the dark shadow behind Edvin. To hear that he had assaulted the boy caused rumors to run wild. It also made people press closer until their shoulders formed layer upon layer of walls around the gallows that Lucius tried to push through. Everyone wanted a look at his face, to see if he was afraid, or sorrowful, repentant, or perhaps spiteful.

    He faced the crowd like a soldier staring down an enemy shieldwall. Narrow eyes, tight jaw, steady breathing. He didn¡¯t even flinch as a priestess dabbed him with holy water to mark him as one of Saphira¡¯s, irregardless of his blasphemy.

    I had to grab Lucius by the scruff of his shirt and pull him back before he charged out to do something about it.

    ¡°Let go!¡±

    ¡°And what are you going to do? You¡¯re a child.¡±

    ¡°I have to stop them. He saved me!¡±

    I swung him around and stooped low. ¡°And what power do you have to stop them? Are you going to jump up there and tell them they¡¯re wrong?¡±

    ¡°Y¨C...¡± Even he could tell the idea seemed silly. ¡°I saved those girls. They owe me!¡±

    ¡°Girls? The children of the Ashe family? You mean the ones watching this man be put to death?¡± I asked, and forced him to look at the elevated viewing booth that had been constructed to the side of the gallows. It was a simple thing. It might even had reused the trappings of the viewing box from the arena, the same chairs and draperies and bowls of fruits to snack upon.

    Half of the Ashe family sat as witness to the act, but it was Irina¡¯s husband who stood at the front. Peter Ashe, father of Edvin Ashe, stood with his hands on the flimsy bannister, glaring down at Patrocles. Curly red hair flopping in the wind, he kept his family behind him, making a wall of himself between the lethal organ of state and the girls that Lucius had saved.

    He held up a hand for attention as the executioner readed a dark, woolen hood. ¡°If I may take a moment,¡± Peter said, granting unto himself the privilege of attention. ¡°I take very seriously the use of supreme punishment, capital execution. This is not an action taken lightly, to deprive a servant of their life. Other places deprive criminals of their freedoms, they enslave them. We think ourselves above that, but still¡­ gallows, as you can see. That¡¯s for a very important reason, because some actions undermine the very structure of society. They take a pickaxe to the foundation of civilization, and no house can stand like that. Striking at my son, when charged with his protection no less! Is like setting fire to the timber supports of a mine. So, I have to be maximally serious in response to it. Just a few weeks ago, my daughter and niece were assaulted by rogues in the forest¡­ we put their remains in gibbets outside the city gates. You all understood why we did that. Now, you see we don¡¯t make exceptions even for people we know.¡±

    Lucius forced his mouth open, against all the strain his jaw could force. ¡°But Patrocles did nothing wrong! I saved those girls, he saved me. Why don¡¯t they speak up!¡±

    Again, I had to jerk him back, keep him from rushing forward. ¡°Because they don¡¯t have power either. You want to do something? You need to change all of Vassermark, all of the world! You need power, which you don¡¯t have an ounce of right now. Charge out, and you¡¯ll be hanged too. If you want justice for that man, you first need to get the power to manifest it.¡±

    He spun on me. ¡°And how am I suppose dto do that?¡±

    ¡°By learning! By growing up. By working for me,¡± I said, holding his gaze with mine.

    He considered it, imagined in his head the possibilities that would open up before him over the years. He thought about the godling most of all, and that I was the one to kill it. Then¨C

    The rope jerked. The crowd sucked in their breath. Lucius spun about and watched as the knight, the former sword tutor of the Ashe family, danced at the end of his rope.

 2-24 - Court Politics In The Bar

    The fishing town of Red Scale welcomed us, and our coin. Warehouses opened themselves to us despite the setting sun, and provisions were procured. Captain Bodin immersed himself in the mundane business of logistics, while the free crew found refuge in the Loopy Lyre, where Aisha found herself performing a duet with the local bard. That man had a motley cloak like an Aillesterran bird, strutting about with a mandolin while she sang out the verses of The Wanderer.

    I¡¯ve been o¡¯er rivers and streams,

    I¡¯ve seen both quarrels and dreams,

    So won¡¯t, my feet, please take, me home?

    Stale bread crunched between Lucius¡¯ fingers. He jabbed the lumps into a thin fish soup, sopping up the oils until the crust could be chewed. The head of the fish rolled up in his bowl to stare at him while he had cheeks puffed full. He stabbed it with his knife.

    ¡°Calm down,¡± Sammy said. ¡°She¡¯s just playing hard to get. It¡¯s hardwired into her.¡±

    He scowled and chopped his hand onto the table like it would help him form a point. He swallowed. ¡°I¡¯m getting mixed signals, alright? I swear like¡­ three times! We¡¯ve been almost in each other¡¯s arms and then I look away and¨C¡±

    ¡°And you look away. What woman wants to be the second thing on their man¡¯s mind? Of course she would turn away if you did that!¡±

    ¡°There was a sea monster!¡±

    Sammy rolled his eyes.

    I carry my quiver and spear,

    But it¡¯s my friends kept near,

    So won¡¯t, my feet, please take, me home?

    Sammy sighed and put his chin in his hands as he watched the two bards entrance the room. ¡°One more day, and we¡¯ll be in the capital, right? I should find my master¡­ well, my old master, now that I¡¯ve met Amurabi.¡±

    ¡°Probably not a good idea, if Golden took your oath. You¡¯ll be fumbling your words something awful.¡±

    That screwed up Sammy¡¯s face into a frown. ¡°You might be right.¡±

    ¡°I think the wine is getting to me, because I¡¯m wondering if I should just grab her and drag her to bed. I think she might go for it¡­¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s a horrible idea. That¡¯s like, as a bad an idea as trying to write her a lovesong or something.¡±

    Lucius waved him off. ¡°Obviously that¡¯s a bad idea, she already knows the good ones. Damn shame Amurabi never taught me this stuff.¡±

    That made the doctor squint his eyes at him. ¡°From what I¡¯ve heard, you had plenty of opportunities¡­¡±

    ¡°What? With those noble brats?¡±

    ¡°Well, there¡¯s Ezra¨C¡±

    ¡°Out of the question.¡±

    ¡°Or that temple girl, Kajsa was her name?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s!... Opportunity missed maybe. I left the city, remember?¡±

    Then he realized that Aisha¡¯s singing had stopped. The other bard still plucked a few chords here and there, circling the crowd like a wolf looking for a new patron to request a song. They had been interrupted by a man slightly older than Lucius who wore a black tunic trimmed in gold thread. His hair, similarly black, swept down his back, held back by a silver circlet. Worst of all, he, a nobleman, was talking to Aisha.

    Lucius almost knocked the bench over, Sammy with it, when he bolted upright. Washing his meal down with an ale to strengthen himself, he headed over. He heard them talking before he got there, weaving between the tables of sailors and locals as he had to. ¡°Such a long journey,¡± he was saying, leaning close to her.

    ¡°An eventful one too. We saw whales,¡± Aisha said, crossing her legs as she sat on the table before him. She smiled.

    ¡°I know a few whale hunters. I know a thing or two about the beasts as well. Some are good eating, others¡­ not so much, you might say. What did they look like?¡± the nobleman asked.

    Aisha flicked her head to get some hair out of her face. ¡°They were big and gray, and liked to squirt for attention.¡±

    The nobleman paused, letting his mind chew on her words and tease out whether she was foreign to the language of Vassermark or if she was insinuating something. Lucius did not pause to think about it. ¡°Greetings,¡± he said. Yet to get a shave, he looked like anything but a nobleman himself; but, he did look like a soldier.

    While Lucius looked the nobleman¡¯s chest over for an insignia, the black haired man did the same to him. ¡°Looking to request a song, are you?¡± he asked, doing even more to puff out his chest as he realized Lucius outweighed him nearly twenty pounds. His insignia glittered gold across his chest, a sword beneath a jagged mount; Montisferro.(1)

    The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

    ¡°I¡¯m wondering how I can help the heir to the Montisferro family, since Miss Canta is traveling with me to Hearth Bay.¡±

    That made the nobleman scrutinize him once more. ¡°I sense you have the better of me, but perhaps because you¡¯ve been on rough times. And you are?¡±

    ¡°Lucius von Solhart.¡±

    Aisha added, ¡°You could call it rough. We had a run-in with pirates along the way.¡±

    ¡°Matteo Montisferro. Weren¡¯t you part of Lord Raymi¡¯s expedition? To¡­ well, it was to Giordana, wasn¡¯t it?¡± he said, glancing at Aisha with a more analytic eye.

    ¡°I¡¯ve been tasked with reporting to the king about the status of the expedition, and the troubles.¡±

    Matteo smiled amicably and gestured to a table. There were people sitting there, but his bodyguards vacated it for them. ¡°Wine please,¡± he called out to the waitress, then he gestured for Aisha to join. ¡°An unfortunate time for you to arrive with bad news, Solhart. There¡¯s talk of rebellion in the eastern territories. Revolutionaries all the way to Jumeaux.  King Arandall has put out the call for an assembly of the lords to discuss how to deal with the threat.¡±

    ¡°Revolutionaries? Revolutionizing what?¡± Aisha asked as she took her seat at the table, on the far side of Lucius.

    That made Matteo¡¯s smile strain, but he had been trained in diplomacy(2). ¡°They want to shackle the nobles. Most of them are talking about religious rights, but those central kingdoms are always crying persecution. You ask me, the only thing persecuting them are the cutthroat merchants ruling their cities. If they had real leadership, we wouldn¡¯t be having this problem.¡±

    Lucius kept a stoic face, primarily because he was actively attempting to sober up and drag his mind from pubescent desires to the powers of the body politic. ¡°Then, I imagine you must be going to offer your shiny leather boot to step on them with.¡±

    Matteo laughed, mirthlessly. ¡°You sound almost like those street corner preachers, the ones screaming about civil contracts and all that.¡±

    ¡°Can¡¯t say that I¡¯ve ever heard them, but you could say I recently had my own experience with people craving self-governance. It didn¡¯t go well for them. Some people mistake ideology for strength. Some people think Lumius shines down on whoever is in the right and guides them.¡±

    Matteo paused, as the waitress set down tankards of wine for them. ¡°So which do you believe in, Solhart?¡±

    Lucius grinned and held up his wine in toast. ¡°I believe in steel more than I believe in words. But for some people, they won¡¯t understand the difference between might and right until they have a boot on their throat. In this world, you need power to do anything.¡±

    Matteo narrowed his eyes, sizing him up anew. They toasted and drank. ¡°To the strength of king and country.¡±

    ¡°To Vassermark,¡± Lucius said, and they drank again.

    ¡°So tell me,¡± Matteo said, ¡°Your journey to Giordana couldn¡¯t have been that bad, and yet you seem to have left something behind.¡±

    ¡°Had it stabbed out in the war. Revolutionaries of a sort, though these southern ones wanted a return to the old, not some new republic. The excursion to the wastelands stirred up enough discontent that it boiled over. I had to cut the ring leader down in the palace at Rackvidd after they broke in.¡±

    Aisha took hold of her wine with both hands, holding it close to herself and staring into the murky depths as she relived the memories. Without quite knowing the truth, Matteo keyed in on her reaction enough to know that Lucius was telling the truth. ¡°They got into Rackvidd?¡±

    After another drink, Lucius wiped his chin off and said, ¡°One of the mountain lords had a stigmata that let him undermine the walls. The leader, Medorosa, cut his way all the way to the palace.¡±

    ¡°How did he do that?¡±

    ¡°The soldiers were at the walls. But, what could one man do? He broke a window and died. That¡¯s the thing with lowborn commanders, isn¡¯t it? They¡¯ll fight to the bitter end. No surrender, no parleys, no diplomacy.¡±

    Matteo¡¯s smile became a sneer and he held up his tankard once more. ¡°Lowborn bastards, what can you say? You might have left an eye behind, but you seem to have brought back another pair.¡±

    ¡°If I¡¯m lucky, perhaps the gods will bless me with a replacement,¡± Lucius said, bringing the nobleman¡¯s attention back to him as they tapped tankards and drank again. Much to Aisha¡¯s dismay, their talk devolved into discussions of war, of marching and sword fighting. They went over the differences in combat between what Matteo had been drilled with by sword instructors, and what Lucius had encountered of the Giordanans. It all was the noble equivalent of small talk, the almost bragging of young men.

    Lucius made sure to never make light of his battle with Medorosa, nor to ever mention the man¡¯s surname. Aisha apologized to the other bard and stayed with them at the table, talking some about the rag tag fleet of ships requisitioned, and how wonderful the bishop had been.

    The wine flowed, but it had been watered down and filtered for the two of them. When the candles were burning low and the common folk had grown tired of the guards glaring at them, Matteo at last made overtures of retiring for the night. Then he said, ¡°your reputation as a gambler preceded you, Solhart. I¡¯m quite impressed that your gambling is better with tactics than it is with dice.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ve gotten better at dice too, since going south. Just took a bit of practice. When we meet in the capital, perhaps I should show you?¡±

    The two of them clasped hands. ¡°I shall have to see if my fiancee lets me.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll hope she does.¡±

    ¡°Until we meet again, Solhart, in the king¡¯s court most likely. Maybe he¡¯ll throw a ball.¡±

    ¡°I hope not, I hardly remember how to dance if I¡¯m not swinging a sword around.¡± They laughed. Matteo departed for lodgings elsewhere. Lucius smiled until the nobleman and his guards left. Then he slammed the last of his wine. ¡°What a douchebag. He even admitted to having a fiancee.¡±

    Aisha put her elbow on the table and leaned her head. ¡°So you people have balls to celebrate upcoming wars?¡±

    ¡°The capital always has balls. What else would they use their fancy dresses for?¡±

    That perked her up. ¡°Fancy dresses?¡±

    ¡°Look, I might know a bit about dancing, but I do not know a single thing about dresses. Don¡¯t look to me for¨C¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m going to need one, oh great Sir Solhart.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m not a Sir, and¨C¡±

    ¡°Just give me the money and I¡¯ll deal with it. You¡¯re drunk anyway, shouldn¡¯t you just be agreeing with me? You came dashing to my rescue and now you¡¯re going to be clutching your purse? My job will be to be your feminine company, won¡¯t it?¡±

    He frowned. ¡°I haven¡¯t even gotten to spend any of that money¡­¡±

    She stood up. ¡°Too bad, mister hero.¡± She planted a kiss on his cheek before leaving for the night.

    <hr>

    <ol>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">The Montisferro family had bureaucratic power more than anything. Claiming descent from the lands north of Jarnmark, their ancestral lands are thought to be nothing more than dragon lairs. They claimed the ability to travel there freely, and the possession of strongholds, but they were quite fictitious. The power of the Monstisferro family laid in administration work for King Arandall.</li>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">Diplomacy was a polite way of saying half the skills of an actor, and half bullheadedness about honor.</li>

    </ol>

 2-25 - Confronting The Divine

    In the year 755 CC, as well as in the year 746, maritime visitors to Hearth Bay were greeted by the idol. Those who had never seen it, called it the colossus of Vassermark, but such a crude term was not fit for the towering statue to Saphira. I say ¡°to¡± because it certainly was not ¡°of¡±. The artist, several decades back, had elected to depict her at the direction of the local angel. Purely by coincidence it largely looked like that angel instead. Ask the sculptor all you like and he would have told you just that.

    Recently, the statue was destroyed during a siege of the city. Shipboard artillery pounded the idol to rubble, and, sadly, I didn¡¯t even have time to pick it apart before the locals had scavenged every piece of marble for it for themselves. To this day there are gaudy windowsills and expensive window keystones and more. Like a pastry chef had sprinkled garnish across the city.

    But, when the Sea Bird¡¯s Rest arrived, and when Jacque Mordare arrived, it was the idol that greeted with outstretched hand. The local temples kept a rotation, burning a pyre light in the palm to declare across the sea the city was there and their allegiance was to Saphira.

    Before I cover the arrival of the Sea Bird¡¯s Rest, I will tell what I know of Jacque¡¯s journey. It was nearly at the same time as our leaving Podrest, so the evens remained in fresh memory of those involved.

    For someone living off the charity of the Ashe family, the writer had terribly little to his name. However, his name opened doors. He had fans and sympathizers. They had copies of his essays in circulation, much to his surprise. Small business ownevers in the city viewed him like an early celebrity. Some fell over one another to be the man to put him up for the night when he arrived, and so he came to the home of a merchant by the name of Shyler. The man owned half a dozen trading ships, two of which regularly traveled to Jarnmar. He himself had never set sail on one, but he relished the stories that came back on them. He relished his feasts as well, but his rotund state is not the point.

    Jacque, fully aware of etiquette, chose not to mention the cause of his trip to Hearth Bay in so many words. In fact, he hardly had to say anything, for his admirers were the sort that did all the talking for him. They barely heard a word from their man-made idol until he said, ¡°I¡¯d like to meet with the angel.¡±

    This was a request that caused quite a deal of consternation, but it also pricked at the prides of his hosts. After all, how could they be good hosts if they couldn¡¯t appease the very reason of his journey? And so, through a series of favors ultimately leading to the high priestess of the angelic cathedral, he secured a moment to speak with Saphira¡¯s representative.

    Acheliah, whose history shall come at a more appropriate time, welcomed him half-heartedly from her bed. Much in the form of a human, she had sculpted for herself what one might reasonably call the perfect female form, if one does not mind their partner a head taller than them and occasionally equipped with wings. She was the very same sort of creature as Golden, a Divine Beast, but one who chose to live among humans almost enough to delude herself into thinking she was one.

    ¡°My greetings, my name is Jacque Mordare,¡± the writer said as he strode from one end of the room to the other. He had expected something akin to a king¡¯s throne room, and instead found a chamber one step removed from a bedroom. Rather than chairs, Acheliah had colorful pillows strewn everywhere. Rather than historical tapestries, wine amphoras served as decoration. A Divine Beast has no need for reminders of the past, in a sense they are embodiments of the past.

    ¡°My little sister says you have some questions for me. I¡¯ve given you this opportunity because she hardly ever asks anything of me. So, don¡¯t waste my time,¡± Acheliah said. She laid on her side, head propped up and one finger pointing at a thin pillow a few feet in front of her.

    Jacque frowned and knelt where directed. The incongruity of the angel¡¯s statement troubled him, for the high priestess was old enough to have great grandchildren, and Acheliah had a timeless youth. ¡°I want to ask what humans were like, when first created.¡±

    Acheliah narrowed her eyes. ¡°Humans were created to serve the gods, exactly as you are now. The only thing that has changed is your cities. Every virtue, every vice, just as you are now.¡±

    ¡°I find that quite hard to believe. I¡¯ve studied the problem thoroughly, and to me it is clear that the circumstances of one''s birth determine a great deal of who they come to be. Crudely speaking, the nobility have made themselves into another stock. I believe the differences lie in authority during childhood, and perhaps some nutritional differences. When mankind is such a malleable creature, your answer that we today, in our cities and armies and civilizations, are exactly as we were before all this¡­ I can¡¯t accept that.¡±

    Acheliah rolled upright and crossed her legs. ¡°Are you calling me a liar?¡±

    ¡°Are you calling me blind?¡±

    ¡°Impudent, aren¡¯t you? I think you hardly get out much either, else you¡¯d know that there have been cities here in Lumisgard even longer than there have been humans. From the moment you apes first thought, you had all the tools necessary¨C¡±

    Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

    ¡°But not these tools, not these cities. Ruins or caves, what¡¯s the difference? There are historical records that we only recently domesticated cows, and surely that did something to us. You gods gave us the minds we use to think, so don¡¯t fault me for putting it to good use.¡±

    ¡°I assure you, the only thing that has changed is the amount of metal you¡¯ve pulled from the dirt and what use you¡¯ve been able to put it to. You¡¯re still naked apes that never grew out of wanting your swaddling clothes. You just embellish them now and call them fashion. The most impressive thing you ever do is by divine gift.¡±

    Jacque scowled. ¡°Well, I don¡¯t have a stigmata, so I have no personal experience with that, but I can say that no matter what ability it grants, a stigmata is only as good as the man can make of it. I once met a man that could make plants grow to maturity with just a touch, but was he a farmer? You¡¯d think so, but he was a drunken lout in a gambling hall. Civilization corrupted him!¡±

    Acheliah sighed. ¡°Freedom to choose means freedom to fail. That is no concern of the gods, or of mankind as a whole. You¡¯ll all die in the end regardless.¡±

    ¡°And what of people who die without even getting one single choice in this world?¡±

    That gave the angel pause. She tilted her head. ¡°Everyone has choices. Even slaves.¡±

    Jacque scoffed. ¡°A slave has the choice between obedience and death. That¡¯s not much of a choice.¡±

    ¡°Live on your knees or die by your principles. Surely you¡¯ve heard of that.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ve never in my life met someone who would die for their principles; but, I¡¯ve met plenty that would send others to die in their stead.¡±

    Acheliah laughed. ¡°You should go to the west some time. You might learn a thing or two.¡±

    ¡°You never answered my question though. What of those who¨C truly¨C never had a choice? Why do children die?¡±

    Acheliah paused. She flicked her wrist and said, ¡°Sometimes it just happens. What do you want me to say about it? Sometimes people do stupid things. Sometimes there is undiagnosed disease. Sometimes someone else has sinned. You don¡¯t always have a choice where you survive. You might as well be asking why old people pass away.¡±

    ¡°Why do old people pass away? Why do we die? You god things made us this way, and as far as I can tell, the only thing that was on your mind was the structuring of hierarchy to put yourselves at the top. The whole manifestation of state and government that has made Hearth Bay so great, the funneling of labor from the working class up to the royal family. Well dressed thugs and warlords, and you in the church are no different.¡±

    ¡°You should watch your tongue, human. You¡¯re blaspheming.¡±

    ¡°The only purpose I¡¯ve been able to divine out of death is to prevent one man from accumulating wealth forever! It¡¯s to force him to eventually disperse his possessions among his children and so start the cycle over again, keeping humanity forever in a loop of rise and fall, child to adult, always parasitizing one another. Am I wrong?¡±

    ¡°You think far too highly of yourself, you bipedal worm.¡±

    ¡°In fact! Because it¡¯s evidently apparent by you yourself, right here in front of me, that death is not mandatory. Indeed, the gods could have let each of us live forever in an endless garden of plenty, that the gods have chosen for us to live like this. Your mother decided it was right that the great mass of humans should work beneath royalty, and they beneath you, and you beneath them. A feudalism of authority, of religious ideology. If it is right to be so, you should damn well be able to tell me why this is right? Because no sane man the world over would ever choose to live like this!¡±

    Acheliah rose and strode to him. He scrambled to his feet only too late, and she grabbed him by the hair. Digging her fingers through his chestnut locks, she twisted his head back to look at her. For a moment, she studied his eyes while he was too shocked to know what to do. Then she jabbed a finger through his temple.

    This wasn¡¯t to kill him, but to read his memories like a picture book flipped through.(1) It left him bleeding and staggered regardless.

    ¡°You lost a child you didn¡¯t know you had. I¡¯m sorry,¡± she said, flicking him back by his collar.

    Jacque fell to the ground gasping. He swiped and clutched at the wound on his head, feeling spasms of thought like waking dreams run through him. Fear took root as he crawled away, and yet he turned back to her. ¡°What do you have to be sorry about? Pity? Is that all it is? The pity of seeing a lesser being suffer? It never seems to motivate you things to help!¡±

    Acheliah followed after him, one stride at a time, never letting him cower away. ¡°We operate the temples, do we not? We teach you more than the raw facts of the world. Saphira more than the others, we teach you how to think and why it¡¯s important to think. This is not for you to turn your spite against us, but because there may come a day where you will be needed. You humans will be conscripted or consumed to deal with things from beyond the veil of Lumisgard. We learned our lesson during the last war; against those apes which didn¡¯t need to die. This is a much more stable civilization, and nothing brings prosperity like stability does. Unfortunately, it seems like you¡¯ve¡­ well, aped a portion of their immortality. You¡¯ve invested your soul into your writings and spread them out like embers from a fire. I¡¯m going to have to stamp them out, you know that? Do you have any idea how much work this will be? If I¡¯m even able to at all! You¡¯ve put heresy to paper and I can only imagine what some people are doing right this very moment. They must think they¡¯ve found a grand thing, a secret kept from them. They¡¯ll mistake the need for me to crush it as censorship. I can hear them already, screaming at me that only the truth needs be censored¡­ as though they aren¡¯t all children in my eyes.¡±

    Jacque hit the wall, almost crawling up it to get away from her as ever more blood dripped from his skull. It stained his clothes and left a trail she trampled over. ¡°You¡¯re monsters!¡±

    Acheliah smiled. ¡°Feel free to complain to Shepherd when you meet her. She was designed to have patience for people like you,¡± the angel said before she caved his skull in with her heel.

    <hr>

    <ol>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">Direct scanning of a soul is not pleasant for the victim, but it does create a remarkably accurate recreation of events. Even if it is many years later. Even if the soul is an angel¡¯s.</li>

    </ol>

 2-26 - Meeting the King

    As I write this, it has become feasible to send a message faster than a ship. Some stigmata directly facilitate the transfer of knowledge, while most places rely on trained birds or a robust series of stables and fresh horses. None of these were an option when the Sea Bird¡¯s Rest arrived at Hearth Bay. When we rowed through the harbor and past the great idol, so too were we the first to arrive with tidings of the siege of Rackvidd.

    The port master hardly even believed us.

    We had managed to shave Lucius and clean his clothes of the blood, but he didn¡¯t have the noble air about him. The men who stood nearby were sailors that worked for Captain Bodin, not an entourage of guards and servants. It wasn¡¯t until we began unloading the crates of gifts and trophies that the portly portmaster smiled and said, ¡°I shall arrange a carriage for the king.¡±

    As he watched the civil officer bustle away, eager to invoice the royal treasury, Lucius crossed his arms. ¡°This is never going to stop, is it?¡±

    I nodded my head. ¡°Oh, it will. Eventually you¡¯ll have such an entourage, and an honor guard and so on, that you won¡¯t even have to introduce yourself. Until then, best to keep humble, yes?¡± Then, I attempted to leave.

    ¡°Where are you going?¡±

    ¡°Away,¡± I answered. ¡°I used more of my magic than I would have liked, and I¡¯ve no desire to catch up with old acquaintances just yet. Go on, you don¡¯t need me for this. The smiling and hand shaking was never my specialty anyway.¡±

    Disgruntled but once more in the swing of the act, Lucius returned to the small group we had traveled with. Captain Bodin¡¯s crew stayed with him sending him off with a hearty, ¡°And please keep your chaos to yourself. The sea is harsh enough.¡± Unfortunately for him, that would not be the last the two of them met.

    In mere moments, the traveling party had been reduced to nothing but Lucius, Sammy, and Aisha, both of which played the roles of his attendants. The portmaster delivered them a cart and a driver, the goods were loaded, and they set off to the Arandall castle. The city itself, Hearth Bay, was built into the river delta of the Pelagus River, each mud island built into a foundation for the city. Rivers and canals beneath ferried goods, while bridges linked the high walls together for people and carts. Every island was bulwarked against siege and flood both, which had the unfortunate consequence of funneling wind between them. The everflowing Pelagus River was the city¡¯s sanitation system, and the smells would whip across the bridges.

    ¡°How do people live like this?¡± Aisha asked, plugging her nose and holding down a gag.

    Lucius inhaled and nodded. ¡°You get used to it. This is just what happens when a city gets big enough.¡±

    ¡°A city like this has more to worry about plague and fire than about a bad stench,¡± Sammy said.

    Just then, another scent reached them. A food stall was frying a curious concoction of honey and flower, the treat foaming and fizzling into sticky spirals that infused the air with the sweet allure like nectar. It had Aisha nearly falling out of the cart, looking up and down the street, trying to spot it. ¡°What was that?¡±

    ¡°Fried sweets or something. We can get some later. There, look up. The castle,¡± Lucius said as the cart crested one of the great drawbridges. They had been able to see the tower peaks, like distant giants among smoking chimneys, but only then did they come face to face with the tower granite walls. Twice again as sturdy as any city burrough, Castle Arandall made the other fortifications seem like mere dykes for the storm floods.

    ¡°There are people on the walls,¡± Aisha said, almost crawling into the front seat with the driver.

    Lucius shrugged. ¡°Of course there are. What else would you have a standing army do?¡±

    ¡°Patrol the city?¡± Sammy asked.

    ¡°Then the king wouldn¡¯t seem important,¡± Lucius said, and rose in the cart. Just as he moved to the back, they were directed to one corner of the keep¡¯s courtyard and one of the castle steward¡¯s undersecretaries walked over to meet them. Lucius smiled and dismounted. ¡°I¡¯ve come for an audience with the king.¡±

    ¡°And you are?¡± the shrewd man asked, jotting down shorthand notes about the three of them.

    Lucius produced a sealed letter from Rackvidd. ¡°Lucius von Solhart, here on orders of Felix von Raymi to report on the southern expedition.¡±

    The under secretary pursed his lips and took the letter. He snapped the seal and read over the contents, which contained a description of Lucius. I later confirmed that it also stated he was missing an eye, which made us quite relieved we went to the bloody effort. ¡°Well,¡± the man said, stuffing the letter back in the envelope. ¡°The king is a very busy man, I can¡¯t make you any promises about when¨C¡±

    ¡°Tell him I have his first shipment of ley,¡± Lucius said, and banged his fist on one of the barrels he had brought with him. The barrel banged back, nearly breaking the shock absorbers in the cart.

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    The undersecretary¡¯s eyebrows went up, and his pursed lips became a smile. ¡°I¡¯ll see what I can do.¡±

    ¡°Could you send a maid or someone as well? For more trivial matters?¡± Lucius asked.

    The undersecretary bowed and walked off, saying, ¡°I¡¯ll see what I can do. Just wait here for the time being.¡±

    Aisha sat down on the back of the cart, her feet dangling as she looked around the castle. She kept looking at the different knights and soldiers,a t the nobles and women in dresses. ¡°They leave nobles to wait?¡±

    ¡°For the king, everyone waits,¡± Lucius said, and helped the cart driver unload the goods they had brought. The poor man eyed the ley barrel uneasily, refusing to touch it himself, then wasted no time in leaving them in the courtyard to return to his duties.

    They weren¡¯t alone in the courtyard however. The small park within the walls and outside the keep had found new life as a small point of public gathering. A man in commoner clothes, little more than a rough tunic and trousers, had taken a stand atop a tree stump to say what was on his mind to any who would listen. It made Sammy sneer, but a dozen people of all stripes listened and nodded.

    He was a revolutionary. ¡°The divine right of kings is at an end. It is clear for all with reason in their minds. It may have once been appropriate, but like children leaving their mothers, we must step out from behind the goddesses. Think about it! If the nobles were preordained to rule over us, then they would be well fit for the job, they would be sovereigns and embody the will of the people. They would be supernaturally wise and just, as history says our first king and queen were. But! The blood and grown thin. They have interbred with common lords, no better than anyone here. They no longer have the stigmata of wisdom. The gods have revoked their sign and left nothing but a tacit assumption of rulership!¡±

    Aisha crossed her arms and frowned. The man¡¯s speech could be heard all the way across the courtyard, and most of the guards glared at him like they did. ¡°The king let¡¯s people do this?¡±

    Lucius nodded. ¡°People have been doing this for at least the last ten years, since the last time I was here. He lets them because they don¡¯t have the power to do anything, and if he stops them then he¡¯d be called a tyrant and maybe they would have the power to do something.¡±

    She arched an inquisitive eyebrow. ¡°So, better to let him insult him in his own home?¡±

    He laughed. ¡°I think he¡¯d have another matter if they were at his home, this castle is government property. Any citizen of Vassermark is allowed at least this far in.¡± Then, one of the castle servants arrived, and he began a discussion on baths, and a change of clothes for proper presentation before the king.

    Aisha shook her head. ¡°You have an interesting king, Lucius.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s not often you find a king who¡¯s a liberal.¡±

    ¡°Thank you,¡± King Arandall said, though no one present had realized he had approached. He had but a pair of knights to escort him, no royal cape or crown, or even his scepter. He merely had the white and blue of his house colors dyed to his doublet, itself a luxurious thing of quilted goose down. ¡°I hear you have my ley!¡±

    Lucius was slow to react, but faster enough after the maid bowed to him. ¡°My liege, I was not expecting you so soon.¡± He thumped his fist to his heart and dropped to a knee.

    ¡°And you were told correctly. I should have finished up properly, but I couldn¡¯t contain myself,¡± King Arandall said as he smiled and waved Lucius back to his feet. ¡°Show me what you¡¯ve brought, young Solhart. The bad news can wait until later.¡±

    ¡°Yes,¡± Lucius said, and wasted to further time in opening the barrel. He pulled the lid free and extracted the first bundle. Wrapped again and again in rags, a freshly manufactured cannon rod was laid out before him.

    King Arandall picked up one piece and then the next, turning them over in his hands without saying a word.

    Then Lucius unwrapped the next gift, which I had played a small part in helping. It looked exactly the same as the cannon rod, but in miniature. As slender as an arrow, it had been manufactured small enough to fit a footsoldier. A slight refinement on the weapon Ezra had used so many years prior.

    ¡°Does this work? Do the forces not destroy it?¡± the king asked, holding the assemblage like an infant. The king was no fool in scientific regards, he knew what he was looking at immediately.

    Lucius grinned and made a show of cocking his head. In his hand was the last gift, blueprints to construct the hand-cannon. ¡°I would be happy to attest to it working, but it would surely be more convincing to prove it to you. I would have waited for the construction of the stock and barrel in Rackvidd, but circumstances forced my journey north. Provide this to your blacksmith and let us see if it works.¡±

    Impudent perhaps; but, it made King Arandall laugh and clap him on the shoulder. ¡°I like that attitude, young Solhart,¡± he said, peering in to see the many bricks of raw ley that filled the bottom of the barrel, to be used in his other projects. It made him grin and hum and almost dance as he said, ¡°Come, let us get you into a bath and arrange some food. Do you need to see my physician? You seem to have been quite injured.¡±

    ¡°No need for that. A bath to freshen myself up and then I can tell you all about the southern expedition,¡± Lucius said, taking a half step to the keep.

    The king paused before sending him off to be situated by the servants. ¡°And who¡¯s this? She doesn¡¯t look to be from Vassermark.¡±

    ¡°Aisha Canta, she was of great help ending the conflict, and is a very skilled bardic performer. She has made for¡­ excellent company on the trip.¡±

    The king grinned and wiggled his eyebrows. ¡°Oh? Is that so?¡± he asked with a laugh. ¡°Well, if she¡¯s such a good bard, perhaps she would make good company for my daughter. You don¡¯t mind, do you?¡±

    In no way could he defy the king, not this early on. ¡°Not at all,¡± Lucius said, turning his attention to Aisha.

    ¡°I¡¯m sorry, what?¡± the dumb founded bard asked. ¡°I¡¯m not prepared to entertain¨C¡±

    ¡°You should be honored, Aisha,¡± Lucius cut in. ¡°Your talent was recognized at first glance. Enjoy the bath while you can, and try to not eat too many cookies.¡±

    Lucius and the king walked off with his guards, leaving Aisha and Sammy with the maid. For as much as his heart drummed with excitement, with duper¡¯s delight at marching brazenly past the crowd of commoners and into the main hall, it was Aisha who could hardly contain herself.

 2-27 - Time For Tea

    Kassandra vi Arandall, first princess of the royal family, did not take after her father. This made her nearly useless to me, but most people found her hard to dislike. Her reaction to seeing Aisha for the first time was to clap her hands together and declare, ¡°A Giordanan! From the south, that¡¯s wonderful. We shall have to have you perform with Friedrich from the north. And then with the two of you, we shall procure another from the far east, Aillesterra maybe? And then we shall have all the compass directions covered!¡±

    Felicia Raymi, Lord Raymi¡¯s daughter, may as well have been tied at the hip to Kassandra, such was her position at court. She was the one to drolly say, ¡°There are four, or eight directions on a compass, Kassie. That would only be three bards.¡±

    The blond princess spun to face Felicia. ¡°Then we shall bring out one of the court jesters, and he shall be our western bard. We are the kingdom of the west, are we not?¡±

    ¡°We¡¯re the kingdom of the sea. We just happen to be in the west,¡± Felicia responded, picking up one of the chocolate laden cookies that adorn their garden table.

    ¡°Of the western sea then. There¡¯s no one further west so what does it matter? We shall bring the four of them together and have them perform! It will be a grand thing, don¡¯t you think?¡±

    Aisha cleared her throat. ¡°If I may, princess? Such an event would require a composer, familiar with all four styles of music.¡±

    Kassie spun back to her. ¡°Well, that sounds like a perfect job for someone from the central kingdoms!¡±

    Felicia groaned. ¡°And now you¡¯ve gone and fabricated three other people we need for this event. How are you going to get these people? Are you going to demand that Miss Canta stay here for that long?¡±

    ¡°Why would I have to demand? Nobody turns down royal hospitality. My father will certainly approve of it.¡±

    ¡°Princess,¡± Aisha said, tentatively trying to get a word in.

    ¡°Oh, where are my manners, have a seat!¡± Kassie said, patting the chair beside her. Aisha mumbled a thanks and sat down, only to be interrupted once more. ¡°Oh, and do help yourself to the treats. It wouldn¡¯t be ladylike for me to eat them all myself, but I¡¯d eat a hundred if I could.¡±

    Felicia rolled her eyes. ¡°We¡¯ve done that experiment, Kassie. You gave up at twenty-two.¡±

    The princess shrugged. ¡°Twenty-two? A hundred? What¡¯s the difference?¡±

    ¡°Seventy-eight,¡± Felicia answered. ¡°And probably a ripped corset.¡±

    By this time, Aisha had picked up one of the cookies. She stared at it for a moment, surprised to find it drizzled in chocolate, complimenting some sort of fruit preserve in the middle. She had eaten half of the sugary treat by the time their attention circled back around to her. ¡°Princess, uhm, your cookies are delicious,¡± she said, covering her mouth as she swallowed. ¡°But, what I wanted to say is that my stay here is predicated on Lucius.¡±

    Kassie turned to her bodyguard, a woman who might have been half-troll and strong enough to remove an interloper''s head by pinching her fingers together, and she asked, ¡°Who¡¯s Lucius?¡±

    ¡°Lucius von Solhart, son of the Solhart family. Arrived this morning with news for the king,¡± the half-troll grunted back.

    Kassie tilted her head. ¡°The Solharts are poor though. They¡¯re not important.¡±

    Felicia snorted and hid her face until she suppressed her laugh. ¡°Still noble, though. Kassie, it¡¯s improper to steal retinue from your subordinates, you know?¡±

    The princess pouted and planted her hands on her hips. ¡°Well, then I just have to request it of him directly! Then it won¡¯t be stealing.¡±

    Aisha was in no position to explain why leaving Lucius¡¯ protection would be dangerous for her health. She tried, ¡°Would you perhaps like to hear some of the music of Tavina? I would need to borrow someone¡¯s instrument however.¡±

    The princess clapped her hands together. ¡°That would be lovely. Helda, would you have someone fetch Friedrich? We need his instruments, not him, but he¡¯s welcome too.¡± The overgrown bodyguard nodded and turned her back on the trio to fetch a maid. The two noblewomen turned to Aisha in earnest after that, assaulting her with questions. They pried into all manner of things, private and historical, without ever even approaching the events that had brought her north. They quizzed her on foods from Giordana, and the local authors and poets, the performing troupes that sometimes left Aillesterra as well as the practices of temple hymn singing.

    They had just gotten to the subject of courting, and all the pertinent differences between Vassermark and Giordana, when Friedrich at last arrived. He swaggered into the garden, not from brazen audacity but from a lingering hangover. After so many weeks in the royal palace, he had determined that no one in the royal family cared what he looked like in the morning, and they by far preferred his ability to stay up gambling into the night. The man provided excellent cover for some of the more clandestine encounters that royalty might be required to make, and he wholeheartedly indulged the drinking. ¡°Princess,¡± he said with a smile, brushing his shaggy gray hair back. ¡°How may I be of service?¡± His bag thumped and trilled when he dropped it on the grass. Taut strings vibrating within.

    Aisha rose. ¡°You must be Friedrich, a pleasure. I¡¯ve come all the way from Tavina in the south and have been deprived of my instruments. I have nothing but my voice, which is a bit poor for the princess.¡±

    The old bard nodded, rubbed his congested nose, and said, ¡°Do you use four-string or eight-string guitars down south? I¡¯ve never been.¡±

    She winced. ¡°Six, normally¡­¡±

    Friedrich tugged open his bag and pulled out the many varieties of lyre he had. Like breeds of dog, they were all shapes, sizes, colors, and temperaments.  ¡°Perhaps I should assist briefly. Some of these can be finicky, even to veteran players.¡±

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    Kassie leapt up. ¡°Please! If I can¡¯t have all the compass directions, I shall at least have the two opposite ends of the world.¡±

    Friedrich sat cross legged upon the ground and checked the tuning on a long necked guitar, double stringed into a rich blend. ¡°You might yet. I was the hard one to get. You¡¯re not exactly on good terms with Skaldheim, now are you?¡±

    The princess let all her breath out, deflating back into her seat. ¡°As long as you¡¯re our spy and not theirs, we¡¯ll keep you happily.¡±

    Friedrich laughed. ¡°Of course, your highness. Now, you, redhead. Who taught you? Travelers or temples?¡±

    ¡°The temples mostly. I¡¯ve picked up other songs, but nothing¨C¡±

    ¡°Nothing you learned from sailors, please. Her brother will have my head if we start singing about the ladies o¡¯ the sea.¡±

    Aisha coughed and hid the blush in her cheeks. ¡°Please, my brother would have had my skin if I ever sang something like that.¡±

    Ever the innocent, Kassie cocked her head to one side. ¡°Ladies of the sea?¡±

    Friedrich grimaced. ¡°Nothing fit for a garden, nor a true lady. You won¡¯t catch me talking about the dreamt up succubi of sailors.¡±

    ¡°Succubi?¡± Kassie asked.

    Aisha clapped her hands together. ¡°We should perform the old songs, yes? Those have been around. Everyone knows them. How about The Dance of Featherheft?¡±

    Friedrich frowned. ¡°This one?¡± he asked, strumming a melody. ¡°Or this one?¡± he asked, plucking another.

    Aisha frowned and picked up another of his instruments. She gave it a few test plucks then played out a slightly out of tune melody. ¡°Does this sound familiar?¡±

    The northerner laughed. ¡°Oh, that song. In Skaldheim we call that The Death of Feathervain. You must have a more upbeat set of verse for it. Come on, come on then, I know that song,¡± he said, taking the four stringed guitar from her. I can only describe what then preceded as a musical argument, which went entirely over the princesses head. TThey each had entirely different perspectives on the tone of the song, as they hailed from opposite sides of the almost forgotten war, and thus had opposite feelings about the proper winner of the mythical hero. Regardless, chords and rhythm exist on a more primal level than the contextual meaning of words.

    Ultimately, it hardly mattered beyond that it entertained Kassandra while her father arranged a feast for Lucius¡¯ arrival. Their play in the garden did not come to an end with something responsible occurring, but with the arrival of yet another visitor.

    Acheliah descended from the sky, angelic wings spread wide as she dumped air and alighted upon one of the garden statues. The sight, the reality shifting presence of magic, stopped Aisha in the middle of a sentence. Friedrich trailed off, letting his instrument hum as he stared up at her. The angel¡¯s attention skipped over the two of them. ¡°Kassie!¡± she cried out with a beaming smile. She waved and leapt down, gliding gently to the table. ¡°How are you?¡± she demanded, throwing her arms around the princess and spinning her about.

    ¡°Ashley, what brings you here?¡± Kassie asked.

    The angel reluctantly let go and said, ¡°Your stupid father is what. Did you know he sent me a form letter? Can you believe that? I had one of my servants come and demand that he take action on various crimes against the monasteries, and he sent them away with a note saying that he would get to it in due time. In due time! Can you believe that?¡±

    Felicia rose and bowed to the angel. ¡°Acheliah, the king will be holding a court session momentarily. The council has been summoned to hear the report from¨C¡±

    ¡°Wonderful. I shall head there at once. I won¡¯t need to wait to get all the important people together.¡±

    Unflappable, Felicia said, ¡°The king¡¯s resources are preoccupied with war on the borders. I¡¯m sure he meant no offense, but unless the crimes are very serious¨C¡±

    Acheliah swiped her hand through the air. ¡°The king will prioritize whatever I tell him to. It is by my grace that he has the right to rule. And speaking of that, why does he allow blasphemers in the courtyard?¡±

    ¡°Ashley, no good!¡± Kassia said, thumping the irate angel on the arm. ¡°The last time you took justice into your own hands, you almost caused a riot! And you haven¡¯t even put your wings away.¡±

    ¡°Sorry, sorry.¡± At a thought, her pillowy wings of feathers, like marble walls behind her, shrank into her body, vanishing into the toned muscles of her back as nothing more than tattoo markings, akin to stigmata. ¡°I said I wouldn¡¯t go killing people again, and I¡¯ll keep that promise, really. So, smile again?¡± she pleaded, holding the princess¡¯s hands together.

    Kassia sighed and grinned. ¡°It¡¯s not me you need to promise to, but father.¡±

    ¡°I know, I know¡­ now then,¡± she said, her tone becoming hard as she glared Aisha up and down. ¡°Who are you?¡± Before Kassia could introduce her, Acheliah shoved past and grabbed hold of Aisha. Her hand nearly took a fistful of hair, but hesitated and cupped her chin instead. ¡°I recognize that scent on you, human. You¡¯re from that damn bird¡¯s territory, aren¡¯t you? What did you do that he left his mark upon you?¡±

    Aisha hesitated, but she knew that if she faltered, while Lucius was able to throw himself against godlings, armies, and sea monsters, she had to be strong too. ¡°I made a promise, that¡¯s all. My name is Aisha Canta, and I traveled here with Lucius von Solhart. I¡¯m a bard, didn¡¯t you hear my singing as you flew here?¡±

    The angel was as bad at detecting lies as she was at cleanly putting down dissent. Thus, she was in the habit of offloading that mental work to people like Kassia and Felicia, both of whom nodded agreement. So she let go and glanced at Friedrich, who had yet to even stand up. ¡°Well, I suppose I did hear a pleasant voice. I thought perhaps I finally was hearing Felicia¡¯s music, but I was mistaken. Better than your gravelly croaks, northman.¡±

    ¡°I only choke up because of your beauty,¡± he said.

    ¡°Don¡¯t be disgusting,¡± she said, half turning away from him. ¡°Now, you,¡± she said, pressing a finger to Aisha¡¯s chest. ¡°Under no circumstances are you to sing vulgar songs to my little Kassie. Got that?¡±

    Aisha¡¯s shoulders slumped. ¡°Why do people keep accusing me of that?¡±

    ¡°Because you look like you sing in bars, for pirates,¡± the angel said, frowning. That wounded Aisha even more, stabbing as deep as it was truthful. ¡°But, if you met Golden, I¡¯m sure you¡¯ve done plenty to prove piety to¡­ the death goddess, yes?¡±

    ¡°Yes, I pay worship to Shepherd,¡± Aisha mumbled.

    ¡°Better than yet another sun worshiper. At least you southerners know your place and don¡¯t try to lump all things good to Lumius. And you¡¯re suitably pretty, so you have that going for you.¡±

    ¡°Thank you?¡±

    At last, the angel took her finger off Aisha and turned back to the noblewomen. ¡°Well then, how do I get to your father quickly?¡± she asked, taking for herself the last of the cookies.

    Kassie sighed and shrugged. ¡°I suppose the music is over for now.¡±

    ¡°Give us some time,¡± Friedrich said. ¡°Let me and the lass come to agreement and you¡¯ll be doubly impressed.¡±

    Acheliah grinned over her shoulder at him. ¡°Sorry, but I¡¯ll be taking her with me. I want to meet this Lucius that brought her here.¡±

    ¡°I thought you wanted the king,¡± Aisha said.

    ¡°I want them both, and I¡¯ll get them both. Come, show me the way,¡± the angel said, nudging Kassie forward, but it was Felicia who rose and took the lead.

    Aisha deflated. ¡°I¡¯ve never met someone more cursed to find trouble¡­¡±

 2-28 - The Upper Nobility

    The time that King Arandall spent enthusing his engineering hobby and sweet talking his blacksmiths and associated craftsmen was not time wasted. It simply took that long to gather the other men who needed to hear Lucius¡¯ report. When they gathered, and before the feast had been prepared, Lucius was brought to the High Hall. Not the Grand Hall, for which public ceremony and grievance claims were made, but the smaller twin with a balcony window overlooking the sea. It had a cool breeze and didn¡¯t radiate heat back as much.

    King Arandall sat down on the old throne, not his own seat but one from a dead family nearly a century back. It had the same historic craftsmanship as the other noble thrones across Vassermark, but no other home. When the Arandall family absorbed the properties and later redistributed the holdings, the throne lingered behind.

    Everyone else had to stand.

    Danyl von Ashe, the military lord of the Ashe family and Duke of Jarnmark, took the king¡¯s right side. Duke Jules von Feugard, lord of the eastern plains, stood on his left. Lastly, an unintroduced man Lucius surmised to be the king¡¯s spymaster. The most powerful men in Vassermark stood before him. Though, of course, if women were to be included, Acheliah was merely on her way and not yet there.

    ¡°Now then,¡± King Arandall said, gesturing at Lucius. ¡°Tell us what has happened.¡±

    ¡°A blitz war,¡± Lucius said, his hands held behind his back. ¡°Some of the locals that Lord Raymi employed in the expeditions to the wastelands spurred a general rebellion among the locals. A merchant¡¯s son by the name of Medorosa Canta swore a vendetta, which catalyzed the uprising.¡±

    ¡°And where did it begin?¡± Duke Ashe asked.

    ¡°In Puerto Faro, across the southern see from Ley Port.¡±

    Duke Feugard stroked his drooping mustache. ¡°We had that town garrisoned, did we not? Giordana is a land of rabble and city states. They don¡¯t even have an army.¡±

    ¡°Yes, sir. The garrison forces were taken by surprise and forced from the city the night of the vendetta.¡±

    King Arandall said, ¡°Weren¡¯t you the one in charge of keeping that city?¡±

    ¡°Yes, sir.¡±

    ¡°And you lost it?¡±

    ¡°That is correct.¡±

    ¡°What do you have to say for yourself?¡±

    ¡°By the time the troops could be mustered in the night, the fort had already been lost to fire. Since Lord Raymi had already sailed east and concluded his work, I judged a retreat to join forces with him was appropriate.¡±

    Duke Ashe sneered, crossing his arms. ¡°And you couldn¡¯t retake the city?¡±

    Lucius sucked in breath, inflating his chest to match the lord¡¯s disdain. ¡°I could have, but we were outnumbered already, and there was no guarantee that the ring leader would be captured. He demonstrated repeatedly an uncanny ability to gather fresh troops. He did so in Puerto Vida and in the Ash Fall Mountains, adding Erdro Karakale to his retinue. If I recaptured Puerto Faro, no one would have warned Lord Raymi in time.¡±

    King Arandall arched an eyebrow. ¡°Did he have some particular stigmata to do this?¡±

    Lucius shook his head. ¡°His stigmata was more suited for infiltration. He gathered the men by appealing to sentiments for independence.¡±

    Duke Feugard groaned. ¡°We should have rushed them the way our ancestors did. Put their able men on spikes. It would have fit their barbarous justice. Just like¨C¡±

    The king put up his hand to silence him. ¡°The yellow king is mere history. I won¡¯t allow subjects, even colonial subjects, of my crown to be brutalized like that. The point was to integrate the coast, civilize them, and make a bulwark against Aillessterra. I suppose now we¡¯ll have more pirates than ever. What of Rackvidd?¡±

    ¡°Secure, your highness. The mountain lord Karakale broke part of the wall, but it will be rebuilt soon. The men who took up arms against us were crushed between the defenders of Rackvidd and my own forces.¡±

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    Duke Ashe narrowed his eyes. ¡°So you didn¡¯t make it inside the city yourself? Did you not reach them in time to warn them?¡±

    ¡°No, sir. A volcanic eruption blocked the road to Rackvidd, and we had to double back. Fighting with Canta¡¯s rearguard delayed us further, which gave Karakale time to undermine the city wall. I was only able to cut him down mere moments after the collapse.¡±

    That earned him approving nods from the other men. ¡°You did it yourself?¡± the spymaster asked, scratching at his muddled beard, one of a dozen scars itching.

    ¡°Yes,¡± Lucius said. ¡°I judged him to be the greatest threat and defeated him in single combat.¡±

    ¡°And how did you do that?¡± Duke Ashe asked, inspecting Lucius¡¯ frame. He had never met the real Solhart, but a military man such as him kept tabs on the abilities of people like Lucius. Despite getting the garrison responsibility, that post had not been earned. What¡¯s more, after nearly drowning in the sea, Lucius had yet to rebuild his strength much.

    The only thing Lucius could do was tug the neck of his tunic down and show them part of the divine sigil across his breast. ¡°I manifested a blessing from the gods which saved my life. I¡¯ve put it to good use.¡±

    ¡°How lucky of you,¡± the spymaster said, leaning against the wall.

    The king scowled. ¡°Yes, very lucky indeed, but what of the ley? That was the whole purpose of sending so many thousands of men south. Was a mine secured or not? And even if it was, how are we to get any of the ley without control of the ports?¡±

    At last, Lucius could let out his breath and smile. ¡°They ley has been secured, and as we speak, Lord Raymi is mobilizing to recapture Puerto Faro. The victory at Rackvidd was quite decisive. Ships will arrive in the next few days carrying the bounty of the wastelands. That was achieved flawlessly.¡± He didn¡¯t add how expensive, in gold and blood, it had been. That would have dampened the king¡¯s mood.

    ¡°Well then, we should celebrate. This is a tale of victory,¡± King Arandall said.

    ¡°A tempered one to be sure,¡± Duke Ashe said.

    ¡°One which should be rewarded appropriately,¡± Duke Feugard said.

    The spymaster strode to the door. ¡°Always opportunities to put a young man to work. I¡¯ll prepare some suggestions.¡±

    ¡°Prepare an announcement too,¡± King Arandall said, and slapped his hands onto the arms of his throne. He rose, decisively ending the meeting. ¡°We will convene again when the ley arrives. That barrel you brought me has given you that much time to be the hero of the night at least.¡±

    Then the door was opened. Everyone but Lucius flinched, resisting the urge to shrink back. He had to turn around to see why. Expecting assassins, he instead saw Acheliah smiling.The sun struck her dramatically from the balcony, putting a richness to the shimmering color of her hair and dress. At once a murky lavender and then nearly blonde, like the many faces of the ocean itself. Her smile shifted from welcoming to nearly predatory as she noticed Lucius.

    ¡°Boys¡­ who¡¯s this?¡± she asked. Guards snapped to attention, glancing at their king for direction as she moved in. No sign was given.

    Lucius fought the instinct to fight. She had the same presence as a godling, more strength than the parasite he fought in the south, more age than the abomination we sealed beyond Jarnmark. He had a wariness that I had mistakenly put into him, from my own concern that she might kill me.

    She clued into it at once.

    ¡°This is Lucius von Solhart, returned from the southern campaign,¡± Duke Ashe said, putting himself between her and his liege.

    Acheliah bent over, bringing her eye level with him, and smiled. ¡°Oh, oh, oh, I¡¯ve heard all about you. I¡¯m so glad we finally get to meet¡­ Cassius, there will be a feast tonight, won¡¯t there?¡±

    ¡°A small one,¡± King Cassius von Arandall said.

    ¡°I¡¯ll join. It sounds absolutely delightful to have a war hero be my cupboy. Doesn¡¯t that sound like an honor¡­ Lucius?¡±

    A threat, an insult, a humiliation, all in one.

    Lucius¡¯ body drew ever closer to the edge. She was a mere handful of words away from pulling our charade to tatters, and there was no end of things she could do to him, immortal or not. Until I recovered my spent strength, or more, there was little I could do to stop him from being her plaything, if she so chose. He didn¡¯t even have a sword on him to put his trust into. All he had was his tongue.

    ¡°I didn¡¯t know the angel of Hearth Bay was so easily courted. To think that I would be rewarded by sharing wine with a beauty of the gods.¡±

    Acheliah laughed. ¡°Oh, you are a dangerous one aren¡¯t you. Save some of that for tonight, why don¡¯t you?¡± she said, strolling past him. ¡°Now, then little Cassius, take a walk with me. We have to talk about the temples.¡±

    Duke Ashe gritted his teeth as she put her arm around the king and walked him out. It was Duke Feugard that shot him a dirty look for it. And in that split moment, Lucius realized his most likely ally was in fact one of the most dangerous men in the world for him to befriend. Making himself useful to Duke Ashe could catapult him through the strata of influence, but came with the disastrous likelihood that he would be introduced to his daughters and nieces. Perhaps for marriage prospects, or simply for bonds of friendship. Danyl von Ashe was a military man, and a powerful leader. He had fought back Skaldheim half a dozen times, serving the king at the cost of rarely seeing his own family.

    But his family had seen Lucius so long ago.

    It would have been better to get into bed with a snake.

 2-29 - Serving An Angel

    ¡°We had good news,¡± King Arandall said, standing at the head of the great hall. He hoisted his wine goblet and turned to all the noble representatives and retainers and so on who had come to attend the feast. ¡°The festering unrest in our Giordanan territories finally burst. Thousands of malcontents poured out and attacked us, and the first we heard of it was after their conclusive destruction. We have finally brought the souther lands to heel with only mild losses too!¡±

    The hall thrust up their drinks and cheered. Lucius did so as well, holding his tongue at every exaggeration. The lies benefited him after all. The people before him generally cared more about having a reason to drink than the truth. This was greatly instructive to the young boy.

    King Arandall grinned. ¡°We can at last safely expand our mercantile reach across the southern sea. Desert plantations and silver mines are up for grabs, to anyone with the resources to grab hold of them. This is a wonderful boon that has come to us, while at the same time on the precipice of war with the central kingdoms. We can bring our forces together and face the budding threat united. Let us celebrate!¡±

    When he drank, everyone else did as well. The chefs wheeled in a roasted pig carcass and began distributing cuts of meat as minstrels began easy tunes. And then Acheliah said, ¡°I need more wine,¡± and held out her empty goblet.

    ¡°Me too,¡± Aisha said, defiantly thrusting her goblet towards Lucius as well.

    He grimaced, hefted the amphora, and refilled both of their drinks for them. They were beside the king, nearly on display like a performance troupe. ¡°Does wine even get you drunk?¡± he asked, watching her sip it down.

    ¡°Eventually,¡± Acheliah said, watching him over the brim of her goblet. ¡°She¡¯ll be long gone before then¡­¡±

    Aisha slammed her entire goblet of wine and held it out again, her cheeks flushing. ¡°As long as no one asks me to sing again.¡±

    ¡°So,¡± the angel said, gesturing between the two of them. ¡°Entertain me with a story. How did the two of you meet?¡±

    Lucius refilled Aisha¡¯s goblet once more and deliberately put the amphora back down before she could get another. The seat he had was uncushioned, a mere bench beside the angel¡¯s sprawling couch. ¡°Her brother was originally contracted to help quarry the ley, the transportation side of things. What caused the war was him being left for dead.¡±

    The angel arched an eyebrow. ¡°You brought the sister of the king¡¯s enemy to his own feast?¡± A few of the guards bristled, tensing up and gripping their spears tighter.

    Lucius shrugged. ¡°She proved where her allegiance lies.¡±

    ¡°How?¡±

    ¡°She¡¯s the one who killed Medorosa.¡±

    The bard glowered. ¡°Only because you couldn¡¯t finish the duel yourself.¡±

    ¡°Oh, come on, I had been fighting all day. I bested Erdro Karakale, who was twice the man your brother was.¡±

    Aisha huffed. ¡°And yet, as I recall, you¡¯d be dead if not for your stigmata.¡±

    ¡°No shame in using what gifts you have.¡±

    Acheliah asked, ¡°And what gifts are those?¡±

    ¡°Wouldn¡¯t you like to know?¡± Lucius asked, hiding his grin with his own wine goblet.

    She glared. ¡°I could have you stripped right here and now.¡±

    ¡°And actions like that are why people are attacking the temples. If you want to know what my stigmata is, why don¡¯t you take me to bed?¡±

    ¡°You wish.¡±

    ¡°No, I don¡¯t. But, what are you going to do about it? Call my bluff?¡±

    Acheliah glared harder at him, someone with the impudence to talk back to her was something she hadn¡¯t encountered in centuries. Partly, it dredged up old memories, and partly she was too shocked to know what to do about him. He was an enigma, and she wanted to take her time with him. Good entertainment was very rare.

    ¡°Lucius!¡± Matteo Montisferro said, striding between serving girls and the growing rabble of the feast. ¡°We meet again, and you have even finer company. I greet thee, Lady Acheliah.¡± The nobleman put his fist to his heart and bowed deeply.

    ¡°Ah¡­ Montisferro, how nice to see a polite child,¡± the angel said, checking the insignia upon his chest.

    ¡°We meet again,¡± Lucius said, holding out his hand.

    The two clasped one another by the wrist, all signs of amicability. ¡°And you seem to have even lovelier company than the last time. Do you have some secret you could share?¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re the one engaged, aren¡¯t you? Perhaps you should be advising me. They¡¯re just using me for my good looks.¡±

    Acheliah laughed. ¡°If you¡¯re upset by that, perhaps you should be useful for something else than looking pretty?¡±

    Lucius grimaced. ¡°I¡¯m sure the king will be putting me to use soon enough, and I¡¯ll show you all what I¡¯m capable of.¡±

    Matteo leaned against the table and stopped grinning. ¡°I¡¯ve heard the rumors, you know? There¡¯s a debate about what to do with you, Solhart.¡±

    ¡°Over which direction to send me in, I presume?¡±

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    ¡°Indeed,¡± Matteo said. ¡°I should tell you that the lords and ladies are more impressed by your ability to fight than your ability to govern.¡±

    ¡°Well, I hope they put me to good use fighting then.¡±

    ¡°If you¡¯re lucky.¡±

    ¡°And what will I owe you for this bit of information?¡±

    Matteo grinned. ¡°That will depend on where they send you¡­ what you can do for me.¡±

    Their quiet meeting ended with a roar from the king¡¯s other side. ¡°Do not tell me what is impolite to say.¡±

    The man who had rose from his chair to shout was in his twenties, clean shaven and with a face unmarred by combat, still beautiful with youth. Lucius recognized neither who he was, nor who the dark haired woman across from him was. He glanced at Matteo.

    ¡°That¡¯s the first prince, Gabriel von Arandall, and that looks to be Felicia vi Raymi,¡± Matteo said, his voice barely above a whisper.

    ¡°Brother! She is my friend,¡± a blond woman shouted, rushing over to the two of them. ¡°How dare you make a scene like this?¡±

    Aisha rose and squeezed in beside Lucius, almost hiding behind him as she watched it playout. ¡°No love between siblings?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s the princess?¡± Lucius asked.

    ¡°Indeed,¡± Matteo said.

    Acheliah sighed and shook her head. ¡°That girl just leaps into trouble, doesn¡¯t she? Of course, that¡¯s what¡¯s adorable about her, but one day she¡¯s going to do something really messy and I won¡¯t be around to help.¡±

    Gabriel flicked his hand at Kassandra when she got too close. ¡°Shut up, sister. This woman doesn¡¯t know her place. She has no business speaking of military matters. It is time that we march east and put down these budding rebellions.¡± His voice rose with every sentence, drawing in the attention of the crowd. He paced, almost crossing in front of his silent father. ¡°Tax men have been robbed. Prisons have been emptied. Just last month, there was an attempt on Duke Feugard¡¯s life! All over supposed religious persecution. But what do we persecute? We only enforce our currency, our measures on them. These things are gifts from the goddess Saphira, not mere imitations made by men. Anyone who has ever been to one of their grain mills understands how wicked they are. They rob the lower classes and call it fair compensation! Putting a stop to that is what they call persecution. Outrageous. All over a dead god.¡±

    Lucius¡¯ head snapped around to see Acheliah¡¯s reaction to the blasphemy, but it wasn¡¯t blasphemy against her goddess, so it didn¡¯t even provoke a glimmer of an expression.

    ¡°Gabriel!¡± Felicia shouted, her own voice rising elegantly. ¡°You are the first born son of the king, prince of this land. Your words carry weight you have no respect for. There is no proof that the assassin came from the central kingdoms. That rogue could have been from Skaldheim, or Dragonbreak. It could have even been a spurned lover for all we know¨C¡± That made the duke grit his teeth nearly so hard they cracked, but the king¡¯s attention had fallen on him, and he remained seated. ¡°--Acting this way will force us into war, and worse than that, will grow resentment within Vassermark itself. We do not forbid the worship of Lumius! How do you expect to lead people you show such disdain for?¡±

    Gabriel scoffed and planted his hand son his hips. He loomed over her. ¡°What would a woman know of war? It¡¯s high time we expand to the east and everyone knows it. Cowards like you cry about evidence and respect, but what prosperity has ever come from that? Kingdoms conquer, just like my forefathers did. Even my own father led armies to war, he conquered half of Giordana! He subjugated the Ash Fall mountains and built the northern fortresses. It¡¯s now time to absorb the broken kingdoms.¡±

    As these things tend to go, both of them were right in a sense. Felicia was correct in saying there was no true evidence, and that such a war would be costly. Gabriel understood that the engines of statehood had already begun mobilization. Conscriptions had already started, weapons requisitioned, and he knew the maxim well that you cannot sit on a spear.

    At a glance, one might think this a great opportunity for Lucius, to align himself with the next king and prove his worth. However, the seasons were wrong. Harvest was soon, in the fertile lands of Vassermark, and then winter would come. While the winter would be good for training the fresh troops in safety, no war campaign of suppression could begin until spring thawed the land. He needed to be assigned elsewhere.

    What¡¯s more, the decision was nearly made for him, when Gabriel backhanded Felicia for speaking up again.

    The hall held silent. No servant stepped, no silverware scraped, no one coughed. But, Lucius marched over, his footsteps light.

    Felicia¡¯s mouth gaped, and Kassandra threw herself around the young woman protectively, but she shoved the princess off. ¡°I am Felicia vi Raymi, eldest daughter of Lord Felix von Raymi, one of your father¡¯s most loyal retainers. How dare you!¡±

    Gabriel sneered and shook his hand out. ¡°Your father¡¯s loyalty doesn¡¯t give you the right to wag your tongue. I am your prince.¡± He turned his gaze away, looked for his father, and instead laid eyes on my pupil.

    Lucius stepped up, stuck out his chin and said, ¡°Your father believes otherwise. I tend to agree. Her father¡¯s loyalty is precisely what gives her the right to tell you when you¡¯re wrong.¡±

    Gabriel sneered. ¡°And who are¨C of course, Acheliah¡¯s toy, how could I forget my manners. How terribly impolite of me, Solhart.¡±

    Lucius met his sneer with a smirk. ¡°Perhaps I should show you a thing or two I learned in Giordana? How to hold your liquor if nothing else. Men don¡¯t slap women in the south.¡±

    Felicia turned her head sharply from him. ¡°This is no concern of yours, Solhart.¡±

    ¡°On the contrary,¡± he said, giving her a slight bow. ¡°I owe your father a great deal, and as his subordinate, how can you tell me to stand aside when you¡¯ve been so insulted?¡±

    Gabriel¡¯s nostrils flared. ¡°Because, I am your prince.¡±

    ¡°Son!¡± King Arandall said, setting his goblet down like a judges gavel. ¡°This is a celebration. You should be dancing, not shouting. In the future, I suggest that you drink only what you can tolerate.¡±

    Gabriel¡¯s face flushed dark as he nodded to his father and stepped back. ¡°Yes, father,¡± he said, and only let his breath out when Duke Feugard rose to speak with King Arandall privately.

    Before Lucius could make his next verbal attack, the princess stepped in front of him and bowed. ¡°Thank you. First a hero of the south, then of my dear friend.¡±

    ¡°Think nothing of it, princess. I merely obeyed my duty,¡± he said, bowing even deeper to her.¡±

    Felicia huffed and turned back to him. ¡°Thank you, Lucius. I don¡¯t think anyone would have expected a man with only one eye to see clearest.¡±

    ¡°Ah,¡± he said, scratching at the bandage covering his wound. ¡°I learned a valuable lesson that day.¡±

    While they had spoken, Gabriel moved before his father, and addressed the king. ¡°The matter with the lady Raymi is one matter, father, but you are defending an insult to our honor.¡±

    The king sighed and drained his wine. Evidently, it was not enough to make the night easier. ¡°Is this what you want?¡±

    ¡°Let me defend our honor the old way,¡± Gabriel declared, and men up and down the hall threw up their tankards and goblets to cheer for him. He spun and turned back to Lucius. ¡°You lost Puerto Faro and showed up like a vagabond, then you insult me at the feast in your honor, Solhart. Choose your weapon and I will teach you your place, by my name Gabriel von Arandall.¡±

    The hall roared at the prospect of a duel.

    Lucius couldn¡¯t hide his grin, for the prince of the kingdom had just staked his name on a mere martial duel; an event which would get echoed through every tavern in the kingdom. Everyone would hear that Lucius von Solhart had dueled the prince, a feat greater than anything the real Lucius had ever achieved, a feat to build a legend, one to eclipse the memory of reality. I couldn¡¯t have engineered it better myself, but sometimes it takes one youth to provoke another.

    ¡°Certainly, your highness.¡±

 2-30 - Better Than A Good Luck Token

    Hearth Bay had plenty of gardens, and yet the duel was scheduled the next day in a cobblestone plaza. There was a perfectly reasonable explanation, it was easier to erect seating in the plaza than tearing up a garden or a park. People poured onto balconies to catch a glimpse, and to top it off, they were before the high cathedral. Acheliah had a palanquin laid up, overflowing with rugs and cushions from which she was laid out to watch, along with some girl to pour her wine. Hers was more luxurious than King Arandall¡¯s.

    It all left Lucius with jitters, echoes of his myriad experiences in arenas. He couldn¡¯t hear anyone putting down bets, but the merchants of the city leaned towards one another and whispered and exchanged shakes and so on. He knew it was impossible they weren¡¯t wagering, because even if the fight itself hardly mattered, it would change the political weight behind the war factions.

    He arrived first, fitting his lower standing, and found himself pacing. The rules of the duel had been forced on him after the announcement, such that they should have favored the prince. Despite being the challenger, he had invoked ancient standards. No armor for either of them. They each were allowed to bring a weapon, and the temple would provide one as well. After a coin flip, from Acheliah¡¯s divine hand, the choosing of weapons would occur.

    After losing his sword fighting the sea monster, Lucius had not been able to rearm himself yet.

    ¡°Are you going to be okay?¡± Aisha asked. She stood in his corner, holding a pitcher of water for him, which he had half drank.

    ¡°Of course.¡±

    ¡°That girl still hasn¡¯t shown up¡­¡±

    Lucius bent over and scooped a loose stone off the road. He tossed it up and snatched it. ¡°Worst case scenario, I present this, right?¡±

    Aisha¡¯s look couldn¡¯t have been more incredulous. ¡°You¡¯ll be laughed at.¡±

    ¡°And when I win?¡±

    She sighed. ¡°You¡¯ll make more enemies than friends.¡±

    He frowned at the fist sized rock. ¡°Maybe you¡¯re right,¡± he said, and just then, at last, Felicia vi Raymi came running through the crowd. Servants and decorum abandoned, she charged over so fast she nearly twisted an ankle.

    ¡°I¡¯m here, I¡¯m here,¡± she said, panting to catch her breath as she clutched a ruddy bundle. Then she abruptly stood straight, stuck up her nose and snapped back to composure. ¡°Here.¡± She shoved the package into Lucius¡¯ chest.

    ¡°Was this hard to get?¡± he asked, undoing some of the strings.

    She scowled. ¡°I¡¯m here as the princesses'' guest. You think I have a sword for myself? I have guards to protect me.¡±

    ¡°You could have given me one of their swords, or spears. I can fight with a spear too.¡±

    Felicia jabbed him with a finger. ¡°That would disgrace my name. I had to go to the treasury and get my grandfather¡¯s weapon, because of you. How dare you force this on me like this? You rude bastard.¡±

    ¡°My apologies, my lady. I¡¯ll make it up to you after I win,¡± Lucius said, and at last unraveled the weapon. Her grandfather¡¯s weapon was enormous, to fit his legendary status. He had been a giant, and won his honor fighting the mountain tribes to the south. Helmbreaker Raymi they had called him. A dull witted fellow if you ask me.

    ¡°You had better win. This sword is legendary, you know? It won three wars and took the head of kings. He had it gilded by master artisans from Jumeaux to shine with the radiance of the sun god. The only reason it is here in the royal treasury is because my father prefers to command from the back instead of leading the charge. You got into this duel to grab onto my skirt tails talking about my honor, so if you lose, you will pay¨C¡±

    Lucius took the grip in one hand, the scabbard in the other, golden crossguard before him, and drew the sword. The blade snapped in half, rust shards tumbling across the ground between them.

    Felicia stared, mouth agape. ¡°How?¡±

    Aisha snapped a hand over her mouth to smother her laughter as Lucius upended the scabbard and shook out the rest of the once-blade. ¡°Must have left blood on it, maybe for good luck? I bet the last person he killed with it was someone important, but after decades¡­ not much of a sword, my lady.¡±

    Felicia fell to her knees, picking up pieces of metal with trembling hands as her cheeks colored red. ¡°I¡¯ll¡­ I¡¯ll go get another weapon at once. From the guards, yes, I will get one of their spears and if I give it to you then¨C¡±

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    ¡°No need,¡± Lucius said, brushing off the rust on the hem of his tunic. Then he handed the scabbard to Aisha as he pulled his top off. No armor of course meant no clothing. After a full night of feasting, he no longer looked like a wet vagabond fetched from the sea, but a proper war hero. Muscles and scars, and his enormous stigmata drawn across his chest. Of course, I had added a few marks with ink, no need to let the angel read his ability for free.

    When Aisha handed the wooden sheathe back to him, he hefted it and grinned. ¡°This will be enough.¡±

    Aisha offered the stunned Felicia a hand up, and asked, ¡°Are you trying to humiliate him?¡±

    Lucius chuckled. He could see some commotion across the plaza. Gabriel had arrived at last. ¡°I¡¯m trying to avoid killing him. Let¡¯s see how well I remember how to do this¡­¡±

    The crowd mumbled in confusion as he stepped out. Some laughed. It wasn¡¯t unheard of to bring a bad weapon and bank on winning the coin toss. In fact, it typically meant you thought you would lose. It put a snarl on Gabriel¡¯s face as he walked out across from Lucius. The two of them strutted like peacocks for the crowd. The prince had brought a slender sword, more elegantly crafted than the typical infantry blade. A proper dueling blade, fit for flashy parries and ripostes. It was the kind of sword that could turn a fight into a game. Had he tied a ribbon to the hilt, it would have been perfect for the spectacle he wanted.

    ¡°Until honor is sated,¡± he said, voice loud and arms outstretched.

    ¡°Or death,¡± Lucius said. He gave the scabbard a twirl, acquainting his arm with the heft.

    The prince laughed. ¡°Yours perhaps.¡±

    Lucius laughed back at him. ¡°Try to have some dignity when you bow down and apologize to Felicia for me.¡±

    ¡°That won¡¯t happen,¡± Gabriel said. ¡°I¡¯ve been trained by the greatest swordmasters in the kingdom, and bested most of them. You¡¯re nothing but a poor southerner.¡±

    ¡°Well, I was taught by barbarians.¡±

    ¡°Is that why you brought a club instead of a sword?¡±

    Lucius laughed and held up his weapon. ¡°This? This was gifted to me for this duel by Felicia vi Raymi. She thinks this is all I¡¯ll need to best you.¡±

    Gabriel shook his head. ¡°She¡¯s an idiot. That¡¯s why her and my sister get along so well.¡±

    ¡°We¡¯ll see about that. I did just get back from a war. What have you gotten back from? A brothel?¡±

    Acheliah stopped their goading with a clap of her hands. ¡°Bring out the third weapon,¡± she ordered. The third weapon was the part of the custom that was supposed to insure the duel would have dignity, to discourage people from bringing disgraceful weapons and forcing them on their opponent in a cruel sense of fairness. The tradition worked rather well when it wasn¡¯t Acheliah overseeing the duel, because she cared only about her own amusement.

    The third option to fight with had to be carried out by three men working together. The box carrying it nearly cracked open from the weight of the weapon inside. She clapped again and the lid was popped off like a sarcophagus. ¡°I present my weapon as the third. I used to call it Steelbreaker in the old war. I¡¯m sure whoever gets it will have quite the advantage.¡± She laughed as the two of them looked at the three hundred pound blade presented to them. The blade was longer than either of them were tall. It was a thing fit for slaying dragons and godlings.

    The prince was quick to be diplomatic. ¡°What a pleasure to see one of the temple''s ancient artifacts,¡± he said, giving the angel a bow as she sat down on the lip of her palanquin with her goblet of wine and the coin.

    ¡°You wouldn¡¯t need to swing that twice for the duel to be over,¡± Lucius added, getting chuckles from everyone in attendance who could actually fight, Gabriel included.

    ¡°Well then,¡± the angel said, elevating her voice throughout the plaza. Replicating the effect of the [Roar] stigmata was trivial for her. ¡°I was witness to the offense which caused this duel, and now I will be witness to the duel itself. As they say, boys will be boys, so at least try to entertain us as the two of you roll in the dirt, yes?¡±

    Gabriel kept his smile. ¡°If you would toss the coin?¡±

    The angel smiled and held it between her fingers, first one side then the other: crown and sword. She tossed it in the air with a flick of her thumb.

    ¡°Crown,¡± the prince announced, and Lucius shrugged.

    Acheliah snatched it from the air and slapped it onto the back of her wrist. She grinned, drumming her fingers for a moment and letting the suspense build. ¡°Crown,¡± she said. ¡°Prince Gabriel may choose his weapon first.¡±

    The crowd sucked in breath and jeered Lucius for losing the coin toss. ¡°I¡¯ll use my own sword,¡± he said, taking the only good weapon available.

    Lucius nodded, unperturbed in the least. ¡°I shall use the weapon Miss Raymi gave me,¡± he said, tapping the wooden scabbard.

    Someone from the crowd shouted, ¡°Serves you right!¡±

    Acheliah pouted. ¡°Neither of you want Steelbreaker? What a shame. It¡¯s been so long since she¡¯s gotten to play¡­¡±

    ¡°My apologies,¡± Lucius said, giving her a dramatic bow. ¡°I¡¯m not nearly as strong as you. Besides, If this is but a fight between boys, I think it¡¯s more appropriate I should have a mere stick.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll keep my stick made of steel,¡± Gabriel said as the temple servants carried Steelbreaker off.

    ¡°I wouldn¡¯t be so confident if I were you, my lord.¡±

    ¡°And why is that?¡± the prince asked, squatting down and taking a slanted guard, his offhand poised dramatically.

    Lucius pointed his club back at Gabriel haphazardly. ¡°Mine¡¯s bigger.¡± Even without the handle, the sheath that had contained Helmbreaker was nearly long enough to be a polearm itself. He had a full hand span¡¯s length more than Gabriel¡¯s sword.

    Acheliah giggled and added, ¡°Oh, and Lucius, here.¡±  Then she tossed something down to him. It was small, the size of the coin.

    He frowned and snatched it from the air, but it wasn¡¯t cool gold that landed in his palm. It was warm, wet, and rubbery. She had tossed him his own severed eye, plucked from the waves of the sea.

    ¡°Do put on a good show for me,¡± the angel said, grinning down at him. ¡°I can¡¯t wait to see what your stigmata can do.¡±

 2-31 - A Difference In Training

    The best way to teach a boy to fight is direct experience. This is ancient wisdom, passed on from father to son across the north, home of the fiercest warriors. A rugged realm where you¡¯re hardly considered a man until you¡¯ve slain a troll. I brought this wisdom down, by merit of gold and connections, in the form of Leomund Tolzi to beat some strength into young Lucius.

    ¡°Attack me,¡± had started the affair. Boy and man in a grassy swath between hills, exchanging swings of wooden sticks with one another, punctuated by Leomund barking out criticism. ¡°Why are you pulling your hand back? Am I behind you? Cut!¡± ¡°Do you think I¡¯m made of butter? You need to swing hard!¡± ¡°Don¡¯t stand up. Never straighten your knees. Even when you¡¯re laughing in his face you don¡¯t lock your legs. That¡¯s a death sentence.¡±

    It made Lucius more and more irritated, his brain getting stuffed full of information faster than he could process. I could nearly watch it boil out his ears as Leomund began deflecting his wild swings. Whenever he lunged in with a cry, the northerner bashed him away and sent him sprawling. In no time at all, he had to take his tunic off and toss it aside. Healing his skin was easier than cleaning the dirt and gravel out of his shirt.

    The noise was like sticking a drummer monkey into a library, pounding away on Ezra¡¯s ears as she tried to memorize the heraldry of the east. I found it quite entertaining myself, but most of my attention was on prodding the cook fire to bring the embers down to a proper temperature.

    Then Leomund said, ¡°Alright, sun¡¯s getting low. Now you learn to defend.¡±

    ¡°A break first?¡± Lucius asked, wiping glistening grime from his chin that could have been either drool, blood, or sweat.

    The northerner laughed and lifted up his weapon like a butcher¡¯s cleaver. He smashed it down, powering through Lucius¡¯ guard and clubbing him off his feet. The boy didn¡¯t even scream, he gagged and coughed, choked by the pain. ¡°Are you pretending that you¡¯re as strong as I am? You need to avoid. Get up. Again.¡±

    Leomond¡¯s next blow cracked the earth where Lucius had been crawling. The boy rolled away, heart hammering as hard as the day the dragon had nearly eaten him. And, as fate would have it, Leomund was hungry, and not in the mood to let him get away.

    An hour later, he tossed a bruised and battered Lucius on the ground next to me. ¡°He¡¯s broken.¡±

    ¡°What¡¯s broken?¡± I asked, stirring a pot of rice and beans. Getting just the right blend of spices wasa traveling hobby of mine.

    ¡°Forearm,¡± Leomund said, squatting down and pointing at Lucius¡¯ rapidly swelling arm.

    I poked it. ¡°Is it at least set properly?¡±

    Lucius grilled, gritting his teeth and clamping his eyes. ¡°Yes,¡± he gasped out.

    ¡°Well then, now for the beauty of our plan,¡± I said, and couldn¡¯t help but grin.

    Leomund frowned. ¡°You told me to not go easy on him just because he¡¯s a child. I¡¯ll give you that he has the spirit of a troll hunter in him, but is he even old enough for his prick to get hard?¡±

    ¡°With his stigmata, what does it matter? Ezra, heal him.¡±

    The girl jumped to her feet, hands balled. ¡°What? Why me?¡±

    ¡°Because you need to learn what it feels like to kill someone, and this boy doesn¡¯t die when he gets killed.¡±

    Lucius groaned, wiping his face off with his good hand as he sat up. ¡°Why doe sit have to be her? Why do I even have to die? It¡¯s just a broken bone!¡±

    ¡°Because we can¡¯t wait two months for it to heal, that¡¯s why. Now, girl, do it,¡± I ordered, and both of them huffed.

    Leomund crossed his arms and frowned, watching as Ezra walked behind Lucius. It looked like she was about to embrace him, but her arms went around his throat instead of his chest. She stuck her tongue out between her lips, got a grip on her own wrist, and squeezed. Lucius tried to not react. He remained calm and annoyed until his body realized he couldn¡¯t breathe. Then he jerked. He grabbed at her arm, digging his dirty fingers into her skin. ¡°Stop that!¡± Ezra shouted at him as he jerked. She squeezed harder, like she was trying to crack a nut in the crook of her arm.

    Forcing his chin up, she nearly lifted him off his feet to get enough force until he blacked out. As quick as a snuff cap to a candle, he dangled in her grasp. ¡°Don¡¯t let go,¡± I ordered. His stigmata wouldn¡¯t do anything until brain damage began.

    ¡°I know, I know,¡± she said, struggling to keep his limp body upright.

    And then the dreams began. Flashes of memory racing through his dying mind. Surges of dopamine, even before his stigmata activated. His mind drifted through his past, through the veil of ideas that surrounds the subconscious of all living things in Lumisgard. For a moment, he had the kind of surreal exaltation that few shamans ever achieve with all the psychedelics they can muster.

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    Then he awoke with his arm healed.

    Leomund laughed at the boy¡¯s dazed grin and we passed over food. Lucius gorged himself on the meal and we were nearly able to watch the muscles on him heal and grow, a wonderful boon of regeneration. The northerner scratched his chin, smirking at his student of the sword. ¡°We should hunt some bounties. With a body like that, he can learn the bloody way.¡±

    ¡°If they¡¯re on the way,¡± I said, puffing on my pipe.

    ¡°How long?¡± Lucius asked, licking rice from his face.

    ¡°Until what?¡± I asked.

    ¡°Until I¡¯m as strong as a knight?¡±

    Leomund shrugged. ¡°A knight? I¡¯d say a month and you¡¯ll be better than those shmucks they have keeping guard for your cities.¡±

    ¡°Those aren¡¯t knights,¡± Lucius said. ¡°I mean like Patrocles, and Claire.¡±

    I had to fill the barbarian in. ¡°How long until he could win a martial tournament?¡±

    Leomund turned his gaze to the twilight sky. ¡°As far as skill is concerned, a year. But, you¡¯re too little. Until you¡¯re the size of an adult, you won¡¯t have much chance at the peak. Nothing I can do to speed that up. You¡¯ll need at least ten years to be the best.¡±

    ¡°Ten years,¡± Lucius mumbled, stabbing his spoon into his bowl. ¡°Ten years and I¡¯ll have the power.¡±

    It was my turn to grin. ¡°Oh, it might be quicker than that. Kings and queens don¡¯t have their power because they can fight. They have power because they know how to control people, how to influence crowds. That¡¯s something I can teach you much quicker than ten years.¡±

    <hr>

    ¡°Kill that arrogant bastard!¡± someone screamed from the crowd, his face red and veins bulging.

    Prince Gabriel again threw himself forward. His footwork full of lunges and skips and balestras as he flicked his dueling blade at Lucius. The steel never met Lucius. He walked back, legs always slightly bent and poised. Whenever a swipe from the prince was too big, too much windup, Lucius reached out and swatted the tip like he was cutting a moth from the air. Their weapons clanged against one another and he grinned, because Gabriel¡¯s face was nearly as red as the man in the crowd.

    ¡°You know,¡± Lucius said, circling backwards through the plaza as he watched Gabriel puff for breath. ¡°You could have taken my weapon. Maybe the extra length would have¨C¡±

    ¡°Shut up!¡± the prince screamed, wiping a sweaty lock of hair from his face.

    ¡°You know, one of the people I fought in the south was a pirate hunter, allegedly, and he had this absurd stigmata which turned steel to cloth. He could have been an expert blacksmith, but instead he turned perfectly good swords into whips,¡± Lucius said.

    Gabriel shouted and jumped forward, thirsting for blood.

    He slammed face first into the end of Lucius¡¯ club, cracking his nose. He forgot his grip on his own blade, and when it struck against Lucius¡¯ chest it barely scraped his chest hair off. Gabriel stumbled, blowing blood out of his nose. One line of red appeared on Lucius, blood seeping from it.

    He backpedaled, putting a finger to the cut. ¡°So, if this was for honor, we boht just drew blood¡­¡±

    ¡°Like that would satisfy me now!¡± the prince shouted back at him. ¡°You hit me one time and have been running around like a coward.¡±

    ¡°That one time would have killed you if I had a sword. Look, your father is shaking his¨C¡±

    Gabriel looked away for a moment and Lucius smashed the scabbard into the back of the prince¡¯s hand. A bone cracked. The sword flew from his grasp, skidding over the cobblestone as Gabriel hissed. He clutched his hand, stumbling back from Lucius as King Arandall stood up. ¡°That¡¯s enough,¡± the king announced, and a hundred people roared in protest. He scowled at the people of Hearth Bay. ¡°I think we¡¯ve all seen what a taste of war can do for a young man¡­ you should be excited son, think how much you¡¯ll improve when you get the war you crave.¡±

    ¡°This isn¡¯t over!¡± Gabriel shouted, turning his back on Lucius.

    He could have clubbed him over the head and truly been done with it, then and there. ¡°If the prince would like to pick up his sword again, I would be happy to continue.¡±

    ¡°No,¡± Acheliah said, her eyes half closed. ¡°I¡¯m bored with this game now. I thought I might get to see something fun, but clearly not. Just boys with sticks.¡± The crowd murmured at that, many not interested in contradicting the angel¡¯s decree. It seemed to leave open the question of whose honor had actually been returned, who still held the insult and the wound. The bookies didn¡¯t even agree on what the outcome was.

    Lucius bowed and turned his back on the prince. He returned to his corner, to a speechless Felicia. He even made a show of returning the ancestral weapon to her, and she didn¡¯t even know what to do with it, eyes fixed to the blood staining the end of it. Aisha handed him the waterskin and dabbed at his cut while he drank.

    ¡°Get back here,¡± Gabriel ordered, holding his sword in his offhand. ¡°This isn¡¯t over. The real fight starts now, Solhart,¡± he said, and activated his own stigmata. He stepped to the side, but also the other side. Where once there was one, two Gabriel¡¯s emerged. ¡°And now, because of what you¡¯ve done, perhaps I¡¯ll have a turn with that whore you brought from the south.¡±

    Lucius frowned. He tilted his head and looked back at the prince.

    Aisha groaned. ¡°Don¡¯t rise to that provocation.¡±

    ¡°No, no, I won¡¯t¡­ I¡¯m stooping to it,¡± he said, and marched back over. This brought everyone¡¯s interest back to the duel, even Acheliah¡¯s. Lucius frowned and stepped back over, hands empty. ¡°You know, on the battlefield, losing a fight because you held back is still losing.¡± He needed the prince to talk, to see which of the twins was real. I had taught him about several ways stigmata could clone the user, and each had peculiar drawbacks.

    The two Gabriels spoke as one, their voices overlapping. ¡°You should have brought your weapon.¡±

    ¡°If we¡¯re using stigmata¡­ I don¡¯t need it,¡± he said, jabbing his thumb into his divine crest. ¡°I do think I¡¯ve done my part to defend the honor of the Raymi¨C¡±

    The twins lunged forward. Lucius threw up his hands, but without a weapon, he could only backpedal, and he couldn¡¯t backpedal as fast as they could charge him. One slashed at his face, cutting from cheek to brow and slicing through the eyepatch bandage. The cut stung, gushing blood into Lucius¡¯ vision as he snarled. A shallow cut wasn¡¯t lethal though.

    The other twin ran him through, stabbing his sword through Lucius¡¯ ribs. The tip punctured his lungs and ripped out the other side. Men gasped, women fainted. It happened in less time than it took for the bloody bandage to hit the ground.

    Lucius opened both of his eyes and grinned. He grabbed that Gabriel by the hair and said, ¡°Got you now, don¡¯t I?¡±

 2-32 - A White Elephant

    A trio of guards had to run out and surround Lucius with spear tips pressed to him. He wiped some blood off his chin and stood up from the broken body of the prince. As he put up his hands and surrendered though, the body of the stigmata-created twin dissolved back into the nothingness it had spawned from.

    The toll was immense on the real Gabriel. It sapped his strength and mind and left him collapsed on the cobblestone, but not injured in any direct sense. To those privy to his stigmata, it was hardly a big deal. To the crowd however¡­

    ¡°Lucius von Solhart, the Undying!¡± they cheered. The low born, the desperate, those holding issue with the royal family. That¡¯s the nature of betting, there¡¯s always people on both sides. None of the nobility had dared to wager against the prince, lest their earnings cost them in political capital, but the working class had no such hold up. Lucius had just made a great deal of people quite a bit of money, and had shown them the human weakness of the royals.

    While the guards kept him at spearpoint, Kassandra and some servants rushed to the prince¡¯s side. They fussed and shouted and tried to rous him. Even Acheliah walked over and straightened out his broken hand, but that was to appease Kassandra and keep the young girl from bawling.

    King Arandall ignored his son and marched to Lucius, his hands clasped behind his back. ¡°Impudent, aren¡¯t you?¡±

    ¡°I have been called that lately, haven¡¯t I?¡±

    ¡°You just humiliated your prince,¡± the king said, his face a mask and his voice too low for any but the guards to hear.

    Lucius nodded. ¡°Better he learns the lesson here than at war, don¡¯t you agree? He lost the fight then challenged me again. That would be like throwing the last of his troops into the same meat grinder he just escaped.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s what military advisors are for,¡± the king said.

    ¡°And maybe now he¡¯ll listen to them.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re trying very hard to make it seem like you did me a favor, Solhart.¡±

    Lucius grinned. ¡°That¡¯s the name of the game, isn¡¯t it? Everything is upside, no bad news exists.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯ll regret that,¡± the king said, and marched off. He raised his voice so all could hear. ¡°Lucius von Solhart has won, a veteran of the south, loyal retainer to the Raymi family, in turn loyal retainer to me. What we have seen today is proof of the strength of Vassermark, like tempered steel he has returned to us forged hard by war. As my father used to say, if you look away from a boy for a month, you might find a man¡­ A reward is in order, don¡¯t you all agree?¡±

    The crowd cheered, some laughed at the absurdity. Lucius couldn¡¯t pick their words from the noise, not as sweat dripped off his brow and fatigue caught up with him. Then arms wrapped around him from behind. Soft and smooth, strong as iron. It was her chest pressed against his neck that revealed Acheliah¡¯s identity. ¡°You did not disappoint,¡± she whispered into his ear as she slid a hand down his chest. ¡°What a lovely ability¡­ regeneration, is it?¡± she asked, stuffing a finger into the wound Gabriel had given him.

    Pain shot through him like lightning. He gritted his teeth, back arching against her as she prodded deeper. ¡°Eager to get inside me, is that it? Isn¡¯t it normally the other way around?¡±

    Acheliah huffed and pulled her finger out of him. ¡°Is that how you talk to your woman over there? No, who am I kidding. I¡¯d smell her on you if you did. You¡¯re lucky you¡¯re more interesting than you are insulting.¡±

    ¡°Only by a hair.¡±

    The king made no notice of them. ¡°A reward is in order, but not just a reward for the young Solhart. The noble duty is to serve the people of Vassermark, to make his victories into victories for the realm. To that end, I hereby assign him governor of the Misty Isles, and charge him with stabilizing the ports, charting the sea lanes, and staving off the Aillesterran raiders. He just came back from Rackvidd, so I¡¯m sure he will do splendidly in his return.¡±

    At once, I departed the festivities. I had preparations to make, research to find, plots to scheme. What a wonderful opportunity. A death sentence for a normal man, but not for Lucius von Solhart, the Undying. The upper nobility hardly knew what to think of that. He wasn¡¯t to be sent to the north, to slam his skills up against Skaldheim and the trolls. Had that been his fate, he would have been merely absorbed into Duke Ashe¡¯s faction. Nor was he given any say in the looming war to the east, the subjugation of the central kingdoms. That honor would presumably remain with Prince Gabriel. Instead, they sent him to a distant throng of islands ruled in name only, festering with disease and betrayal. Some of the islands were said to have demons living there, and if none of that killed the impudent boy, any fierce attack from Aillesterra would result in a naval siege and his defeat.

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    If he were a normal man.

    King Arandall departed with the summoned physicians and saw to his son¡¯s treatment personally. I suspect it had nothing to do with Gabriel¡¯s health, rather than giving him a stern lecture and punishment. With the king¡¯s departure, the town guard took it upon themselves to break up and disperse the crowd. They shooed people away and drove them to the other streets.

    And then Kassandra vi Arandall stepped in front of Lucius, dismissing the guards who still had him detained with a flick of her wrist. ¡°You didn¡¯t have to do that,¡± the blonde said, planting her hands on her hips, right where her embroidered dress transitioned from a leather corset to skirt. She had on the kind of puffy skirt that used whale bones to spread her skirt about her petticoat, giving her a more childish appearance that belied her frustration.

    Acheliah grinned, planting her chin on Lucius¡¯ shoulder. ¡°But it was entertaining, wasn¡¯t it, Kassie?¡±

    ¡°On the contrary,¡± Lucius said. ¡°Honor demanded it. He challenged me twice. Had I gone easy on him, it would have been worse.¡±

    She crossed her arms and frowned. ¡°War changed you, Lucius. More than the sun bleaching your hair like that.¡±

    That stiffened my pupil¡¯s back more than the angel¡¯s assault, and Acheliah noticed it too. Our research had indicated that the original Lucius had not been to court in nearly a decade, he shouldn¡¯t have been remembered well by anyone. ¡°Well,¡± he said, scratching at his newly regrown eye. ¡°I did get my head cut off.¡±

    The angel grabbed him by the chin and twisted his head, inspecting for a scar and finding none. ¡°You wouldn¡¯t be lying to the princess, now would you?¡±

    ¡°Stop harassing my champion,¡± Felicia vi Raymi ordered as she and Aisha approached. ¡°He did what any chivalrous idiot would do, he just happened to be very good at it.¡±

    Lucius nearly fell to his knees when the angel finally let go of him. Blood had been dribbling out his chest and back the whole conversation, leaving him ever lighter in the head. ¡°Thank you, my lady.¡±

    Felicia¡¯s composure lasted until she looked at the puncture wound. The girl paled and stepped back. ¡°Are you alright?¡± Only Aisha was unfazed by it.

    ¡°Oh, come here,¡± Kassandra said with an exasperated sigh. She took out a handkerchief and wiped off the blood. It took a good deal of my penmanship with it, exposing the true shape of his stigmata. ¡°Don¡¯t let it fest. Get a surgeon to stitch this shut.¡±

    ¡°I know just the man¨C¡± Lucius trailed off as the princess put her hand to his chest and did something that could only have been the work of a stigmata. Light glowed out from her palm, saturating through his chest and skin until he seemed to glow red as though fire were within him. It tickled somewhat, and when she took her hand away, a mark remained. Faint, but his skin and bronzed, leaving the imprint of her hand where she had touched him.

    ¡°I suggest you find somewhere other than the castle to stay tonight,¡± Kassandra said as she wiped her hand off.

    She left him in a daze, and Felicia went with her after saying her thanks once more. He found himself pondering what had just happened all the while as Sammy arrived with his surgical kit and sat him down to knit his skin back together. When the young doctor tied off the stitch at last, Lucius said, ¡°Well at least I made an impression.¡±

    Aisha rolled her eyes. ¡°You got assigned a suicide mission. You got sent to the edge of the world to never be seen again. I bet you that the prince is going to send assassins after you.¡±

    ¡°Then it¡¯s a good thing I can¡¯t be assassinated,¡± Lucius said, absentmindedly watching workers tear down the palanquins and raised seating.

    ¡°Maybe that works for you, but they could also come for me, which is just lovely. Can¡¯t you make people like you?¡±

    ¡°I did,¡± Lucius said.

    Aisha snorted. ¡°I meant people with power.¡±

    ¡°Give it time. I just have to come back and people will snatch me up. This is¡­ a good thing. Yeah, this is good. This worked out.¡±

    Sammy looked up from cleaning his tools and asked, ¡°If we¡¯re leaving immediately again¡­ can I bring my better half this time? I had to leave her behind for the expedition¡­¡±

    Lucius and Aisha both turned to him and asked, ¡°You have a lover?¡±

    The young boy grinned and blushed. He scratched at his cheek, and said, ¡°Yeah. She¡¯s really great. Though, it might be a little difficult, maybe? I¡¯ll have to talk to her about whether she¡¯d be allowed to come with us. It should work out though. You¡¯ll like her.¡±

    Lucius frowned, part of him worrying what he might be saying between the sheets. ¡°Sure, bring her along if you can. If you trust her.¡±

    ¡°Definitely.¡±

    Lucius stood up and turned his back to the castle. The plaza, now almost devoid of people, had a view out to the sea, tight between the overflowing city. Beyond, there were storm clouds. Dark, roiling, and ominous. A storm fit to sink a ship, drown a city, or perhaps wash away a civilization.

    Vassermark had weathered storms before, for hundreds of years, but for all of King Arandall¡¯s weakness, he was right in his intuition. The times were changing. The underlying principles had shifted, and where once there had been firm ground, now water eroded it away like sand. He wanted desperately to stay on top, to keep his head above the water, and had grasped that ley was the future. Stigmata such as his son¡¯s could not be relied upon, the divine institutions even less so.

    That storm was still on the horizon, and everyone still had time to shore up their defenses against it. While the islands reaching up towards Rackvidd would provide little protection, they were also far from the heart of the storm barrelling straight at Hearth Bay, and if Lucius could succeed in his southern governance, he would be in the best position to return after the storm passed.

    But, only if he did not mistake the eye of the storm for its end.

 End of Act 2 | 2-33 - Fade To Black

    ¡°Alright, so tell me what you¡¯ve learned,¡± I ordered, and picked up my wine goblet. The tavern we were at was a lovely thing. Something like a cabaret diner, three stories tall and overlooking the sea. It had a circuitous nature to it, some floors stolen from the adjoining buildings and doors cut through them with bridges. A splendid mess of construction if I ever had seen one. And that meant hardly anyone could ever look at us.

    Not that there was anything wrong with a nobleman dining before setting sail, or of a southern lord meeting with one of the king¡¯s engineers.

    Lucius swirled his goblet. It was his second, and I think bits of cork had fallen in. In a way, it mirrored life. A wonderful thing to indulge, if you don¡¯t mind the unpleasantness. ¡°It¡¯s easy to be a spectacle when nothing is happening, and that a good spectacle makes as many enemies as it makes friends.¡±

    I nodded. ¡°The trick is befriending the people who matter.¡±

    ¡°I hope I did.¡±

    ¡°Perhaps you did. Time will tell. I¡¯ll see what I can do to help the fortunes of those favorable to you.¡±

    ¡°And those like the prince?¡±

    I grinned a toothy grin. Lucius tried to grin back at me, but he was young. He didn¡¯t have the experience to give him confidence like I had. Then I had to wait, because our meal was brought out. A wonderful platter of roast duck over a bed of mirepoix. We each grabbed a leg and twisted, shredding the savory limbs off. It was a bit light on the salt as I recall, but heavy on the butter. After feasting with the king, Lucius was respectful enough to push over the rest of the bird to me.

    ¡°Managing the islands will be more a feat in governing than in soldiering,¡± I said, one cheek full. ¡°However, it is a rich colony clogged up with quasi-rebellions and insubordination that has choked out the revenue. The king has asked you to untie a knot that you can cut through with a sword.¡±

    He swallowed. ¡°Unless Aillesterra attacks.¡±

    ¡°If they do, you should rejoice, because you¡¯ll become even more famous for fending them off.¡±

    ¡°If I can.¡±

    ¡°You must.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯d need reinforcements.¡±

    ¡°There¡¯s always mercenaries.¡±

    ¡°You can¡¯t trust mercenaries.¡±

    ¡°You can, if you use them right. Vassermark will be in no position to help you, come springtime. What choice will you have?¡±

    ¡°Retreat?¡± He offered, and gave a dry grin that he washed down with the last of his wine.

    ¡°How is your handwriting?¡±

    ¡°My what?¡±

    ¡°Your ability to write letters. That¡¯s what will matter most, your reports to the king.¡±

    He frowned, as if I didn¡¯t know he wrote and destroyed letters back to his parents. ¡°I¡¯ll keep that in mind.¡±

    ¡°If it¡¯s no good, get that redhead to take them down for you. Remember, everything is a success. Slay more enemies than exist, reinvest money you don¡¯t have, and hide your defeats.¡±

    He didn¡¯t listen to me. The moment I said redhead, his mind was gone. He rose and tossed some coins on the table for the meal. ¡°Look forward to hearing from me,¡± he said, and bolted from the table.

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    His ship wasn¡¯t set to depart until the next day, but the crew was already stocking it with provisions at the king¡¯s order. Not as fast as Captain Bodin¡¯s ship, but larger. Everyone in his entourage would have a room this time, and he had realized that he needed to not have his to himself.

    He needed to share it.

    From my perspective, this wasn¡¯t just about him becoming that much more of a man, but it was an indication of prowess. He was young. He was leading grown men into battle. They gave him leeway for his noble status, taken as it was, but would only extend that leeway so far. The worst possible thing would be if someone spread a rumor that he was incapable of getting a lowborn girl he desired.

    A cuckold can¡¯t lead an army.

    I don¡¯t think his mind was able to go that far ahead at the time. Such thoughts were my concern, not his, and they weren¡¯t even concerns I voiced to him. Telling someone about a manly image they need to inculcate just causes stress. Teaching a boy what it is to be manly is much better for everyone involved.

    He made it one step out the door of the restaurant before he spun about. He purchased a bottle of wine from them and proceeded on. Along the way, he tried to stop at a certain food stall, the one which had been frying the strings of honey the day of their arrival. He did find it, but boarded up and locked down. No fire, no sizzling oil, no way to bribe Aisha¡¯s stomach but with the wine.

    One hand empty, he returned to the seaside inn charged with putting them up the night before departure. It was almost a castle unto itself, with stone walls and plentiful guards, and a little tower garden where he found Aisha alone. The northern climate had prompted her to change to the local fashion, garbing herself in a woolen dress that clung to her chest and hips such that he forgot what he had been planning to say.

    ¡°You¡¯re back already?¡± she asked.

    ¡°It was hardly important.¡±

    ¡°And sleeping before the trip is?¡±

    He grinned and held up the bottle. ¡°I might not have been planning to sleep either. Care for a drink?¡±

    She hesitated, then smiled. Her lips took on a gentle curve he could barely look away from. ¡°With my hero? Defending my honor by beating up the crown prince? Only if you stop stooping.¡±

    ¡°For you, I¡¯ll stand up right¡­¡±

    Both of them blushed and laughed. In a moment he had pried the cork free. He looked around for cups, but she just took the bottle and drank from it. With a gesture to the other seat at the edge of the balcony garden, he joined her. She passed the bottle back and he drank enough to strengthen his courage.

    ¡°So¡­¡± he said.

    ¡°So,¡± she repeated back.

    ¡°Us.¡± As though there were someone spying upon the two of them.

    ¡°Yes?¡± Aisha leaned on the table, bringing herself close enough they could smell the wine on one another¡¯s breath.

    ¡°Well, I¡¯m rather certain that¡­ you¡¯ve been implying things without using your words.¡±

    She smiled and laughed. She teetered the wine bottle as she batted eyelashes at him, and said, ¡°You¡¯re not sounding like yourself, Lucius. You¡¯re all tongue-tied.¡±

    ¡°Funny how you do that to me, isn¡¯t it?¡± He grabbed the wine and took another bracing finger of it. It hardly helped. The alcohol could hardly compare to what she was doing to his insides.

    She huffed playfully and turned up a hand. ¡°And yet you were all prince charming for some other girl you¡¯d never met before.¡±

    ¡°Oh, come on. You know that was nothing about her.¡±

    ¡°That doesn¡¯t matter.¡±

    The hero of Rackvidd shook his head and settled into his chair. ¡°Well then, let me make it up to you.¡± The liquid courage was warming his belly, at least giving the illusion of strength.

    ¡°And how are you going to do that?¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t come south with me as my¡­ diplomatic ward.¡± Even to him the words sounded crude and ugly and unromantic.

    Aisha laughed. ¡°Is that what you call what I¡¯ve been so far?¡±

    ¡°Come as my woman.¡±

    ¡°Your woman?¡± She twisted the word in her mouth, pouting at him but with a smirk.

    He grinned. ¡°Yes, as mine.¡±

    ¡°Well, that¡¯s a little chauva¨C¡±

    Lucius didn¡¯t let her finish her playful jibe because he leaned across the table and stole her lips with his own. They lost balance, knocking the table over as they grabbed onto one another. The wine spilled, tumbling across the ground as they got to their feet. They embraced, body to body, arms around one another.

    And so, I won a bet with Dr. Samson over how long their will-they-won¡¯t-they phase would last. He should have never doubted how well I knew my own pupil. I, however, will not be detailing anything behind closed doors. I will of course chronicle the births of his various children, so I leave it to you, the reader, to deduce the coupling. You may look forward to the third act of this epic, which will quickly gallop across several months wherein Lucius was very busy with the mundane affairs of learning just how dire the situation was in the Misty Isles before bringing it all to a head.

 Act 2 - Intermission 1

    To touch on the matter of Honung.

    I had quite a good time passing on my medical knowledge to Dr. Samson, but aboard the ship the most I could do was verbal transmission. We had no cadavers to dissect, no poultices to grind and test, no patients to treat. When we arrived at Hearth Bay, he nearly claimed every spare hour I had and I was lucky he had to fuss with his family for some of the days. The apothecarial store had been managed by his grandmother, the expert of the family who had taught him, and she continued to manage it without him.

    She was somewhat miffed that he had found a new master to tutor under, but could hardly complain when he explained that my area of expertise was largely surgical rather than her specialty of sickness and medicine.

    As it happened, the somewhat divinely educated alchemist Honung sought them out for treatment of his malady. While she prescribed him some ginger root tea on a regular basis, which would have done well were he seasick, the treatment did little for the symptoms. Dr. Samson took down his symptoms and measurements, as I had instructed him for record compilation, and came to me with the problem.

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    While I had suspicions about his sobriety, the young doctor had studiously noted that Honung couldn¡¯t hear out of one ear. We questioned him about it, and he said he¡¯d been like that all his life. So I took a look with what tools were available to me and discovered that his ear canal was as twisted as a knot.

    I shall spare the reader the bloody details, but the short of it is that we drugged him with ether and amputated his ear down to the skull, innards and all. When he recovered, he sprang out of his chair so fast the blood loss made him fall over. But, after that he was falling over himself to thank us for curing him. We took no payment, as the surgery was for educational purposes, and sent him on his way. I never did reach out to him again, because I would have had to explain that there might have been other solutions to his almost cancerous growth of cartilage disrupting the flow of fluids within him.

    Of course, I only developed these medical hypotheses by examining what we carved out of him, so perhaps his suffering will benefit the next to have such a deformation. Nevertheless, it was excellent practice at the nipping and cauterizing of blood vessels, which would prove quite instrumental for his future treatment of Lucius.

 Act 2 - Intermission 2

    I should like to take a moment to touch on some of the finer points of our courtly intrigue. Namely, the Solhart family was not one of our co-conspirators. This should be obvious to any reader with wit. Had they been on our side, the young Lucius could have simply been adopted and made genuine. There would have been some necessary fratricide, but such things are common in all eras, all kingdoms.

    One of the aspects that made the Solharts appealing was their small size. A mere two children, one boy and one girl, and so little territory they were in effect vassals of the Raymi family. They existed on the fringe of respectability, given their blue blood status, but lived lives akin to merchants. Some might find that life enviable, but it was precisely the level of clout we needed. Any more and they would have been expected to attend the king¡¯s court in some degree. But, with the real Lucius assigned to the war effort, the family couldn¡¯t be compelled to send their daughter off as well.

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    As such, the Solhart matriarch learned of Lucius¡¯ stunt by way of mail. There were very few ways of instantaneously sending messages, so she only learned of it a month after the fact. I very nearly hired brigands to intercept such news to their estate, but the complexity was beyond the value.

    The beauty of the Misty Isles, for our purposes, was the isolation of it. Even if Mrs. Solhart wanted to recall her son¨Ccountermanding the king¨Cshe had very little ability to send a letter to him, and first she would have to contact Raymi to confirm the details of the war.

    To be certain, it was a problem we would have to solve in the future, but there was always the chance that time would solve the problem for us. The Solhart mother was not of good health and might take sick at any time. Her girth was like prison bonds and Lucius had ample justification to not respond in a timely manner to her.

    Of course, this balance wouldn¡¯t last forever, but he was able to get to the Misty Isles without a familial mishap.

 Act 3 - God Of The Islands

    Foreword,

    Oh with what sweet relish I write these words once again. I fear, perhaps, I am taking too long with some events and not enough with others. It¡¯s possible my own involvement at times has biased my perspective on the matter. A fair historian might argue that nothing prior to the revolution truly mattered, but that is a mere simplification. It breezes over what work and learning went into Lucius¡¯ development. This is the sort of simpleton who thinks only the finished cannon is what matters, and not the various prototypes stained in sweat. Appropriate perhaps for shorthand, but not for this form of text.

    The Misty Isles welcomed Lucius the way a pitcher plant welcomes insects. It allured with the weather, the sandy beaches and the plentiful fruits of tree and of sea. But not one day after he set foot upon the shores, the twin poisons of the land began their dire work. The first, the blight that was the Kuku Plant. Sticky with wax, intoxicating as smoke, and a direct stab to the ambition of all who partook of it. It was originally a ceremonial drug, for religious initiations, but a certain someone hybridized the plant with hemp. Even a half-brained fool could grow it after that. The Kuku plant made it near impossible to marshall the services of the locals. They didn¡¯t revolt either, but as the drug oozed through the shadows, entire operations came to a halt.

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    The second great foe he faced, worse even than tacit insubordination, was the island god, the incarnation of the mountain (whichever mountain happened to be closest), the rebellious bastard angel of Titania to the east. The very creature that spread the Kuku plant and whispered in the ears of wayward sailors. Umbra I knew her as, and for clarity I shall substitute this name for all instances of local contrivances.

    Umbra was like a wolf caught once and still bearing the collar of domestication, but also the chewed through bit of leash. It chaffed at her neck. It stung in her heart and left her with both the fear of past failure, and a violent passion for revenge. So, she proved a greater foe than any godling Lucius had yet encountered. She was cunning in her hatred.

    But, this is not just the story of violence. This is the time when Lucius proved his ability to lead people, not just soldiers. His restless pursuit of fine meddling to chase out corruption that could only be admired. And he did this with no small help from the women in his life. Including a second he had to win over, or kill.

 3-1 - Untapped Resources

    Lucius von Solhart set the capital ablaze with gossip in less than a week, and fled to the south before it could so much as singe his coat. He left behind a shadow image, more shocking and mythical than real. Only the royal decree awarding him governorship of the Misty Isles remained real in the minds of the nobles and working class. That condemnation stayed real, and people of all social class shook their heads at it. The Misty Isles was akin to a death sentence, and only a phoenix could rise again from such a funeral pyre.

    I will skip to the beginning of this fate, missing only a single event of note, but that is merely for the time being. I will return to that surprising introduction soon, after first establishing what it meant to be the lord governor of the Misty Isles.

    Imagine a city, but rather than roads there is sea. In place of buildings there are islands. The scale is enormous, the way rats view metropolises like Hearth Bay, but the density is less than sea foam. Where in a city one might find a workshop beneath three homes, with clothes lines bursting from windows and competing chimneys, the equivalent in the Misty Isles has a half-abandoned clutch of hovels and an untilled field more weed than crop. The locals are scrawny, but not for lack of food. The Misty Isles are nearly drowning in food of all kinds. Fruits, game, fish, even insects for the brave of stomach. This richness of nutrition had curiously led to a certain kind of apathy about eating, which I suspect comes from the lack of feasting culture.

    The islanders did not grow up building memories of festivals, of gorging themselves on roast hogs and the like. With no native plant rich in sugar, they did not produce pastries and candies to delight the tongue. The only pleasure they sought out was the smoke of the Kuku plant, and they would go to great efforts of collection and processing to reduce those waxy flower bulbs to powdered sticks of spiritual bliss.

    It was the folly of Vassermark to colonize the place, but they had their reasons. Gold mines primarily. I hadn¡¯t bothered to scout them out myself because gold was and is nothing but currency. For a true philosopher, there¡¯s nothing easier in the world to get than money. But, of course, economic theory will tell you that as a kingdom and its associated markets grow, one must increase the supply of money. Sometimes, clever banking institutions can issue loans and debts and so forth, but this was a trick for the future. At the time, nothing beat cold metal in the hand.

    Except human laziness it seemed.

    The warehouses of Aliston, the seat of colonial power for Vassermark, sat full to the brim with gold ore and no capacity to extract the precious metal. Rows upon rows of barrels overflowing with the glittering rocks, like a brewer¡¯s keg house. There were so many that the workers had tossed some beside the road. The barrels had molded and cracked from the rain, splintering enough to make a cooper cry.

    ¡°How is this possible?¡± Lucius asked, dumb struck at the sight. Three uneventful weeks at sea had left him wobbly in the legs, forcing a near drunken stagger to him on land, but the shock was nearly enough to knock him over. He rubbed his eyes, thinking perhaps the southern heat had induced some form of mirage haze that was more confounding to his senses than anything in the Giordanan desert had been. Heat and pestering insects there were, but the burdened gold was real.

    The former steward of the city slumped against a doorframe with a shrug. He swigged from his bottle of crude moonshine and gestured at the warehouse. ¡°Tis as ya see, muh lord,¡± the man said, his words as slurred as his shirt was unbuttoned. ¡°The prisons produce but¡­ well, there¡¯s nothing we can do with it. Can¡¯t even ship it out.¡±

    Lucius spun on him, more questions in his head than he could fit out his mouth. ¡°And you don¡¯t have thieves? There¡¯s¡­ barely two guards.¡±

    The steward, by name of Lamdo, laughed. ¡°And what would thieves do with it? Can¡¯t buy nothing with it, same as us. Can¡¯t escape with it neither. Ya need a damned galleon like you had to even get here.¡±

    Lucius swallowed and found himself suddenly wishing he had stayed aboard that lumbering, four masted vessel of the sea. ¡°But¡­ how? Everyone in the capital thought Aliston had been abandoned, gone rogue, collapsed!¡±

    Lamdo shrugged and scratched at his overgrown stubble. ¡°Well, we had a bit of that. But it was just the priest that went rogue, ya see, muh lord.¡±

    Lucius held his tongue in regards to the liquor. This isn¡¯t to imply it did not wrankle the young man that his primary contact for governing the Misty Isles was a fat drunk, but a wise leader knows there is a method to addressing problems. Sequencing them correctly. Spending energy where it is most profitable first. ¡°What do you mean the priest went rogue? They left? Did they defect to Aillesterra or something?¡±

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    Lamdo shrugged. ¡°Don¡¯t know, muh lord. Lots of people go missing round here. Ya see, there¡¯s plenty of Vassish here, the free men and such, or freed men as it were¨C men who finish their sentences¨C that sort of¡­ drift from the city to the towns, to the villages and then they¡¯re gone. You know, it¡¯s like putting food out for a feast! At first it all stays there on the table as the proper people eat, but then you see servants sneaking plates off for themselves, and then scraps get to hands of the scroungers and orphans and so on, and what they don¡¯t finish goes to the dogs and then, well, you can¡¯t follow the food after that, now can you?¡±

    Lucius stared at him, and watched as the portly man chuckled in self-satisfaction. Lucius never cracked a smile. ¡°So, you¡¯re telling me the royal appointed priest who¡­ I take it he was in charge of processing the ore?¡±

    Lamdo nodded. ¡°Sure was. Made it real clear to all of us that the brine would kill us if we touched it. I, uh, hear the locals use the stuff for spear fishing, but I don¡¯t trust a damned thing the locals do.¡±

    ¡°And the priest? Is gone now? Took the recipe with him?¡±

    ¡°Yes, sir, muh lord.¡±

    Lucius turned his face skyward. He ran his fingers through his blonde locks and prayed for a moment. Prayed to the ineffable God, the clockmaker. No answer came, but he made a decision. ¡°Send word to Rackvidd that a replacement priest is needed at once. Payment to be negotiated upon arrival.¡±

    ¡°On what ship, muh lord?¡±

    ¡°The one that brought me here. Now go!¡±

    ¡°Me?¡±

    Lucius grabbed the steward by his sweat stained shirt and almost hauled him off his feet. The steward was nearly twice his age, but Lucius had infinitely more experience with violence. When he snarled, the man went pale. ¡°Yes, you, Lamdo. Who the fuck else would I be talking to? I am your lord governor now. My word is law, and until I get situated here, you are the only one I have under my direct command, aren¡¯t you? Now run your ass down to the dock and get a fucking letter on that ship!¡±

    With a flick of his hand, he sent the man running. Of the two guards for the warehouse, one walked over with his spear lazily upon his shoulder. ¡°Will that be all then?¡± the guard asked.

    Lucius gestured with his hand. ¡°You¡¯re coming with me, back to the manor. You stay here and look official godsdamn it.¡±

    The guard with the short end of the stick frowned, and all three of them glanced at the city streets. There was a hint of cobblestone buried beneath the mud. The stones showed where cart wheels had cut ruts, and more often than not glistened with donkey shit mixed up in the last rainstorm. Even the locals had better places to loiter than between whitewashed walls that baked the festering street. But, the guard produced a tin of chewing tobacco and packed his lip as he closed the warehouse gates up and took his post.

    Lucius and the talkative guard made the trek across town to the top of the hill where the manor sat. The manor itself was a monument to the state of the colony. Grand at the bottom, built by a heavy stone foundation, but falling apart where cut funding had switched it to timber and paint. Originally, it should have been a castle, but along had come an accountant asking how a castle was to be attacked if the island couldn¡¯t be captured. The Vassish navy had to keep the entire archipelago safe, lest Aillesterra gain a foothold, so who did the castle protect against? A revolt?

    Still, it overlooked Aliston in all its sweaty glory.

    ¡°Where is everyone?¡±

    The guard responded by holding his hand over his head to take a measure of the sun. ¡°Napping, most likely. Too damn hot to work.¡±

    ¡°So they get back to work later?¡±

    The guard laughed. ¡°Later is for drinking, my lord. Some watered down beer to refresh the spirit.¡±

    ¡°And then?¡±

    ¡°Oh, then they might do some work, but that¡¯s generally to facilitate the cooking of dinner. Lot¡¯s to do about boiling a stew, you see? And then, well, who¡¯s going to pay to import candles to work by night? That¡¯s silly, so you may as well put off the work till the next day.¡±

    Lucius shook his head. ¡°And I imagine everyone must be an early riser, when they¡¯re so well rested.¡±

    ¡°Actually, yes. You might find it hard to believe, but you¡¯ll understand in the morning.¡± The grin the guard had said Lucius wouldn¡¯t like the truth.

    He wanted to spit on the city, but adding his own spit would somehow make him complicit in the willful poverty. ¡°I need men. If I¡¯m to turn this place around, I¡¯ve got a lot of work to do.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll tell the captain to call in the eager ones,¡± the guard said.

    ¡°Good, I want to meet with them right after breakfast tomorrow morning. For now, I¡¯m going to enjoy my first proper meal in weeks and think about what I¡¯m going to do.¡±

    The guard bowed. ¡°I¡¯ll tell the servants to prepare your bed for two, my lord.¡±

    Lucius¡¯ cheeks reddened, but everyone had seen Aisha disembark with him. ¡°Right, see that you do.¡±

 3-2 - Human Resources

    The next morning, Lucius was launched from his bed by the cacophony of PEW that erupted not just from the jungle, but from the gardens, the streets, the rooftops, everywhere in Aliston with enough water to call a puddle. That noise, of course, brought on the rumbling chorus of trilling that seemed to make everything in the room vibrate, his skull most of all.

    The serving staff all had a good laugh as he came bursting out in small clothes and bare steel to see what was the matter. It¡¯s customary to not tell new arrivals of the frogs that live in the Misty Isles. Watching the inevitable panic is some of the best entertainment available on the island, and in time Lucius understood why. He even perpetuated the abuse on his own guests, but that first morning he was the fool screaming about an enemy raid only to then learn the little devils responsible for the noise could fit in his hand.(1)

    Eventually, Lucius returned to his room a bit red in the face and cleaned himself off with a basin of water. He looked respectable when he walked out and met with his guard from the previous day. The man just chuckled and asked, ¡°So, now do you see why we are all early risers?¡±

    ¡°I do, and I¡¯m quite heartened by it,¡± Lucius said, provoking the guard to arch an eyebrow. I should note at this time that the man¡¯s name is thought to have been Clyde, but the record keeping at the Misty Isles was muddled, and I¡¯m not entirely certain that this was the same man who was later certainly Clyde. Lamdo¡¯s persistent issues with losing people to the islands made researching this period of Lucius¡¯ life quite difficult. Regardless, the point Lucius was making was thus, ¡°It means the people here can be whipped into productivity, with the right kind of encouragement.¡±

    ¡°If you say so, my lord. Yesterday, you said you wanted to see the men of the isle. They¡¯re waiting in your study,¡± Clyde said.

    ¡°Go on then. Not like I know where my own study is yet. Tell me it is at least dry.¡±

    ¡°If it wasn¡¯t, it would have rotted by now, my lord.¡±

    The people waiting for him in the study¨C a somewhat shabby thing of moldy books and a persistent odor of spilled alcohol mixed with tobacco smoke¨C did not fit Lucius¡¯s imagination. One seemed to, a burly Vassish man with a poorly cut beard who introduced himself as Adam No-last-name but as it turned out, his size was from years in the slave mines. He had bought himself extra food from the guards by virtue of his stigmata, [Deafen], which could render those near him unable to hear. While there was some advantage in a fight for this, the true value was relieving men of means from being woken by the pew frogs. Eventually he had bought his freedom.

    The next in line was more valuable, but was so old he needed a cane to stand. Knobbly kneed and gray in the beard, he introduced himself as Isalin. Lucius wasn¡¯t familiar with the local tongue, or he would have realized that was just the word for Translator, but that didn¡¯t matter. The man was a polyglot thanks to his stigmata [Tongues]. Also no good in a fight.

    That left his hopes upon a pair of twins, brother and sister, with skin as smooth as a baby¡¯s and the color of cocoa. The problem was their youth, younger even than Lucius. While Axel and Lexa had the spirit of warriors, they didn¡¯t have the years of training.

    ¡°So you four are what? The volunteers I have to work with?¡± Lucius asked.

    Adam laughed and nodded. ¡°The kids there are volunteers. Me and Isalin are just reliable and don¡¯t complain much.¡±

    He turned to the youths. ¡°And why are you two volunteers? You¡¯re locals, right?¡±

    Axel and Lexa were doing their best to stand at attention, but perhaps a bit too stiff and arch backed. ¡°Call it religious differences.¡±

    That piqued my pupil¡¯s interest. ¡°Is there something about the local faith I should know?¡±

    ¡°It kills people,¡± Lexa answered. ¡°Killed our parents. Killed our village. The god is a demon.(2)¡±

    Lucius wetted his lips and paced the room. The windows were poorly made, of warped glass that distorted the light and the view of the city. Half of them were stuck in the frame and the other half stayed shut lest the flies get in. ¡°I am under orders by King Arandall to restore the exports of gold, and to do so safely. The sea lanes must be charted, and any footholds of pirates or otherwise have to be eradicated. If my steward hasn¡¯t failed me already, I¡¯ve sent word for a new priest to process the ore. We have some time while that works to sort out the other problems. It seems to me like I have quite a bit of work ahead of me.¡±

    ¡°A lot of rot to cut out,¡± Axel said, sneering out the window.

    Lucius shook his head. ¡°Cutting out rot takes a good sword. I¡¯ll have to see to that first. I¡¯ll make that my agenda for today. Until then¡­¡± he turned back to the four, and put his gaze on Adam. ¡°Can I assume you know etiquette?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ve picked up a thing or two.¡±

    ¡°How about sums and arithmetic?¡±

    ¡°Wouldn¡¯t have bought my freedom if I couldn¡¯t handle coins.¡±

    ¡°Then I¡¯ll come to you when I need an extra hand dealing with merchants and supplies. Savvy?¡±

    ¡°Savvy, my lord.¡±

    Lucius¡¯ gaze moved to Isalin. ¡°Isalin, I¡¯ll have to make journeys to the islands, but not today. For now, please send word to Lamdo that I need everything he has pertaining to mapping the region, and if you can, get me a local priest. If no person wants to show up and explain their faith, get me one of their texts.¡±

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    The old man shrugged. ¡°Certainly sounds like work fit for an old man.¡±

    ¡°And you two, take me to the guard barracks. I need to see what kind of garrison I¡¯m working with.¡±

    Axel and Lexa grinned. When they delivered him to the barracks, he was not grinning. The field before the tents was flat and devoid of foliage, good for training but that was only by virtue of some wild goats. The troops left much to be desired. Scrawny or fat, but never fit, most of them were playing cards and arguing about who had what patrol to trudge through for the day. They didn¡¯t even get up when Lucius arrived.

    He stood there with crossed arms, listening to them talk about knocking the teeth from a man high on Kuku plant until Axel and Lexa started to nervously shift on their feet. Rather than reprimand them, he simply ordered, ¡°Gather their weapons. You two are in charge of anything pointy from now on. They can have spears while on the town, but not while they¡¯re here.¡±

    ¡°Sir?¡± Axel managed to turn the acknowledgement into a question.

    ¡°And get me the lady knight. I think she¡¯d be perfect for whipping these louts into fighting shape¡­ I just don¡¯t want them having anything sharp handy while a woman from the north is bending them over, savvy?¡±

    Lexa smiled. ¡°Savvy,¡± she said, and started yelling at the troops in the local tongue. They scrambled up and ran about, hiding cards or putting away their drugs. Whatever she said, one by one, they realized just who the young, pale skinned blonde before them was. Some refused to care. Others were smarter: they were afraid of what he would do.

    ¡°Go on then, get her,¡± Lucius ordered, and Axel ran for the manor. That left Lucius alone before an increasingly large number of confused soldiers he allegedly commanded. ¡°Show of hands,¡± he barked out. ¡°Who understands Vassish? Because I sure don¡¯t speak the local tongue yet. Only just got here yesterday and they don¡¯t offer lessons on it where I come from.¡±

    The few dozen men on hand began to shuffle into a semi¨Ccircle around him. About two thirds raised their hands.

    ¡°Right, about what I expected. We¡¯re going to have to meet each other halfway. I¡¯m happy to learn the basic commands in your tongue, but Aliston is a Vassish city. That¡¯s why you¡¯re here, because we brought the ships. The ships have the goods. These islands are an inconsequential speck on the map as far as merchants are concerned. The only thing that¡¯s valuable is the gold and the tobacco. They¡¯re not going to learn your language, so if you want to deal with them, to spend your pay well, you have to learn Vassish¡­ that¡¯s my goal here, to turn this place into the envy of the empire.¡±

    It sounded good, but he knew damn well he was trying to get out of that land in just a few months, well after he could be dragged into the central kingdom¡¯s war, but early enough that wen the next trouble began to brew he would be able to capitalize. If he made the port turn a profit however, he could hand it over to someone reasonably competent and more interested in a comfortable life than rising the ranks. Someone who would be loyal to him later on. The Misty Isles were quite tempting in that way. Warm climate, soon to be in the heart of the empire, cheap food and liquor and women. What more could be desired? Aside from the mist of course.

    One of the guards mumbled the other problem that plagued the land so far south. ¡°I think the lord could use some of the kuku bud¡­¡± Lucius could have almost ignored that, but certainly not the half-stifled laughter.

    ¡°You there,¡± he said, singling the man out. ¡°Tell me, what is kuku bud?¡±

    The man both blanched and blushed. The two expressions made a turmoil of discomfort in his face as his comrades abandoned him. ¡°It¡¯s the good bud.¡± He began to fidget as Lucius stared back at him, letting silence demand the man speak more. ¡°The locals grow it. Smoke it. Better than tobacco. Smoke some and you see the gods, but, ah¡­ smoke too much and you go to meet them.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m in no rush to meet the gods. I¡¯ll keep my wits about me. Do any of you smoke this Kuku bud.¡±

    The men shook their heads. Lexa came marching over with an armful of spears like she had come back with firewood. Lucius suspected that in their hands, the spears were about as good as firewood. ¡°None that are still here. If they do start smoking it, they don¡¯t come back from the pipe den.¡±

    ¡°Right,¡± Lucius said, crossing his arms. ¡°Well, at least that¡¯s one problem I won¡¯t have to face. That just leaves me with the problem that you lot are as intimidating as a bunch of knitting grandmothers.¡±

    His tone got the attention of even the locals who couldn¡¯t speak Vassish. For a time, he let them discuss amongst each other what he had implied, and then one took the provocation. It was a local that didn¡¯t seem to speak a word of Vassish, or anything for that matter. The ground shook beneath his enormous feet, for he was nearly eight feet tall and nearly as wide. The man had the size to indicate he had been blessed with some variety of the [Giganto] stigmata, but when he took off his shirt there was no sigil upon his breast.

    Which meant he was trollkin, all the way on the wrong side of the world.

    Lucius smiled. ¡°Well, this will be simple.¡± Off came his shirt as well, leaving him only in trousers and sandals. The little play was familiar to the guards, but from their slack posture it was evident they were waiting for the trollkin to put Lucius in his place.

    As previously noted, this was not the first time Lucius had met a trollkin. They have great size and strength, and they only take days to heal from injuries, but they are slow and dull witted. Lucius waved him over. The trollkin took a swing. Then, there was a tangle of bodies. Tanned and untanned flesh weaved around one another like snakes. They saw Lucius¡¯ hair swing up to the sky like the sun. He was on the guard¡¯s arm, and then he was in the ground.

    Everyone groaned from the wet thump of flesh to dirt.

    Then the trollkin lifted his arm again and Lucius was still there. He hadn¡¯t even shouted in pain. Before anyone else could even understand, there was a crack as loud as any pew frog and the trollkin¡¯s arm flopped backwards.

    The giant of a man shuddered, pain making him gasp and whimper as he fell to one knee. Sweat beaded up on his forearm as Lucius slipped free and dusted himself off. He clutched his backwards joint and screamed as he twisted it back straight, but he didn¡¯t stand up again.

    ¡°Decent fight. You¡¯re very strong. What¡¯s your name?¡±

    ¡°Polunu,¡± the trollkin said.

    ¡°Heal up, Polunu. Now, the rest of you, have I proven my point?¡± he asked, and got a round of sheepish nods. Then he heard the rustle of mail behind him. ¡°Ah, here comes your instructor,¡± Lucius said, without turning his back to the men, lest they see how bloody he was from the fight. They weren¡¯t looking at him regardless. The knight marching across the weedy field demanded their attention.

    <hr>

    <ol>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">Incidentally, the pew frogs are edible. Unlike their jungle cousins, they contain no poison and quite a bit of meat. Foreigners often take the chance to have a stew of them to get some sort of revenge on the devils worse than a crowing rooster. The locals don¡¯t explain the primary diet of a pew frog are the insects that dine on feces.</li>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">If only they knew the difference.</li>

    </ol>

 3-3 - The Lady Knight Lynnfield

    Lucius first encountered Sera Lynnfield, graduated knight of the White Gold Order(1), as they were boarding the galleon for the south. The first thing that reached him was the rustling of packed ring mail. Heavy, confident strides jostling the package. It reminded him of Leomund first, enough that he paused his conversation to stand up and look for the source of the approaching noise. He nearly looked right past her, in pursuit of some armored hulk. Only when he did a double take on Lynnfield did he realize the noise was from the package thrown over her shoulder.

    ¡°Yo, is this the Solhart ship?¡± she called from the gangplank.

    That caused a bit of consternation for the crew, but the first mate, an old hand hard to impress with these sorts of things, called back, ¡°Aye, this is the ship graciously employed by the king himself to take the young Solhart south. What¡¯s it to you?¡±

    She tossed her bag onto the ship, nearly knocking a man over with it. ¡°I¡¯m coming with,¡± she declared, and marched aboard. She had on stirrup heels of a fashionable four inches or so, which meant when she squared up in front of the very confused Lucius, she was merely half a foot taller than him. She grinned down at him, brushing back hair the color of ship timber. ¡°So you¡¯re the one that convinced my little Sammy to sail off just as soon as he¡¯d come back to me?¡±

    Humans, like any animal, struggle to interpret an approach by such a physically larger member of their own species, and such a confrontation, as anything but a threat. I had been able to beat the fear out of him, but alas, she had the better of him in causing confusion. Lucius barely managed to say, ¡°Yes,¡± under the freshly empowered gaze of Aisha.

    The redhead¡¯s personality had become more forthright after the two embraced, and a lover¡¯s jealousy was unfamiliar ground for the boy.

    What Lynnfield stuck out at him was not a sword, but her hand. ¡°Then I¡¯m coming too. I hear the pay is good and you don¡¯t lose.¡±

    At last the bridges of relationships connected within Lucius¡¯ mind, but he still couldn¡¯t reconcile the callouses pressed into his hand, pumping the shake like a butter churn. ¡°You¡¯re Sammy¡¯s friend?¡±

    Her grin grew even wider, her cheeks flushed. ¡°Oh, please, we¡¯re in love! We¡¯re not just friends. You¡¯re a man, don¡¯t you understand?¡±

    What Lucius understood was that the woman before him, despite being dressed in a modest white dress still pretending in fashion to resemble a toga, could have gone toe to toe with Erdro Karakale. Depending on her stigmata, she likely could have trounced the prince as well. She was also twice the size of the young doctor, a comparison which became eminently obvious when the boy charged across the deck and threw himself around her. The move perhaps might have been a tackle, if their weights weren¡¯t so disparate. Instead, she laughed and pulled him off his feet and then the two of them were giggling and whispering to one another to the shock of everyone else aboard the ship.

    Aisha¡¯s jealousy, as much as she enjoyed getting to use it at last, dissipated. She took her place beside Lucius, so she could whisper to him, ¡°I¡¯m glad I didn¡¯t take that bet that he was gay.¡± And I¡¯m sad she didn¡¯t. Would have been good coin for me, while I was off fixing their problems abroad.

    Eventually, etiquette bubbled up from the boy¡¯s head and out his lips. He faced Lucius with a grin and said, ¡°This is Sera Lynnfield¡­ but, I just call her Lynn. Anyways, you can trust her. I promise.¡±(2)

    Lucius smiled and held out his hand to her once more. ¡°Then, welcome to have you, Sera Lynnfield. We¡¯re about to depart but I can see that you¡¯ll be a great asset to fulfill the king¡¯s command.¡±  Through great prudence, his eyes were not on the woman¡¯s chest, nor even on the defined curve of her neck and jaw, her smile, but up in her hair. Graduated knights are given a token of their order to authenticate them. Most keep it hidden in purse and wallet, secreted away on their body to make the reveal dramatic. I don¡¯t blame them for this, as mentioned before, I do nearly the same thing with my own face. But such action reeks of fear, that it might be stolen.

    Sera Lynnfield used hers as a hair pin to tie up her brunette locks for all to see. And several weeks later, the whole troop of Aliston guards saw her insignia as she marched over in full battle dress. ¡°So you people are the clay? Because I¡¯ve gotta make a sculpture outta ya,¡± Lynnfield said, fingering her sword. She was quick on the uptake though, and exchanged some glanced with Lexa. An instant later, rather than bare steel she had a training spear. ¡°Hear me, I¡¯m a knight of the White Gold Order, you hear that? Makes me a Sera, that¡¯s woman for Sir, got that? It¡¯s a bit of Drachish infusion, but I ain¡¯t complaining. Gets me the respect I deserve so I don¡¯t have to get it out of you by force. You make me crack your skull and go looking for it though, and I will.¡±

    Lucius retreated a respectable distance. He grinned as she got the guards into a line, the trollkin excepted for his injury. The heat blazed and the insects bit, but he stood and he watched like stone. He needed to know how long it would take before he had men he could put into a shield formation. Even riskier, he needed to know how long it would be until they could fight pirates at sea.

    Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

    ¡°Now, listen up,¡± Lynnfield barked. ¡°I don¡¯t know what you¡¯ve been getting away with so far. If you¡¯re busy poking pigs and sticking your dicks in goats. I bet a sleepy little town like this can be kept in line with mean looks and strong thumps so long as you haven¡¯t been drinking too much, yeah?¡± Somehow, she even had the men who couldn¡¯t speak Vassish nodding along. ¡°Well, if that¡¯s the extent of your aspirations, I¡¯ll put in a word with the steward and have your uniforms changed to include skirts. They¡¯re quite comfortable, can attest to that myself. We¡¯ll have to see what the townsfolk say about that though, won¡¯t we? For me, I want warriors that can stand up to pirates, that can kill those damn Aillesterran slavers!¡±

    The recently returned Axel had to lean over to Lucius to ask, ¡°What is a skirt?¡±

    ¡°Think of a feminine loincloth.¡±

    ¡°My lord, I don¡¯t think any of these men are so endowed as that would be an¨C¡±

    ¡°She¡¯s threatening to call them women.¡±

    ¡°But she is a woman. Indeed, they also listen to my sister.¡±

    Lucius shook his head. ¡°And I¡¯m not paying to change their uniforms for something stupid either. Sera Lynnfield is a proper knight. She¡¯d go into battle naked if she had to. It¡¯s just theatrics.¡± By then, she had gotten the guards into a line and told them to come at her one at a time. The first three men were already sprawled across the ground. Lucius didn¡¯t stick around to watch the rest of her inspection. ¡°Thank you kindly!¡±

    Lynnfield spared a glance over her shoulder as she was dealing with two of the locals at once. ¡°Pay me back with some nice wine tonight! Enough for two.¡±

    In due time, Lucius found her other half. Sammy laid sprawled across a sand dune before the ocean, in a half-awake stupor of heat and overwork. He seemed in as rough of shape as the harbor below him, and that had a shipwreck rotting in the middle of it. Lucius had to pour some water onto him to wake him up and ask, ¡°The hospital is that bad then?¡±

    ¡°Pretty bad, yeah,¡± Sammy said, tugging some sand from his hair before accepting the water skin. ¡°I think I performed¡­ seventeen amputations today. My saw is going to go dull at this rate.¡±

    ¡°Well, keep a sharp one for me.¡±

    ¡°Yeah, yeah, but like, the people here. There¡¯s something weird. They think the doctors here are trying to hurt them. I was expecting that, but this time it¡¯s because of the bandages.¡±

    Lucius arched an eyebrow at Sammy, then back at the building that passed for a hospital. It was as large as a temple, but entirely for the listless sick. The previous governor had set it up to help with the amount of elderly people bereft of children, but now it was filled with working age people. ¡°Explain.¡±

    ¡°As stupid as this sounds, it¡¯s like they don¡¯t change their bandages¡­ which is in fact worse than not wearing bandages at all. Their injuries rot and for lots of these people, the only thing to be done is cut the only limb off because of a small cut they didn¡¯t take care of. Shit, one person had maggots eating their flesh and they didn¡¯t even notice. They had no feeling in their leg!¡±

    ¡°Well, that¡¯s disgusting. Good thing we only have dinner ahead of us.¡±

    ¡°Eh, you get used to these kinds of things. But, this place is a bit worse than anything I¡¯ve seen.¡±

    ¡°How come I don¡¯t hear it?¡± Lucius asked, still looking at the hospital.

    ¡°Hear what?¡±

    ¡°People in pain. Even drunks with a bad wound will whimper and cry. This place is as quiet as a cemetery.¡±

    ¡°Oh.¡± Sammy shrugged. ¡°There¡¯s a local painkiller. Takes the edge off, puts them to sleep. I¡¯m trying to figure out dosing. Got some nursing staff helping with that right now, until I get convinced of the method. But, it¡¯s strong stuff, this kuku plant. We might want to start exporting it¨C¡±

    ¡°No. It¡¯s poison.¡±

    Sammy frowned at him. ¡°Most medicine is poison. That¡¯s why you have to take so much training to be any good as an apothecary.¡±

    ¡°Wrong kind of poison. Give me a few days and I¡¯ll prove it. These people too lazy to change their bandages? Blaming you doctors? I¡¯ll wager right now they were smoking the stuff.¡±

    Sammy frowned harder and crossed his arms. ¡°How exactly are you going to prove that? And if you do, what are you going to do about it?¡±

    ¡°Well.¡± He turned his back to the hospital and looked to the sea. Aliston was on the north of the Misty Isles. Sheltered by breakwaters, but almost close enough to Rackvidd to see it, if the mist cleared and the sun burned bright. All the mines and plantations were behind him, mingled with he knew not what else. ¡°I figure if there¡¯s all this plant moving around and not getting exported, there¡¯s some kind of detached economy. Might explain why we still don¡¯t have a chart of the sea lanes between the islands. Not sure who many people I¡¯m going to have to kill to get a decent cartographer, but we¡¯ll have to see.¡±

    The doctor rose and dusted his backside off as Lucius spoke. He glanced back at the manor, mind evidently thinking about his lady. Subjugating the isles wasn¡¯t his problem after all. As though it might bring the conversation to a close quicker, he asked again, ¡°But how are you going to prove it?¡±

    ¡°Obviously, I¡¯m going to smoke the stuff and see what it does. Just kill me if it doesn¡¯t clear up, yeah?¡±

    <hr>

    <ol>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">To be graduated from an order means you have served your duty in exchange for your apprenticeship, and are allowed to take contracts as you see fit while keeping the name of the order. The process is rather akin to the journeyman phase of a craftsman¡¯s career. It also happens to be the most profitable phase, if they survive it. Typically, they end up injured and/or fat and return to humbly request a more bureaucratic position at the order. Those that made a particular name for their swordsmanship might be paid handsomely to return for instruction purposes. Such graduated knights are both the stuff of legends as well as highly sought after by merchants and nobles. They have accreditation to their skills beyond what a mere burly thug has.</li>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">A promise such as this, made by Dr. Samson, was still influenced by the oath given to and sealed by Golden. Such a statement couldn¡¯t be made if he was attempting to disabuse Lucius of his secrets.</li>

    </ol>

 3-4 - Den of Apathy

    Clyde showed Lucius to one of the kuku dens that were in Aliston, like tumors of indolence. The proprietors had done their best to hide the relatively illicit activity, like painting over rotten walls. They had a surface deep popina along the street which did in fact sell food from a shared kitchen. Rather delectable mixes of beans and peppers bound by a tortilla of sorts. There was dreadfully little they could do for the accumulation of wasting vagabonds and drifters that loitered the street with hands out for charity. No generous fools ever came, but they could hardly be bothered to move somewhere more lucrative when the temples would bring them charity eventually. Then, that charitable coin was handed over for the drug.

    So, when the governor of all the Misty Isles marched in, nearly every employee of the place nearly died of panic. While it was only his second day since arriving, his description had already made the rounds, and the owner ran to greet him. ¡°You must be Governor Shoalhart!¡± the man said as he nervously rubbed his hands together and smiled. The poor criminal had a facial infection of the soft tissue that causes his nose to be as swollen as a troll¡¯s, giving him an almost comical appearance. It made it difficult to imagine he might slit a man¡¯s throat for non-payment.

    ¡°Solhart,¡± Lucius corrected him.

    ¡°My deepest and most sincere apologies,¡± the man said, bending nearly to his waist to bow. ¡°But, may I ask how I may be of service to you? I am but a humble tobacco shop.¡±

    Lucius looked around, sniffing the air. The scents in the room were a jumble of smoke and pepper-leaf candles and human sweat. Wherever he looked, people turned away and snuffed out pipes and bowls. They turned their back to him as if to hide. ¡°I¡¯m looking for the local specialty and thought you might have some in stock.¡±

    ¡°The tobacco? Sir?¡±

    ¡°The kuku bud these people are smoking,¡± he said.

    The proprietor paled. ¡°I assure you sir, this is not that sort of place!¡±

    Lucius gestured, and Clyde as well as the trollkin entered. The large man was still recovering, but an untrained eye in a gloomy den couldn¡¯t hope to spot swelling in an arm. Lucius smiled and held up a silver talon, with no idea how much that could purchase. The proprietor preferred to keep his knees bending the normal direction, so he graciously took the payment and handed Lucius a pipe filled with the borderline illegal drug.

    The actual legal status of kuku bud was never quite clear. Since it had not yet made its way to the mainland of Vassermark, the king had made no ruling on it. The plant was some foreign problem for foreign people to deal with. That defaulted the ruling to the governor, which at the time was Lucius. He should have inherited the previous standing, but the steward Lamdo said only the growing of kuku bud had been outlawed. This had been a matter of executive convenience. The immature plant could be burned while yet unharvested, an the farmers rounded up. If a user were caught with it, the only means they had of positively identifying the substance was its consumption. That of course made policing it quite hypocritical, so they simply didn¡¯t.

    While that made city conflict rare, it did nearly nothing to stem the inflow of kuku bud from the hundreds of unwatched islands.

    By this logic, nothing illegal at all occured in the coerced sale of a pipe for the scandalously low price of one silver talon. He should have at least paid three.

    The only person who couldn¡¯t be convinced by this argument was Aisha. ¡°You can¡¯t be serious,¡± she said, holding the flint sparker away from him.

    Beneath the manor, a great stone foundation had been built, another boon of the initial funding. This was of course very important for the storage of food, it kept the heat at bay and diligent maintenance kept insects out as well. A set of locking rooms could serve as a dungeon, or a mere respite for privacy, wine, and perhaps a smoke. The deeply cushioned chair wanted to swallow him up with comfort, but the redhead looming over him brought out every firm spot like iron filings to a lodestone.

    ¡°I can be, and I am. I figure it¡¯s best to know what I¡¯m dealing with first hand.¡±

    ¡°Not just could it be poison, it very literally is poison!¡±

    Lucius shrugged and picked at some of the spilled plant grindings across the edge of the pipe. They stuck to his fingertips and smelled somewhat like rot. ¡°Okay, but¡­ so is alcohol. And if it¡¯s really bad, my stigmata will cure me.¡±

    This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

    Aisha crossed her arms and scowled at him. ¡°You mean your stigmata that left you without an arm for years? Because it only cared about good enough? It could be a slow poison. It could leave you¡­ I don¡¯t know, tired, forever.¡±

    ¡°Not forever.¡±

    ¡°You don¡¯t know that,¡± she shot back.

    He shrugged. ¡°It would only be until the next time I get my body destroyed. And that can be arranged on purpose.¡±

    She pinched between her eyebrows and closed her eyes. After a moment of silence, she said, ¡°What if it just makes you take more risks or something? Make bad decisions in a way that you don¡¯t even know you¡¯ve been affected?¡±

    That gave him pause, and he beheld the pipe like one might appreciate a gilded egg. ¡°Well, I suppose you have a good point there, but that¡¯s why I have you, isn¡¯t it? You have the wonderful position of telling me when I¡¯m making a mistake.¡±

    ¡°Which I¡¯m doing right now!¡±

    ¡°And I¡¯m dutifully listening, but the choice is still mine. Look, Sammy will be down here to track what happens to me shortly. I don¡¯t really expect this will do anything to me. People all over the world smoke tobacco and other things, and that¡¯s hardly a life changing drug. I semi-regularly use amphos root too. I can¡¯t imagine this is stronger than that.¡±

    Aisha huffed and took the seat next to him. ¡°Then at least wait for him to get here.¡±

    ¡°He¡¯s having dinner with Lynnfield.¡±

    ¡°And why aren¡¯t you having dinner?¡±

    Lucius shrugged. ¡°I hear having an empty stomach makes these things hit harder.¡±

    ¡°Who did you hear that from?¡±

    ¡°Master Amurabi, in general. Something about warming up the liver. But, fine. I¡¯ll wait for him to come down. He should make detailed notes regardless. They¡¯d better inform the legislation.¡±

    With that, Aisha at last sighed and gave up the fight. ¡°So, since we¡¯re to wait, I must say that this is the strangest land I¡¯ve ever been in.¡±

    ¡°You only briefly saw Vassermark, and lived your whole life in Giordana.¡±

    ¡°I traveled! My father is a merchant, remember? But still, this might be the first time I¡¯ve seen a town where I couldn¡¯t rouse up a bar with some music. I tried to get a feel for the place last night, but it seemed like the only thing people had the energy to listen to were some melody-less beats. They had one old man tooting away on something like a flute, just to make some noise as they drank. Only one person requested a song, and he was a sailor!¡±

    Lucius nodded and sank into the old couch. He turned his head up at the shadowy rafters and turned the problem over in his head. ¡°The whole chain of islands seems to have a dearth of life. There was only one fight to conquer the place, and every other island just surrendered. They used to have a¡­ I think Lamdo called him a Chief of Chiefs, but part of the surrender paperwork included voyage for him north, and he¡¯s never been seen since.¡±

    ¡°Doesn¡¯t this place have some kind of divine beast overseeing it?¡±

    ¡°Not that we¡¯ve been able to find. Things would likely be easier if we could just negotiate a deal, but here we are: digging gold out and making ends meet. It¡¯s no wonder the nobles back at Hearth Bay thought this would be the end of me.¡±

    ¡°Are you sure it won¡¯t be?¡±

    ¡°It won¡¯t be. I¡¯m just not sure what I have to do.¡±

    Aisha put her hand on his leg. ¡°Well, I suppose there are worse places to be stuck. The climate is warm, the beach sand soft, and there¡¯s no war going on.¡±

    Lucius looked down, pulled from the grand theater of the mind to the moment. ¡°No, no war near us, not yet anyway,¡± he said, putting his hand to hers. Their tough of hands was always a bit curious for their mismatched callouses. His across his palm from sword work, and hers across her fingertips from working stringed instruments. Neither minded the other¡¯s roughness as they shifted their weight closer to one another. The couch, which was more of a bench, was in no way endowed with the proper comfort for what had entered both of their minds, but that very thought precluded such consideration.

    The two of them closed, each wrapping their arm around the other. For a breath, each had the other¡¯s scent. Sweat and pepper-leaf, the second-hand lingering of tobacco. The fruit Aisha had dined upon. Then they brought their lips together. Soft and focused, their entire worlds became nothing but the touch of skin to skin, lip to lip.

    ¡°Am I interrupting?¡± Sammy asked, poking his head into the smoking room.

    Aisha had to slide her leg off of Lucius¡¯ lap and straighten her dress. ¡°I thought you would be longer.¡±

    The doctor laughed. ¡°Lynn drank a bit too much, and the servants showed her to her room. That¡¯s a mess I¡¯ll have to deal with later. First though¡­¡±

    ¡°Oh, excellent,¡± Lucius said, waving him over. For a moment, he watched as the apothecary turned researcher laid out all manner of tools as well as a notebook. While his two companions chatted about just what was going to be done to monitor what the kuku bud did to Lucius, he didn¡¯t give Sammy the chance to baseline him.(1)

    While neither of them were looking at him, he stuck the thin end of the pipe in his mouth, lit the bowl, and sucked in the smoke. A burning like tar seeped through his lungs, searing and biting at his insides.

    And then the chemicals hit him.

    <hr>

    <ol>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">Due to his stigmata, there was never much variation in his baseline vitals.</li>

    </ol>

 3-5 - Tripping With A Demon

    The world was sucked away from Lucius, drawn out into a tunnel of darkness into which his arms could be feebly stretch. Before he could even set the smoldering pipe down, his head had rolled back and taken his mind with it. The cool air of the basement faded as though his own body temperature had suffused the entire room. The touch of Aisha¡¯s leg against his own vanished and left him alone in the darkness

    Even the idle noise of conversation drew out to incoherent noise and then nothing but his own heart. It beat a steady rhythm into the abyss, a declaration that he was alive that washed out and mingled with the nothingness. But he wasn¡¯t alone in the perceived oblivion. Other drum beats of life echoed back, each at their own pace but each defiantly alive in a world of nothing.

    No shapes, no sights, no objects of form nor extrusion. Truly, he was given a visage of death. This was a familiar world to Lucius, for he visited it often and yet hardly remembered it. Like a passing dream, quickly forgotten in the heat of battle and the pain of recovery. It had but left an impression upon his soul of that world wherein greater beings lay.

    As time progressed, the medley noise of life developed a character of music. He tried to open his mouth to speak, but he had no body, and thus no lips, no mouth, throat, or lungs. He could not call out, neither in comradely greeting nor desperate help. The only mode he had was to add his own beat to the mix and in doing so he became their comrade for a time which, in contrast to the nothingness, was a communion as sweet as any woman¡¯s intimate embrace.

    Then the lights began to manifest, to make their impressions upon him. Rather than stars in the sky, they were like distant fires. Enormous and unmoving, yet their light did not clear back the darkness. They towered over the lives about him, which each resolved into a flickering mote of life no greater than a candle wick and often much less. The grand lights weighed down on him, smothering him with their presence. The grand lights did not join their beat to the medley, but emitted crackling noise as though flocks of songbirds had gone to war within them. A horrid noise, but one which contained far more, nearly a language of thought.

    There was yet another.

    It moved like a man, striding distances between the motes with pure intention, as though the gulfs of space between were but a suggestion. Its light truly shined upon the world, delivering its focus unto existence. With all the care of an elderly craftsman, it flitted about the waning souls, but what it did Lucius could not say.

    Until, at last, it took notice of him. From afar it faced him, and he was struck by the resemblance to a hooded figure of light. Then it was upon him, light as strong as a lantern thrust to his face but he could not recoil. ¡°You were not here before,¡± it said, thought coalescing into words.

    Lucius tried to speak, to manifest his will, but could do nothing but recoil back from the entity.

    ¡°A strong soul, deftly marked, carved out by a greater power. Stained in blood, forged in violence. What a gem has arrived,¡± the entity said, and Lucius felt hands upon him. Their touch restored his body in feeling if not in control, and he felt fingers upon him. Twice as long as they should have been, and as thin as a crone¡¯s. They felt like bones wrapped in skin, and they grabbed him by neck and by head. But they did not squeeze.

    They could not wring the life from his body.

    ¡°You have tasted of the fruit, but this is not your first sight, is it? You have forayed to this realm once before¡­ no¡­ this distinctness of soul, you have been here many times and been strengthened by it. You aren¡¯t one to come to me of your own accord, are you? Not yet at least. Thankfully, time is on my side.¡± The fingers settled around the back of Lucius¡¯s throat, interlacing with one another as clawed thumbs rolled up from larynx to chin.

    The entity began to squeeze. It drew itself closer, drowning out the noise of other life. The light of its focus manifested Lucius¡¯ body once more, but constricted as though a great snake had laid about him. He could not breathe, though his chest began to burn with the need.

    But then he understood how to speak. ¡°I know what you are.¡±

    The entity recoiled, but did not release him.

    Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

    ¡°You pose as a god, but look at you. Your light can barely illuminate one man. You should never have shown yourself to me like this. Now I know I don¡¯t have to be afraid of you.¡±

    The thing shook. ¡°I am the god of these lands, you miserable cur.¡±

    ¡°No, you¡¯re not. But, I bet you¡¯re the reason these islands have collapsed. And to think I thought it was something mundane. No, it was just corruption from a rotten castaway.¡±

    The entity released him, sweeping away and rising over him. ¡°You will not sleep easy from this day forth. My followers are everywhere. If the fruit will not bring you into the fold, then steel will.¡±

    Lucius laughed. ¡°Shouldn¡¯t you run away before Shepherd notices what you¡¯re doing?¡±

    And in so evoking her name, one of the five grand lights began to sway, bringing its attention to them like an enormous pendulum. The entity cursed and flung Lucius away. The world of darkness and light flew from his vision.

    His body once more sucked in breath, and he smelled wine. There was pressure across his chest, on his legs, and in his throat. A moment of blinking brought the blurry world into focus and he heard Sammy say, ¡°I guess he¡¯s not dead.¡±

    The doctor was atop him, pinning him to the couch with fingers jabbed deep into Lucius¡¯ neck to tease out and count his pulse. ¡°I tend to not stay dead, as you may recall. But that was certainly an experience,¡± Lucius said, but found his words slurred. They stumbled across his tongue and tripped over his lips. Working his mouth took a great deal of effort, almost as much as lifting his arms.

    Everything was heavy, but nothing hurt.

    ¡°Are you okay?¡± Aisha asked. ¡°You scared us.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m fine, I think.¡±

    Sammy shook his head. ¡°Stop talking like you have wool in your mouth. Can you?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t know. Probably not. I might need to sleep this off.¡±

    Sammy shoved off and paced the room. ¡°This was a bad idea. He should have had me inspect and document the locals using the stuff first. I don¡¯t even know if there¡¯s a way to counteract this, or how long it will be. That might not have even been a proper dose.¡±

    Lucius shrugged, a miniscule shift of tired shoulders. ¡°It had better be. I got that packed by the smoke house owner. Hit like I sucked ambrosia right from the teat of a divine beast.¡±

    Aisha shook her head. ¡°He¡¯s in no shape to be shown to anyone. We have to keep even the guards out. This is pathetic. He¡¯ll lose the respect of the men if he¡¯s seen in this stupor so soon after coming.¡±

    Sammy picked up a small surgical blade. ¡°We could just kill him to trigger his stigmata.¡±

    ¡°Do not. I¡¯ll be fine,¡± Lucius mumbled.

    Aisha shook her head. ¡°I say leave him overnight, and let him think it over. If he¡¯s still a mess in the morning¡­ well, then we can strangle him I guess.¡±

    The doctor sighed. He traded the blade for a notebook ¡°I guess that leaves me pulling an all-nighter, huh? I have to document his vitals.¡±

    ¡°Oh, at least carry me to the bed.¡±

    Aisha put her hand on Sammy¡¯s shoulder. ¡°I¡¯ll have the kitchen send some food down for you. I guess tonight I have the bed to myself.¡±

    ¡°Hey!¡±

    Aisha smirked at him, though we¡¯ll never know if she understood what he said or merely guessed his intentions. ¡°Sorry, my lord, but you should have thought of this ahead of time, if you wanted to spend the night with me. At least it¡¯s cool in the dungeon down here, right?¡± Then she left and it was but the two men alone.

    Sammy sat down opposite him, scratching his notes down with a quill. I later reviewed these notes and agreed with his hypothesis that the smoke of the kuku bud would make a potent anesthetic for surgical purposes. He had jabbed Lucius a number of times with a needle to the fingertips and gotten no response whatsoever. The only concern was lingering side effects and weighing them against the need for the surgery. The most common anesthetic at the time was distilled wine, which could take an hour to come into effect, while the kuku bud had incapacitated Lucius before he even set the pipe down.

    All this went on without a single thought from my pupil. The second phase of the drug high had seeped through his blood and laden him with lethargy. The energy of life vanished and left him immobile upon the bench. It also diminished his thoughts to the point of a waking sleep that precluded stress, worry, anxiety, and concern. The burdens of leadership, of maintaining his noble facade, of planning for the future, all of them left his body that night.

    It, however, was not stronger than his frustration at being denied the night with his lover.

    The cooling of their relationship in the next few days seemed a transient thing. Lucius set about the task of working through a long pile of reports, decisions, spending requests, legal inquiries, and approvals to hire more staff. All things which had built up in the absence of a proper governor. The intellectual labor cleared his mind of the plant, and Aisha¡¯s company at meals kept him from desiring the unburdening once more.

    The real stress upon the boy came when, two weeks after his arrival at the islands, Rackvidd dispatched a replacement alchemist and Kajsa of Jarnmark arrived.

 3-6 - The Short Alchemist

    ¡°Round them all up and make them work.¡± Those simple words set the spears of his budding army to work on the Kuku Bud smoke den. Axel and Lexa spearheaded the work, being the ones to kick in the door while the others milled around the perimeter. Any other drug organization would have fought back, or at least overflowed with panicked criminals. They would have jumped from windows and scrambled down every road, alley, and sewer to avoid the iron clasp of the law.

    Those that smoked the Kuku bud had no such self-defense. Only the proprietor tried to squirrel out from a bolthole exit. For lack of any other escape attempts, Polunu was able to stroll over and snatch him. He, along with all of his clientele, were marched to the harbor. Some trembled and wept, but Lucius stepped out to assure them he wasn¡¯t going to kill any of them. His words had to be translated by Isalin, but the old man was very good at his role. ¡°But I am going to punish you. You¡¯ve poisoned not just yourselves, but Aliston, the whole of the Misty Isles.¡±

    ¡°Poison?¡± The proprietor blustered, marching up to Lucius and getting a spear leveled at him from Axel. ¡°You can¡¯t just call something you don¡¯t understand poison! You¡¯re accusing us of a crime.¡±

    ¡°I can and I am. You¡¯d have been better off brewing liquor than smoking kuku.¡±

    ¡°You don¡¯t even know what it does!¡±

    Lucius scoffed. ¡°I smoked the entire bowl you gave me. If you think I don¡¯t understand it after that, you only have yourself to blame. Now! It¡¯s a hot day, isn¡¯t it?¡± The sun blazed overhead, like it was trying to boil the ocean and settled for singing their skins. It was the kind of unabated heat that could melt a fly¡¯s wings off. The men he had gathered up had been trying to spend the afternoon in a drug-induced siesta. Standing between spears and the ocea, they only had snarls for their new governor.

    ¡°You see that?¡± He pointed to the sunken ship that blighted the harbor. He didn¡¯t know the story, and didn¡¯t care. The wreckage was an embarrassment for the city, which made it an embarrassment for him. Upon making some inquiries of my own, it seems the captain and this his crew were among those that vanished into the wilderness with the drug-induced sickness. Nobody stayed to tend the ship, and there hadn¡¯t even been a criminal with enough ambition to steal the thing. Without so much as someone to bucket bail the hull, water seeped in over the weeks of neglect, and a rainstorm finally sank it in the harbor. Rot did the rest of the work, leaving a sodden skeleton of swollen timber. ¡°Clean it up.¡±

    The addicts scratched their heads and shuffled their feet. Lucius had to turn to Isalin and ask, ¡°Was there something ambiguous about that?¡±

    The old man shrugged. ¡°I don¡¯t think they see the point, m¡¯lord.¡±

    He turned back to them with eyes like flint. ¡°Polunu, help them see the point.¡±

    The trollkin nodded and strolled up to the group. They were at least twenty, but not one stood with his back straight in the shadow of the trollkin. He picked the youngest of the group, the one with the most openly defiant face, and grabbed him by the arm. The kid screamed as he was tossed into the water next to the ship. Polunu laughed and turned back to the group. Like magic had been worked on them, they all started stripping their clothes off and hopped into the water.

    ¡°Excellent work,¡± Lucius said, crossing his arms as he stood beside the huge guard. The wreckage was in such a sodden state they didn¡¯t even need tools for most of the work and ripped chunks of wood free with their hands. In short order, a back and forth procession began as they hauled the wood out into a dripping heap. He was just getting to organizing rope and axes for the mast and keel when the dockmaster jogged over.

    ¡°The ship from Rackvidd has arrived, m¡¯lord.¡±

    ¡°Lexa, you¡¯re in charge,¡± Lucius said, pointing her at the group of conscripted day laborers. ¡°Take me there,¡± he said, following the foppish clerk across the harbor. The vessel from the north was nothing more than a little merchant sloop, single masted and burdened with mundane trade goods. The captain was already arguing with a local merchant about payment in gold.

    ¡°If you¡¯re not shipping out gold, what the hell are you shipping out? How am I supposed to turn a profit from this town?¡± the mustached merchant shouted.

    ¡°The gold will resume soon. You¡¯re from Rackvidd? You brought me a new alchemist, didn¡¯t you?¡±

    The captain sighed. ¡°Yes, but I wasn¡¯t planning to sit around for the process. She should be coming off shortly,¡± he said with a shake of his head. ¡°You won¡¯t be disappointed, if her quantity of things is anything to go by.¡±

    On cue, the girl called out, ¡°I¡¯m coming!¡± as she teetered across the gangplank. She had a chest strapped her her back with dozens of drawers stuffed to bursting with reagents. The only reason the sheer size of it didn¡¯t knock her over backwards was because of the equally impressive stack she carried in her hands: tomes that nearly reached to her sapphire eyes.

    Naturally, she tripped.

    Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

    Lucius clapped his hands onto the books as she stumbled forward, caught them cold. He caught her too, when her face smacked into those tomes. ¡°You okay?¡±

    The girl groaned and hid her blushing face. After some finagling and rebalancing, she took hold of his arm and eased herself onto the dock. Thinking better of doing all the heavy lifting herself, she dropped her alchemy box and freed herself. ¡°That was very unbecoming of me,¡± she mumbled.

    ¡°It happens to plenty of people when they get off a ship.¡± Lucius set the books onto her box and turned to her. ¡°I¡¯m Lucius von Solhart. Lord Governor of the Misty Isles by decree of his majesty. I take it you¡¯ve come¡­ in response to¡­ Kajsa?¡±

    The short girl had perked herself back up, hands on her hips as the sea wind billowed the hem of her dress. Her smile flipped. ¡°I¡¯m sorry. Do you know me?¡±

    ¡°Ah, no, I mean, as part of preparations for coming here, I made some inquiries about available alchemists and well, your likeness is rather identifiable. I hadn¡¯t been told who was coming, and it just came together in my mind. Sorry, that was an error of etiquette on my end. Forgive me. But, you are Kajsa, aren¡¯t you?¡±

    The girl crossed her arms and didn¡¯t answer immediately. ¡°I am yes, and I¡¯m the best scientist you¡¯ll be able to hire.¡±

    ¡°So you¡¯re a Master Alchemist?¡±

    Kajsa clicked her tongue. ¡°I said that you¡¯d be able to hire. Master Alchemists are all chained to their temples. They¡¯ve given up on the world and devoted themselves to ancient tomes and rituals. They¡¯re of no use to you, Lord Governor.¡±

    ¡°As long as you can handle the mass purification of gold ore, you¡¯ll be the savior of this town.¡±

    She beamed and thumped her chest. ¡°That¡¯s plenty easy. I can handle it no problem and I¡¯ll tell you right now that I¡¯ll even have time to fix other issues!¡±

    It occurred to him that she might be able to work with Sammy in the refinement of the Kuku bud, but that was a problem for the future. Cash flow mattered first and foremost, he even had one merchant peering over his shoulder and running mental sums. That captain was to be his spokesperson, proof to the mercantile community that there was money to be made in the Misty Isles now that he was in charge. Lucius turned to him. ¡°I didn¡¯t catch your name.¡±

    ¡°Lupin.¡±

    ¡°Lupin, after you make your arrangements, I¡¯d like to invite you to the manor for dinner.¡±

    The man grinned and bowed so deeply it was like he could smell gold on the ground. ¡°It would be my honor, Lord Governor.¡±

    Lucius turned back to his childhood friend. ¡°Well then, let¡¯s get you acquainted with the problem and we can sign the paperwork after, yes? You¡¯ll want to know the scope of the work. Axel! Have one of the men carry these things to the manor, would you?¡±

    Kajsa flinched. ¡°Make sure they¡¯re careful! No spills, no stains, no nothing!¡±

    Lucius laughed as the dark skinned warrior walked over. ¡°You hear that? Don¡¯t drop the alchemy stuff or the alchemist will be upset. You¡¯d never be able to eat or drink in peace after that, so be careful.¡±

    Axel stopped, one hand outreached to the luggage as he glanced at Kajsa.

    She cleared her throat. ¡°I¡¯m not an apothecary. I don¡¯t work with poisons.¡±

    Lucius shrugged. ¡°So she says, but I still wouldn¡¯t anger our alchemical savior. Be careful with them all. Especially the books.¡±

    ¡°Yes, sir,¡± Axel said. He gave a bow, and carefully picked everything up himself. He coordinated with his twin about the management of the kuku bud users, and Lucius headed off with Kajsa in tow. Their walk was quiet as he tried to think of how to properly talk to the girl he hadn''t seen in so many years, and who didn¡¯t recognize him anymore. Thankfully, the trip across town was not particularly long.

    ¡°Here¡¯s the raw materials we need you to process,¡± Lucius said as the guard pulled the warehouse doors open.

    ¡°Right, right. I hear the mine is quite product¡­tive¡­¡± Her jaw dropped and she swayed on her feet. She rubbed her eyes like the heat might have caused a mirage, but the barrels remained. ¡°Are you kidding me?¡±

    Lucius shrugged. ¡°It¡¯s enough that large scale processes can be used, isn¡¯t it? I¡¯m told there are efficiencies to be gained from working in quantity.¡±

    She stood there, at a loss for words. Then she started using her fingers for some abstract form of mental arithmetic. ¡°Wait, hold on, how long was this assignment for?¡±

    It was Lucius¡¯ turn to clear his throat. ¡°I believe the message said that it would be for at least six months?¡±

    ¡°I couldn¡¯t process this much gold ore in three years. Are you crazy? I¡¯d have to build an automated factory or something. Do you have any idea the raw manpower that will be needed? The fire! Think of the fire. I could consume an entire forest smelting this down. And the chemicals. If I process the purification brine here, I¡¯d slaughter the entire estuary, the coast, the fish, the everything. This is just impossible to do without sinning against the goddess.¡±

    ¡°Okay.¡±

    ¡°Okay!? What do you mean okay? Nothing about what I just said is okay!¡±

    ¡°The factory. If you need to build a factory, that¡¯s the cost of business. As for the chemical spills, we¡¯ll have to find a solution for that, but you just tell me what your problems are and I will figure out how to solve them. If fire is a problem, I¡¯ll find a solution. These islands are volcanic, we might be able to make something work that way. For now, take the purest pieces you can, clean them up with the current tools, and I¡¯ll pay Lupin enough for him to bring back what supplies you need.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re kidding.¡±

    ¡°Not in the least. I need to make the Misty Isles the most profitable colony of Vassermark, and I¡¯m not going to let anything get in my way.¡±

    Kajsa started to laugh. ¡°Do you have any idea how expensive a factory would be? The complexity! You¡¯re asking me to do something that an entire temple backed by the king would struggle to do!¡±

    Lucius smirked. ¡°And they¡¯d struggle because they¡¯re constrained by being a temple and him being the king. Don¡¯t you find it liberating to work in obscurity?¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re a greedy noble, you know that? You¡¯re asking the impossible of someone you just met, and promising the world. What are you? A two-legged dragon?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m just a man who can see the big picture.¡±

 3-7 - A Threatening Steak

    ¡°You know, this island actually has a very vibrant wilderness,¡± Lucius said as he sliced through a venison steak. To either side of him, Kajsa and Aisha did the same, mincing their meat to pieces without eating it. Both women seemed intent on drinking their dinner and had already emptied one flagon of wine.

    ¡°Indeed, m¡¯Lord,¡± Lupin said. ¡°The locals did little to tame the islands and left them unspoiled. The animals have a very¡­ powerful flavor to them.¡±

    ¡°A bit of nature tamed for our dinner,¡± Lucius said, choking down one of the cartilage suffused pieces. ¡°The locals tend to stew their meat with spices.¡±

    ¡°Yes, I¡¯ve had some of those meals. They go well over rice, but they don¡¯t agree with me much. Simpler fare is preferable,¡± the merchant said, inspecting a piece of meat and setting it aside on his plate in favor of mashed tubers.

    Lucius washed his gamey meal down with some wine and perused the table. Sammy and his paramore, Sera, sat opposite each other, buffering Lupin from the icy air. Miss Lynnfield rescued the conversation with a blunt, ¡°It needs butter. This is as dry as military rations.¡±

    Lupin coughed. Lucius laughed. ¡°I think restarting a dairy operation is high on the priorities. I¡¯d settle for goat butter to be honest. I¡¯m very indebted to the chef for felling this game for us, but yes, it does show the shabby state of the colony, doesn¡¯t it?¡±

    With an arched eyebrow, the merchant swirled his wine and said, ¡°I¡¯m told the locals are foreign to such things. A friend of mine once tried to sell cheese to them and was run out of the market for the stench!¡±

    ¡°Sounds like a motivated seller. I would have loved to buy it off of him,¡± Lucius said. ¡°You know, before the war, I once had a whole chicken boiled in butter. An utterly absurd amount of of the stuff, but my god did it come out tasting delicious.¡±

    Sammy said, ¡°It¡¯s a wonder you came out fighting fit if that¡¯s what you were eating.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s all about moderation,¡± Lucius said.

    ¡°Moderation?¡± Aisha asked. ¡°Like in how many women you invite into your home?¡±

    Kajsa jumped up, which hardly changed her height. ¡°He hired me! This is an entirely normal part of patronage. I don¡¯t know what backwater you came out of to have these kinds of manners.¡±

    ¡°Aisha, I assure you, whoever showed up to work for me would have gotten the same treatment. Also, how many? The only other woman is Miss Lynnfield!¡±

    Sammy pointed his goblet at Aisha. ¡°She had better not count. Sera¡¯s mine.¡±

    ¡°Oh? Are you going with them?¡± Aisha asked.

    ¡°Going where?¡±

    Lucius interjected, ¡°Miss Lynnfield will be accompanying me to the mine tomorrow, to inspect the conditions and efficiency.¡±

    ¡°And Kajsa is going too,¡± Aisha said.

    ¡°So she can comment on the delivery of the ore,¡± Lucius said, giving the alchemist a look to command her back into her seat. ¡°You know what, why don¡¯t you come with us, Aisha?¡±

    ¡°Certainly.¡±

    Lupin shook his head. ¡°Quite the spirited woman you have with you, m¡¯lord.¡±

    ¡°About as spirited as the one you brought,¡± Lucius said, draining his goblet. Both women sat down and attacked their plates and silence reigned in the dining room. Lucius found himself daydreaming of the next day, and evidently so was Sera.

    ¡°You don¡¯t think that drug has gotten into the prison, do you?¡± she asked.

    ¡°Drug?¡± the merchant asked.

    ¡°More of a poison,¡± Lucius said.

    Sammy nodded. ¡°It might have medicinal use but the smoking of it? Anything but.¡±

    ¡°I wasn¡¯t aware there was a local drug. Is it like tobacco?¡±

    ¡°More like poppy. It might be a derivative, but I¡¯d have to ask the grower to know.¡±

    ¡°And what?¡± the merchant asked, ¡°is it killing people?¡±

    ¡°Not directly,¡± Lucius said, and sliced through another piece of venison. His knife hit something, hard as a bone and in the middle of the muscle. His first thought was that the arrowhead was still in the animal, which would have been very sloppy butchering. He dug at the meat, ripping it apart to expose the black kernel within. It wasn¡¯t an arrowhead. It wasn¡¯t even something as repulsive as a tumor or parasite cooked to death in the roasting. He pulled a single, unprocessed kuku bud from meat.

    ¡°I have to excuse myself,¡± he said, rising from the table and palming it from sight.

    He got some strange looks for that, but Lupin at least kept up good manners. He turned to the redhead and said, ¡°Miss Canta, I understand you are a singer? Could I trouble you for a sampling?¡±

    Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

    She rose, ¡°Tonight, in one of the lounges,¡± she promised and chased after Lucius as he vanished into the halls. ¡°What do you think you¡¯re doing?¡±

    ¡°Me?¡± he asked, spinning on her. The two of them stood close, pressed in by the bare plaster walls for the servants. No paint, no decor, not even fresh air filled the hall. ¡°What do you think you¡¯re doing?¡±

    She balked, turning up her nose at him. ¡°You¡¯re the one acting irrationally.¡±

    ¡°Is this really about Kajsa?¡±

    ¡°Why shouldn¡¯t it be? You should have sent her back the moment she arrived.¡±

    ¡°She¡¯s not going to recognize me. We haven¡¯t seen each other in half a decade, all of puberty!¡±

    ¡°For you maybe.¡±

    Lucius rolled his eyes. ¡°The only way she¡¯ll realize who I am is if you keep acting like this. Understood? She¡¯s just someone I know from my past, and with any luck will be too busy making me rich to cause any trouble.¡±

    She crossed her arms. ¡°Is making yourself rich so important?¡±

    Lucius paced the hall and came back to her. ¡°Any week now, we¡¯ll hear word that Vassermark has begun a campaign of suppression against the central kingdoms. They¡¯ll march out and put the radicals down, and you know what will happen? They¡¯ll kill farmers that should have been planting fields. They¡¯ll burn markets down and halt trade and a dozen other things. The winners will have the pleasure of plunder, but to take from others is a quick way to poverty. If they win, they¡¯ll be rich in land, but poor in everything else, for years! And that¡¯s if they don¡¯t kick off some form of plague in the process.¡±

    ¡°The goddesses wouldn¡¯t use a plague to stop them,¡± Aisha said.

    ¡°We can only hope so. But what is certain is the real winner will be whoever can sell to them afterward. I¡¯m nothing but a steward of the colony, and that¡¯s because it¡¯s perceived as a cesspool. The moment King Arandall realizes I¡¯ve fixed the place, he¡¯ll pluck me out with some bullshit reward and give it to someone else.¡±

    ¡°Isn¡¯t that a bad thing?¡±

    ¡°Depends entirely on when and where. What¡¯s important now is getting the gold mining back on schedule, rooting out the demon, and not causing a controversy.¡±

    Aisha shrank back until her back was to the wall and hung her head. ¡°I¡¯m sorry.¡±

    Lucius softened his voice and said, ¡°Just because she was my friend doesn¡¯t mean anything now. I can¡¯t let personal feelings get in the way, understood?¡±

    She frowned. ¡°Your tone is different when she¡¯s around, you know that?¡±

    ¡°What? No, it¡¯s not.¡±

    ¡°Yes, it is. You normally have an edge to your voice like disobeying you is the last thing anyone should do. You speak strong, loud, sharp. But with Sammy and me, you laugh. And you¡¯ve been doing that in front of her too. Your defenses are down. I¡¯m afraid you¡¯re going to slip up, but if this girl hasn¡¯t seen you in almost ten years, you can¡¯t actually trust her. She¡¯s dangerous to have around.¡±

    ¡°She¡¯s the best alchemist we can get right now. An unguarded tongue is something I can deal with. Now, if you¡¯ll excuse me, I have a betrayer to deal with.¡±

    ¡°Just, you had better not be thinking of seducing her! You got that?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m not!¡± With blushing cheeks, he fled from her and stormed the kitchen. A scullion maid jumped up, hands filthy as she faced him. ¡°Where¡¯s the chef? The one who hunted the deer?¡±

    ¡°Pardon, m¡¯lord?¡±

    ¡°The chef!¡±

    She flinched back. ¡°Pardon?¡±

    ¡°Do you not speak Vassish?¡±

    She shook her head.

    ¡°Isalin! Get me Isalin!¡± he roared, and threw open the back door of the estate. At that moment, had he been able to rip the knowledge of the local tongue from someone¡¯s brain, he may well have. The grounds around his manor had a handful of bored guards keeping watch, and the one he found had been dozing. Lucius snarled and stormed back to the main room.

    Adam No-last-name arrived in response to the commotion, carrying a wineskin and quite disheveled. ¡°Are we under attack?¡±

    ¡°I need to find the chef.¡±

    ¡°What? For second dinner or something?¡±

    ¡°To have a nice long chat,¡± Lucius said, and Adam did not make a snarky quip. ¡°I don¡¯t know enough of the language to rally the staff. I need your help.¡±

    Adam bowed. ¡°Certainly,¡± he said, and left Lucius in the lounge. He took a seat on one of the benches, steepling his fingers and brooding over the possible means of betrayal. To his dismay, it was the same lounge that his guests decided to retire to.

    Sera Lynnfield strolled in at the front, followed by Lupin and the others. She immediately understood the nature of what had Lucius troubled. ¡°Should I go get my things?¡± she asked.

    ¡°Mine as well,¡± he answered.

    ¡°What¡¯s the matter?¡± the merchant asked, entering with a smile and making room for Aisha to enter with an elegant instrument something like a cousin of the guitar.

    ¡°Are you a religious man?¡± Lucius asked, watching Sera slip out the other side of the room to fetch their blades.

    ¡°It¡¯s not exactly in question whether the gods are real¡­¡±

    ¡°But people do tend to pick and choose which of the divine they emulate. It seems one of my staff has chosen poorly.¡± Lucius watched as Kajsa and Sammy took seats upon the opposing sofa, settling in with watered down wine and reserved observation.

    Aisha cocked an eyebrow at him as she tuned her instrument. ¡°Something tells me you won¡¯t be sticking around for my singing.¡±

    ¡°Such is my responsibility.¡± He paced to the end of the room, where reinforced windows gave a crude view of the night sky and the mottled forest below. He listened with half interest as she discussed options with the merchant and with Kajsa. They debated Giordanan versus Vassish music, the classics of the churches as well as the lowbrow tunes filtering from Aillesterra. Aisha had just gotten to a preferred epic poem, rhythmic verse matched to a simple chord progression, when Sera returned.

    With sheathed blades in either hand, she said, ¡°It¡¯s bad.¡±

    The chef had been found, and several men stood around the body with lanterns. They shifted and mingled, dancing their lights across the swaying corpse. It hung from a bent palm tree, a twisting pendulum over a river crag. ¡°How did he get there?¡± Lucius asked.

    Lexa said, ¡°It¡¯s the work of the demon.¡±

    Lucius took one of the lanterns for himself and shown it upon the rope. It was too short to have been put around the chef¡¯s neck before jumping off the side. What was more, he had been expecting to see old mooring line or some other sailing rope used. Mere vines ringed the man¡¯s neck. ¡°Get me Lamdo. I want to know every person this man associated with. Arrest them all if need be.¡±

    ¡°Sir? That seems a bit extreme.¡±

    Lucius reached into his pocket and rubbed the kuku bud. ¡°This was a threat. I don¡¯t take kindly to threats. And retrieve the body. I want to inspect it in the morning.¡±

    Lexa saluted. ¡°As you command.¡±

    Lucius walked back on his own. He spoke to the night and all things in it which listened. ¡°You¡¯ll regret this, demon.¡±

 3-8 - A New Chef

    Lucius awoke while the stars still shone. He sucked in the cool sea air and sat up from bed, letting a gust of cool air slip beneath the covers. Aisha grumbled, rolling over and cocooning herself in the thin sheet as he left her side. Dormant insects clung to the mesh across the window, imitating sleep as they waited to be burdened with morning dew. No one in all the Misty Isles but him seemed to be awake.

    He stole out from the bedroom, wearing a light toga. In the hall, he could hear the light echo of stirring pots, of a crackling stove. He arrived at the kitchen as quiet as a ghost, lest he wake someone, and nearly started the old maid. ¡°M¡¯lord,¡± she said, bowing her head to him as she stood over the bubbling pot.

    ¡°Tea?¡±

    ¡°Ocha.¡±

    ¡°Is it good?¡±

    The woman stared back at him, then fetched a cup without saying another word. She filled it for him, a meager water barely tinted by the brew, and he slipped out from the room rather than badger an old woman who didn¡¯t speak his language. It warmed his hand and brought a spot of vigor to him as he skulked over to the guest hall. He settled in against one wall and sipped his drink. From where he stood, he could see out a window to a changing hue of warmth. Slowly, the temperature changed, and all the little critters of the land noticed the sunrise.

    PEW.

    The first frog croaked like a church bell. A bed jerked, sheets flying.

    PEW. PEW.

    Lucius sipped his tea and grinned. The cacophony of pew frogs grew with the rising of the sun, filling the town with their customary wake up call. All of the locals began to wake and to move, to get themselves ready for the day. The one person new to the Misty Isles sprang out of her bed screaming. ¡°What is going on!?¡± Kajsa demanded, throwing open her door in nothing but a nightgown.

    She spun about, one foot in the hall, her hair flying in every direction. Her eyes landed on Lucius, casually leaning against the wall with a drink, and she flinched back. That something was amiss struck her immediately, and she noticed his smirk despite the darkness. ¡°What?¡±

    Lucius shrugged. ¡°We don¡¯t have roosters here, no need.¡±

    ¡°What the heck is going on?¡± she demanded, brushing some of her hair back out of her face. Some other people stuck their heads out of their rooms, servants and Lupin notably. Many of them chuckled and turned away.

    Lucius grinned. ¡°Want to see?¡±

    Donning a coat over her nightgown, Kajsa followed behind him and the two of them walked past the guard training grounds to the treeline. After a moment of inspection, being verbally accosted by their territorial cries, he was able to point one of the little devils out to her. She watched the gut inflate, doubling the critter in size, before bursting out in noise. At once her frustration switched to curiosity. She fell to her knees and snatched up the frog. The thing creaked, belching out a half breath and squirming in her grasp as she turned it this way and that.

    The researcher in her brain had full control, and there was no concern for decorum, for keeping the mud off her dress. She was like a child playing with a new toy and trying to get it to croak once more.

    Lucius kept his laughter to himself, finally enjoying the display at someone else¡¯s expense, and watched. By the time he finished his cup of tea, Lexa marched across the field and saluted him. ¡°You wanted to see the body, sir?¡±

    ¡°Body?¡± Kajsa asked, and lost the frog. In her moment of surprise, it leapt from her hands and into the foliage. ¡°Damn it!¡±

    ¡°There was a criminal,¡± Lucius said. ¡°It¡¯s why I had to run off last night.¡±

    ¡°In the manor?¡± she asked.

    ¡°Not anymore, I don¡¯t think. But, it¡¯s not something you should concern yourself with. Why don¡¯t you get breakfast with Aisha?¡± he offered. When he saw her disgusted face, he added, ¡°If she gives you a hard time, tell her I won¡¯t let her join the trip this afternoon.¡±

    ¡°Is your family really fine with you taking a foreign mistress?¡±

    Lucius stopped, half turned to join Lexa. ¡°My family?¡±

    Kajsa rose with a scowl and dusted her knees off. ¡°Shouldn¡¯t a nobleman¡¯s lover be more¡­ demure about her place?¡±

    ¡°Well, we met in the middle of a war. Wouldn¡¯t you expect her to be a bit rough around the edges while stuck in a corner of the world?¡±

    Kajsa twisted her lips into a pout and watched the two of them go. The walk was short, merely to one of the unused barracks rooms. The cots inside clearly hadn¡¯t been used in a long time, and Lucius noted, ¡°We need to recruit more.¡±

    ¡°Good luck finding people worth the coin.¡±

    ¡°We¡¯ll have to burn the rot out and start fresh,¡± he said, and stood next to the stripped body. The chef had been utterly unremarkable. His body appeared like a retired farmer. Long limbs that seemed to stretch out in bone and sinew, ending in tough nails and calluses. The face was drawn out with thin lips and boxed in by a bushy beard kept from his face. His gut protruded up from the table, bloated and hairy, rather it had prior to the Y cut that had split the chest cavity open.

    Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

    Sammy wiped his hands off with a rag and yawned. ¡°I thought you were crazy when you asked for an autopsy on a hanging victim.¡±

    ¡°Thank you for staying up¡­ What am I looking at?¡±

    The doctor pulled out a short stick and began poking around. ¡°See this?¡± he asked, prodding a lump of fat circled in black lines. ¡°This is his heart. Twice the size it should be. I¡¯m amazed he didn¡¯t burst one of his blood vessels and die just walking up a hill. I¡¯ve never seen these black rings before though. The liver is similarly engorged. Both are relatively common in older and sicker people. He obviously fed himself well.¡±

    ¡°Have you ever dissected somebody with a stigmata before?¡±

    ¡°Do you count?¡±

    ¡°You haven¡¯t dissected me yet.¡±

    ¡°No, but I¡¯ve seen the wizard¡¯s diagrams of your insides, in case you end up with tumors again.(1) I got a look inside several men at Rackvidd whose injuries required surgery as well, and yes, I know what gets mirrored within as without. But this man didn¡¯t have a stigmata.¡± Sammy pushed the cracked rib cage over to reveal the sagging skin: hairy, but bare of marks.

    ¡°Then it¡¯s someone else¡¯s stigmata,¡± Lucius said.

    ¡°I didn¡¯t know that was possible.¡±

    ¡°Neither did I. I¡¯d love to ask Amurabi about it, but he¡¯s on the mainland. I¡¯d bet money that this man didn¡¯t know the boon, whatever that was, came with a kill switch.¡±

    Lexa stuck her chin out at the corpse and said, ¡°So, this is the work of some kind of mage then? Voodoo?¡±

    ¡°You could say that,¡± Lucius said with a nod. ¡°Apparently this demon onf yorus can make stigmata for a price. Sammy, is there any way to tell who has been afflicted like this without cutting them open?¡±

    The boy sighed. ¡°Not that I could find so far, but I do have a theory. I opened up his lungs to take a look,¡± he said, gesturing to the blackened organ. He had removed it from the body and sliced it open like a feast day roast. The inside may as well have had maggots crawling through it. The flesh oozed pus even half a day after death. ¡°I¡¯m pretty sure you would be able to hear the infection, but I¡¯m not sure this is a consistent¡­ symptom. There is documentation that this occurs to most people who smoke heavily.¡±

    ¡°So, you need another sample.¡±

    ¡°A live one, preferably.¡±

    Lucius crossed his arms and nodded. ¡°I can arrange that I think. I just have to make the proper opportunity.¡±

    Lexa snorted and paced the room. ¡°Sounds like you¡¯re going to use somebody as bait.¡±

    ¡°I am,¡± Lucius said.

    ¡°Fair enough, if it gives us a chance at the demon, my brother or I¨C¡±

    ¡°Not you,¡± he said with a shake of his head. ¡°I¡¯ll be the bait. Trust me, I¡¯m very good at not dying.¡±

    The young soldier arched an eyebrow at him, but she had seen him fight, so she shrugged and bowed her head to him. ¡°Will this be soon?¡±

    ¡°Today, yes. I think I¡¯ll try to make it happen while I¡¯m at the mine. If that doesn¡¯t work, I¡¯ll try something new tomorrow, and the next day. I think I can actually make myself quite productive like this if the demon doesn¡¯t feel like taking my offer.¡±

    Sammy yawned. ¡°Right, well, if it¡¯s all the same to you, the sun has come up, according to the noise of the frogs, and I¡¯d like to finally get some sleep. I wonder if Sera is already up.¡±

    ¡°Sorry Sammy,¡± Lucius said, slapping a hand on his shoulder. ¡°Sera is coming with me to the mine. You¡¯re going to have the bed to yourself.¡±

    The doctor scowled up at him. ¡°You¡¯re gunna have to make this up to me, you got that?¡±

    ¡°I will, I will. Once the gold is flowing, I¡¯ll throw a festival, alright? It¡¯ll be great.¡±

    They emerged from the barracks as the rest of the guards had begun to get dressed. They moseyed about, stretching and grumbling curses at the frogs. Fires were kindled and crude meals prepared for the men. The sad reality of the situation dawned on everyone present as their stomachs growled for breakfast. The chef had been killed. Only one old maid staffed the kitchen, and that was hardly fit for everyone. Lucius turned to Sammy and asked, ¡°Are you any good at cooking?¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t even think about it.¡±

    The crisis had already been averted however. Lucius entered the kitchen prepared to embarrass himself in front of the cookpot, and found Aisha working with Isalin. The two of them were speaking rapidfire in the Giordanan tongue, so much so the maid had thrown up her hands and left. That seemed to please Aisha perfectly, for she had her hair tied up, and an apron about herself. She worked three pots at once, seasoning a concoction of rice, eggs, and a vegetable hash. The caramelizing onions had Lucius¡¯ mouth watering as he slunk in between the two of them. He peered over Isalin¡¯s shoulder as the man plucked a scrawny chicken and soon was working a blade through the bones so fast he nearly lost a finger.

    ¡°I wasn¡¯t expecting this,¡± Lucius whispered over Aisha¡¯s shoulder.

    Aisha huffed. ¡°Well, it¡¯s something I can do to help, isn¡¯t it? More useful than singing for a merchant, isn¡¯t it? Not like a temple girl like Kajsa would know how to cook.¡±

    ¡°And the daughter of a merchant does? When did you have time to learn between all your music lessons?¡±

    ¡°Shockingly enough, it isn¡¯t very hard to learn how to cook, and yet almost everybody¨Cmen especially¨Crefuse to do it!¡±

    Isalin grumbled, ¡°Hey.¡±

    Aisha apologized in Giordanan, and continued, ¡°My mother taught me, she wasn¡¯t a merchant¡¯s daughter from birth and she was smart enough to pass it on to me¡­ she always said that it¡¯s easier to apologize to someone after they¡¯ve had a good meal.¡±

    ¡°People are more agreeable when sated, yes. I know I can be a bit of a grouch when I¡¯m on the emaciated side of things.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s too bad you can¡¯t always get someone to have a meal and talk the problem over.¡±

    Lucius put his hands on her shoulders, working his thumbs into her muscles. ¡°Sometimes you need steel¡­ but today, leave the danger to me, alright?¡±

    She stiffened. ¡°I¡¯m coming with you.¡±

    ¡°Yes, yes, you and Sera, but that doesn¡¯t mean I want you in the thick of it. Okay?¡±

    ¡°Fine, now, let¡¯s eat.¡±

    ¡°Aisha, my love, you have saved me from the tortures of an empty stomach. Let us hope we can root out this demon before I get recalled.¡±

    ¡°So that we might actually have some free time?¡±

    ¡°Me and you on a beach, wading in the cool waves¡­ sounds like a grand idea.¡±

    ¡°Yes it does, but after we¡¯ve gotten rid of the assassins, yes?¡±

    As answer, he planted a kiss on her neck, and only half of his mind sat upon the problem of how to lure out the improvised killers.

    <hr>

    <ol>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">At this time, it had only happened once, but we later determined they were cysts. The way his stigmata reacted to debris it couldn¡¯t eject was to pocket them in inert flesh. I had initially misidentified the scar tissue as a tumor, though I maintain the difference is semantics. Too many of them and his organs would get squeezed.</li>

    </ol>

 3-9 - Noodling In A Prison

    Lucius, Sera Lynnfield, and Aisha arrived at the gold mine prison camp beneath the noon sun. The stripped mountain slope sat surrounded by a jungle rim, beholding the sun like a pottery bowl rooted into the island. A mountain peak had once reigned in the fog, but the cap had been blown off a few generations past, according to the local tradition. A hero with skin like a moonlit night is said to have slain the fire demon at the heart of the island, and forever stayed the molten rock, as though he had healed an oozing wound.

    I never did corroborate the tale. In particular the description of his skin color is peculiar. All humans, even the most debauched and sunburned curs of the wastelands, keep a red hue to their flesh. A moonlit night implies he had perhaps something inorganic to his body, but no such technology existed in that primitive land. Regardless of plausibility, the legend persisted through the local psyche and let the workers toil in peace. They could dig up the earth and tunnel through the stone without fear they might break through to magma. Sulfurous gasses were a persistent problem however, forcing the laborious process of strip mining. Over the last years, they had dug up such a tremendous amount of waste they had built their own harbor with it. The ocean tides were shut out from the docks, and even a simple barge could shuttle between the mine and Aliston.

    The grand effect was almost to undercut the immensity of the operation, to understate the raw value produced by the sweat of criminals.

    Perhaps most importantly, the collection of houses to one side kept soldiers from Vassermark. A true enclave of northern civilization existed there upon the island. No translator was needed for Lucius to approach and call out, ¡°My name is Lucius von Solhart, the new Lord Governor of the Misty Isles. Bring me the warden.¡±

    Soon enough, the man was fetched. He was an older gentlemen with a wet cough he habitually covered with a filthy handkerchief. ¡°Consumption m¡¯Lord. I was stationed at Rackvidd first, for my health, but city life didn¡¯t suit me much. Don¡¯t worry, even should the disease rob me of my lungs, I won¡¯t kick the bucket. The goddesses saw to that.¡±

    ¡°A stigmata?¡±

    ¡°I could breathe underwater if I felt the need, m¡¯Lord.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m quite envious, but, please, show me around.¡±

    The tour began around the rim, circling the operation so that they might view the labor from every side, up and down the mountain. The light clatter of metal as Lucius walked drew attention to them, and some wondered why the new governor had felt the need to arrive armed and girded to a prison.

    The warden turned his attention from the pit to the staff buildings as they came down the slope. ¡°The ledgers of production are kept in my house. I can show you them as we retire for some light refreshments.¡±

    ¡°I want to see the tunnels,¡± Lucius said.

    That stopped the warden. ¡°Into the mine? My lord, that¡¯s no fit place for women.¡±

    Lucius turned to Sera and said, ¡°Take Aisha to his house and the two of you look over his ledgers. You¡¯re competent at numbers, aren¡¯t you?¡±

    Sera grinned and nodded. ¡°Competent enough to be paid properly, m¡¯Lord.¡±

    ¡°Sending me from the fun part?¡± Aisha asked.

    ¡°Sending you away from the part where you might get shanked by an angry prisoner.¡±

    The warden scoffed. ¡°My lord, you should be concerned about yourself.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s precisely my plan.¡± The two men cut off down a gravel slope. They snaked back and forth, passing no wall nor gate nor barrier of any kind. It seemed the raw toil of the mine was all that kept the prisoners from picking up and stealing through the night. The men worked mutely, with pickaxe and shovels. They piled the dark, lifeless dirt into carts, burying what rocks existed within the volcanic soil. The dirt was nearly fertile, but had never been touched with life. The miners had scraped off the veneer of life and exposed mere possibility.

    ¡°What do you do with the dirt? Is it shipped to plantations?¡±

    ¡°What would be the point in that?¡± the warden asked. ¡°Food grows well enough here. There¡¯s no scarcity so long as there is a modicum of labor.¡±

    ¡°But this is volcanic soil. It¡¯s verdant. What do you do with it?¡±

    The warden shrugged. ¡°The men take it to the ocean and sieve it out. We collect a pound or two a day like that.¡±

    ¡°Of?¡±

    ¡°Gold, m¡¯lord. Whole nuggets big and small.¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t like it. I can¡¯t tell you to change it yet, but I will mark off some plantations. I want the sieving done there as part of the irrigation. Lord Raymi will be leading a fresh expedition into Giordana soon, and I mean to sell him his food,¡± Lucius said, walking past one of the dirt carts with a shake of his head.

    Some of the prisoners began to slow their work. They stood up like prairie dogs from the lifeless loam and watched the two of them traverse the island¡¯s wound. The smell of sweat mingled with the growing sulfur haze, but also with a smoke undertone of kuku bud. ¡°Do you have a drug problem here, warden?¡±

    This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

    ¡°Depends what you mean by problem, m¡¯lord.¡±

    ¡°In Aliston, the free economy has come to a halt because everyone is too busy smoking. This mine is the one establishment where a slowdown cannot be permitted.¡±

    The warden nodded. ¡°The productivity of the mine is strictly monitored by a quota system. The only slowdowns that occur are when a prisoner dies, and then that lasts only until the next shipment arrives.¡±

    ¡°Or finishes his term.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m sorry?¡±

    Lucius turned on him. ¡°This is a prison, isn¡¯t it? The men here aren¡¯t condemned to death. They¡¯re condemned to hard labor. When their sentences are up, surely they must go home. We wouldn¡¯t continue feeding men we can¡¯t coerce into labor.¡±

    The warden blustered and shrugged. ¡°Well, I understand, certainly, sir, but you see, I don¡¯t believe a man has yet to finish his term. We¡¯ve only had the mine for a few years, and the men sent here are some of the worst. Decades of punishment.¡±

    Lucius frowned and scrutinized the man¡¯s eyes. ¡°What about men who disappear?¡±

    ¡°Disappear? Where would they go? Sir, this is an island.¡±

    ¡°Do you mean to tell me that no prisoner has ever vanished?¡±

    ¡°Only those that died. Sir, there¡¯s nothing to eat on the island. No farms, no villages, and the water has sharks. It¡¯s why we can contain so many men productively here.¡±

    Lucius nodded. Then he swept his arm around the pit. ¡°Show me the tunnels.¡±

    ¡°Pardon?¡±

    ¡°The tunnels. You have to dig in to get the best gold ore, don¡¯t you? I know a few things about engineering and would like to inspect how you¡¯re managing. If there¡¯s a risk of cave-ins halting progress, I want to remedy that.¡±

    Quite unable to protest the fact, the warden produced a handkerchief from his pocket and daubed his glistening forehead. ¡°Certainly, m¡¯lord.¡± The tunnel was marked more by the rutted tracks leading into it than any proper construction, as though the carts had cut a tongue of mud to mark the mouth. As the two of them descended into it, the darkness light poorly by a faltering oil lamp, the stone constricted about them. Like a drawn out funnel, they were soon crouching and scraping their shoulders against the walls. Here and there, the stone glittered with gold, fleks of luster that caught the light like fireflies¨Calways deep between the scrapings of chisel and ax.

    The stench grew and the air turned stagnant as the tunnel spiraled about itself, a great corkscrew to burrow into the island. ¡°Don¡¯t you have flooding problems?¡±

    ¡°Not at all. The outflow of the rock created a sort of barrier. We¡¯re like a ship at sea, nothing much gets in.¡±

    ¡°Except the gasses.¡±

    ¡°Except the gasses.¡±

    ¡°Do you have fire problems?¡±

    ¡°No, sir,¡± the warden said, leading him on and on. The two of them had to squeeze past a pair of ruddy miners, their eyes set back in their skulls like the hints of gold hiding in the crags of the tunnels. ¡°Because the mine above is continually stripped, the tunnels are never very deep. Look, the end is here already.¡± The man gestured at a shadowy continuation so shallow the only way to enter would have been crawling like a snake.

    Lucius bent down and peered. He could see the blistered feet of a prisoner beyond, chipping at the stone with hammer and chisel. ¡°Not very pleasant work, is it?¡±

    ¡°Efficient though, and when the hole is that small¡­¡±

    ¡°It doesn¡¯t collapse?¡±

    ¡°Indeed.¡±

    Lucius nodded and sat squat, his back to the earlier tunnel. ¡°You ask much of your laborers, and you do it with less soldiers than you might like. Your ability to maintain order is admirable.¡±

    At last the warden smiled. ¡°Thank you, my lord. We use shifts of cooking and cleaning as reward systems, and keep them fed well enough. The operation is quite peaceful in a sense. Perhaps now your curiosity has been sated?¡±

    Lucius nodded and the two of them climbed back out. One of the earlier miners followed them out, staying to the shadows as the young governor filled his lungs with fresh air. At last, one of the malcontents took their chance. A wiry man, as foul tempered as a beaten dog, darted from behind Lucius. Padding feet across gravel without a sound, he dove. One of the guards whooped and charged towards them, but it gave him no more time than to turn and see the broken shank of chisel before it sank into his side. Steel bit through cloth and skin, tearing into muscle. Had it not struck a rib bone¨Cfracturing it¨Cthe weapon would have plunged through to his lungs.

    The attacker ripped the chisel free with both hands, frothing at the mouth as he held it overhead. Before he could slam it down upon him, Lucius caught the man¡¯s elbow with his good side. ¡°Got you,¡± he sneered, pushing back without even a grunt of pain. He locked eyes with the prisoner and found his pupils as dilated as a lover¡¯s. He had known the mine would be infected, that at least some of the prisoners would be partaking of the spirit¡¯s succor. Using a Vassish man against him was an obvious ploy to sow chaos among their ranks, and perhaps would have worked if Lucius were a man so easily killed.

    When the assassin realized the game was up, however, he nearly turned the shank on himself. Lucius had to grapple with him, to thank hand and arm, before the bloody edge could open the man¡¯s throat. The guard was nearly upon them to help when the assassin¡¯s body shook and slammed into Lucius with an impact that nearly drove him to the ground. Blood fountained into the air from the back of the man¡¯s head as he went limp and Lucius dropped the corpse, his mouth agape.

    Another prisoner, still bearing the fat of free life in his cheeks, saluted him with one hand and held the bloody pickax in the other. ¡°Commander Solhart, it¡¯s good to see you again.¡±

    Lucius looked at the corpse, at the man, at the weapon, pieced together the facts, and scowled. ¡°You¡¯re a deserter, aren¡¯t you?¡±

    The man paled. ¡°Was, sir. I swear though, not following you was the biggest mistake I could have made. If you hadn¡¯t come in and saved us from the lieutenant¡¯s madness, I would have been dead in the ground.¡±

    ¡°And instead, you¡¯re alive in the ground, aren¡¯t you lucky,¡± Lucius said, glaring at the laggard guard.

    ¡°Please, Commander Solhart, sir, my lord. Please, I beg for your pardon. I can be of proper use to you. Let me serve again! The war was over after the battle. I got rammed through the court. I shouldn¡¯t be here!¡±

    ¡°You shouldn¡¯t have killed that man.¡± Lucius jabbed his finger at the assassin¡¯s corpse. ¡°You should have known he wouldn¡¯t kill me.¡±

    ¡°But sir! He was attacking you.¡±

    ¡°Warden!¡± Lucius bellowed. ¡°I don¡¯t know what work you punish men with, but whatever latrines you have to dig out, I want him doing that for the next week¡­ then send him to Aliston to report to me.¡±

 3-10 - Planning Over Wine

    The owner of the kuku bud den was arrested. Axel and some men kicked in his door in the dead of night, dragged him from his bed without a word. Within the hour he was in a holding cell, buried beneath the squat stone tower near the harbor. They left him to his own filth and confusion until the morning, when Lucius doused him with a bucket. Not because the man was asleep and needed rousing, or even because he was filthy. Lucius did it merely to set the tone before flipping it over and sitting on it outside the prison bars.

    ¡°What do you want?¡± the proprietor asked, spitting some water from his beard.

    ¡°Your grower.¡±

    ¡°My what?¡±

    ¡°Where is the plant grown?¡±

    The man stood up and didn¡¯t know what to do with himself. Eventually, he clasped his hands behind his back and shrugged. ¡°What do you want me to say? It¡¯s grown in the fields. A man brings it by the bagful and sells it to me for a pittance. Enough to get himself a hogshead of liquor and off he goes.¡±

    ¡°And you expect me to believe you don¡¯t know where he comes from?¡±

    ¡°He comes from the islands! Somewhere out there. What do you want me to say?¡±

    ¡°I want you to tell me how I can find the plantation. These things are farmed, aren¡¯t they? Or is the man a wild forager?¡±

    ¡°My lord, I can¡¯t tell you what I do not know.¡±

    Lucius interlaced his fingers and calmly said, ¡°I could have you tortured. Your nails ripped out one by one.¡±

    The man paled and stumbled away until his calves bumped against the prison cot. He collapsed into the filthy thing and tried to wet his mouth once more. ¡°That won¡¯t let me tell you something I do not myself know.¡±

    Lucius stared, letting the silence thicken in the air until the man nearly suffocated in it. Satisfied the man wasn¡¯t lying, he changed his question. ¡°Then tell me every time the man has come to you for sale. The exact date. If you need receipts and ledgers, my men will be happy to fetch them from your establishment, but I can¡¯t say what they¡¯ll have to do to get them. What locks will have to be broken¡­¡±

    The man swallowed again and nodded. ¡°No need.¡± Then he accounted for every date on which he had bought from the man, and provided young Solhart a visual description of the man. Rather than release him for cooperating, Lucius left him there, in the dark and with little hope of a meal. His attention had already shifted to the dockmaster. With the list of dates, he sat down with the officeman and began cross referencing the arrival and departure of every ship to find a match.

    The process took the better part of the day. Lucius consoled himself with the thought that Kajsa was busily marking up her designs for a processing factory to get the gold production back on track. She was doing very important work, and there was next to nothing he could do to aid her until it came time to pay, so he spent his labors in a paper-stuffed office whose window couldn¡¯t crack half as wide as he would have liked.

    At last, the two of them came to a solution, double checked it, and nodded to one another. Unless the courier had the wits and guile to take an intermediary ship¨Cwhich was unlikely, given his purchase history¨Cthen there was only one island he could have been coming from: Little Doe Island.

    ¡°Alright, so where is that?¡±

    ¡°The south,¡± the dockmaster answered, and pulled out a crude sea map. ¡°Somewhere around here.¡± He pointed to a cluster of unlabelled islands near the edge of the map. There were doodles of sea monsters between them, and their shapes were obloid and smooth, lacking the contours of harbors. Which was to say the cartographer had no idea what they looked like.

    ¡°I need a captain.¡±

    Such a captain existed, or more precisely such a navigator existed. He was a grimy, drink infested sod known to the dockmaster for some time. The captain had lost his vessel in a storm and never managed to secure a loan to buy a new one, though not for lack of talent. The previous governor had never laid eyes upon the man, for he was local to the isles, but he had what no other captain had; a vendetta.

    ¡°Now, who the hell are you?¡±

    ¡°A bold question for a man in your¡­ abode,¡± Lucius responded, gesturing at the dried out pigsty the man had been sleeping in for his siesta.

    ¡°Not bold, it¡¯s a matter of etiquette. I learned plenty about you pale skinned folk, but I ain¡¯t learned nothing about you particularly.¡±

    ¡°Lucius von Solhart, the new governor of the island.¡±

    The captain scratched his muddy jaw and nodded. ¡°And what is it you want with me, my lord? Or are you one to make a habit of charity?¡±

    ¡°To make a habit of charity is to make the dispossessed worthless,¡± Lucius said, and gestured to a crude well that still had a bucket. ¡°If what you want is more liquor, you¡¯ll have to buy it yourself, with the money I¡¯ll pay you.¡±

    ¡°Pay me? What for?¡±

    ¡°Little Doe Island.¡±

    ¡°And what do you want there? There¡¯s nothing on that but louts and farms.¡±

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    ¡°I want the louts who are farming the kuku plant.¡±

    At that, the captain grinned, despite having only half his teeth. ¡°You came to the right man, my lord.¡± He rose and doused himself with water, scrubbing the filth from his body as quick as he could. ¡°But, I don¡¯t have a ship.¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, I¡¯ve got one in mind,¡± Lucius said.

    When approached, Lupin was playing a game of Trireme in the garden against Adam. The two of them had evidently worked out an arrangement to spare the man the morning amphibian terror. He put on an amiable smile at Lucius¡¯ approach, and lost it when he saw the ambling captain behind him. Ever the businessman, he heard the boy out, and politely said, ¡°You wish to hire my trading ship as a weapon of war? When I¡¯ve barely been paid for my goods as is?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll pay you more.¡±

    ¡°Lucius, you wouldn¡¯t be stalling for time as Kajsa tries to make good on your first agreement, would you?¡± He smirked as he spoke.

    ¡°The thought had crossed my mind, but if it makes you feel better, you¡¯d have the opportunity to abandon your delinquent debtor on a nearly uninhabited island and the only witnesses would be your own crew. A chance like that doesn¡¯t come up very often.¡±

    Lupin laughed. ¡°You¡¯d be surprised how often that does come up, actually, but I must say you¡¯ve struck my curiosity. Maybe I¡¯m still a boy at heart, but the idea of sailing where no civilized man has sailed before? Delving into the mists at the edge of the world for plunder and justice? Yes, Solhart, I will let you hire me and my ship.¡±

    ¡°Excellent, and here¡¯s your navigator,¡± Lucius said, gesturing to the local captain.

    The man scratched his beard and grumbled, ¡°I could be a captain myself you know, but a pleasure.¡± The two men shook, and Lupin dismissed him to go down to the docks and introduce himself to the captain. While Lupin owned the ship, he did not care for the stress of maritime management.

    Lucius would have preferred setting out at once, but preparing supplies was not such a thing as to be rushed. In a larger port like Rackvidd, it might have been done, but the economy of Aliston had already begun to shut down. The sun drooped across the sky and the only activity was the cooking of food. With the manor chef dead in the barracks, Adam proposed that perhaps they should have some wine ahead of dinner, to make the food go down better. Lucius agreed, and Adam set off to the cellar. He returned with three cups and watered down wine was poured for the three of them.

    ¡°To exploring new lands,¡± Lupin proposed, and they drank a toast.

    ¡°To bringing prosperity to the Isles,¡± Lucius said, and they drank a toast.

    ¡°To the raw freedom! To the imposition of self onto the world,¡± Adam said, and they drank a toast.

    And so, in due time, the three of them staggered to the dining room, piss drunk and red in the face. Two more bottles of wine had been fetched and nearly finished. It slickened their nerves and coaxed their senses to a delirious blur such that the scent of food played a vixen siren to them.

    Aisha had taken over the chef role for the evening, while the steward set about hiring a replacement. The man had sworn to do it, since a nobleman¡¯s estate should have been training replacements. The kitchen should have been staffed with half a dozen workers able to do the job so that he might properly entertain guests and parties. No amount of apologies changed the fact that the only help for Aisha in the kitchen was Isalin, who had no actual training in the matter of fine cooking.

    And yet, she produced a vegetable curry with loaves of fresh bread that put the previous night¡¯s venison to shame. The stink of wine assaulted her nose as she glowered over the table. Not one of the three drunks met her wrath. They kept their heads down, their compliments muttered politely, and it fell to Kajsa to spark the conversation.

    ¡°My lord, the good news of the day is that the basic ingredients are in good supply, all that¡¯s really lacking is sufficient firewood. Once the granules are extracted, they¡¯ll need to be smelted into bars. I¡¯m afraid we might run into some trouble with official weighting however.¡±

    ¡°Could we ship them unsmelted? Put that burden on someone else? Lord Raymi can handle it, can¡¯t he?¡±

    She shrugged and glanced at Lupin. ¡°That wouldn¡¯t be impossible, but the problem would become¡­ well¡­ one of petty theft. There¡¯s a big enough issue with coin clipping. Could you imagine a situation where a pinch of gold dust could be pocketed? You¡¯d never get it all across the sea. No offense, Lupin.¡±

    The merchant shrugged. ¡°None taken. All crews have a limit. You¡¯d have to stand a chance of catching them if you hoped to keep them from taking the chance.¡±

    ¡°Right,¡± Kajsa said. ¡°Which is why standardized bars are useful.¡±

    Lucius glanced around the room. ¡°So, what¡¯s the problem with that? Did we lose the weights and measures bureaucrat too?¡± Half the room nodded in response, and Lucius rolled his eyes. ¡°I should flog Lamdo, shouldn¡¯t I? How is he not qualified to size out the bars himself?¡±

    Adam laughed. ¡°He¡¯s not important enough.¡±

    Aisha spoke up, her voice lacking in rancor. ¡°Do the merchant guilds not manage that?¡±

    ¡°The king does,¡± Lupin said. ¡°I¡¯m not saying it¡¯s a perfect system, but it allows independent merchants to survive. My understanding is cartels rule most of Skaldheim for this reason. They¡¯d probably rule Giordana too, if it was easier to take a caravan across the desert.¡±

    Lucius planted an elbow on the table and covered his face. ¡°So, how long is it going to take me to get one of these officials down here? To certify the gold?¡±

    Lupin grinned and poured himself some more wine. ¡°If it helps you, my lord, I¡¯d be happy to take payment in uncertified gold. I¡¯m independent afterall. I can trade in any barter. That won¡¯t do for your taxes, however. You¡¯ll be needing someone to return to the mainland with your request, just like you got young Kajsa here.¡±

    ¡°Are you volunteering?¡±

    ¡°For a price,¡± the merchant said, and drank.

    ¡°A price we¡¯ll negotiate after you bring me back from our adventure,¡± Lucius said, and got himself a cup of wine.

    ¡°You¡¯re going somewhere?¡± Aisha asked, voice cool.

    The young lord tapped his glass against the merchants and said, ¡°Yes, it¡¯s been too long since I¡¯ve been in a fight. I¡¯m afraid I might be getting flabby. So, I figured I should go put down some enemies of the realm.¡±

    ¡°Getting stabbed in the mine wasn¡¯t enough excitement for you?¡±

    ¡°Not when it was followed up by several hours reviewing ledgers,¡± he said, and the memory provoked Aisha to get herself some wine. ¡°I¡¯m tired of waiting for the demon to come to me. I think it¡¯s only appropriate that I go on the offensive.¡±

    ¡°Better than being bait, I suppose,¡± she said.

    ¡°And hopefully, much more profitable,¡± Lucius said. The merchant arched an eyebrow at him, though at the time the boy was too drunk to realize the greed that he had cultivated inside the merchant. The man¡¯s aid would not come without cost, but Lucius¡¯ mind rested solely on placating Aisha. ¡°I need you to stay here though.¡±

    ¡°I knew you¡¯d say that.¡±

    ¡°Will you?¡±

    ¡°Do I have a choice?¡±

    ¡°No.¡±

    ¡°Then I will, won¡¯t I?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll make it up to you.¡±

 3-11 - Little Doe Island

    Lucius stood at the prow of Lupin¡¯s ship the next morning, girded in armor. He puffed his chest full of air, tasting the morning dew upon the wind, and said, ¡°Smells like smoke.¡±

    Lupin had just strolled up beside him, not a drop of iron on his person. The merchant wore nothing but silk and linen, his only accessory a piece of brass fashioned to look like two fish chasing one another¡¯s tails. Unfortunately for him, no prayer to the goddess Saphira would be answered in those waters. ¡°It does? All I smell is brimstone and salt. If that smells like smoke to you, you have a peculiar history with fire.¡±

    ¡°Perhaps I do,¡± Lucius said, but his mind was on the future. Little Doe Island had already been spotted by the navigator. It was a measly thing, barely able to stand above the waves. Rather than a mountain peak, it looked more like an upthrust bit of stone from a caldera below. The captain had given the deep end a queer look and skirted the ship the other way, to the eastern shore.

    Lupin twisted his mustache, freshly waxed. ¡°Could you imagine how much tobacco could be grown here? If good, hardworking farmers came south? There¡¯s a fortune to be made.¡±

    ¡°You don¡¯t need to replace the locals for that,¡± Lucius said.

    The merchant scoffed. ¡°Then why haven¡¯t they seized upon it by now? What do they grow anyway?¡±

    ¡°The ones with hunger for gold? They¡¯ve got a different crop.¡±

    ¡°Kuku?¡±

    ¡°Yes, and that¡¯s what I¡¯m going to burn.¡±

    The farm could be seen from shore, the whole of the island could be seen, given the slant. It bathed the crops in sunlight all through the morning and only waned in the evening. One decrepit well sat at the top, dug deep through the hill to drag water up and irrigate down to the shore. Given the volcanic soil, anything would have flourished. Cereal crops, tubers, tobacco, great trees or fruiting flowers. From the sandy shore, it looked like a carpet of colossal ferns danced in the misty wind.

    There was a collection of mud and timber huts at the front, near the water and easily accessible from the docks. They weren¡¯t completely abandoned, judging by a trail of cooking smoke no larger than a pipe smoker¡¯s. As the ship drew closer, it had to navigate around hook laden fish nets. It smashed against some submerged timber as it drew to the deteriorating dock, the noise much like a trumpeter¡¯s blast.

    The noise made all manner of heads pop up. They emerged from windows, around stone fences, and from the midst of the field. Each stood transfixed for a moment too long. They might have been prepared, or at least understood if a fully armed detachment of soldiers emerged, but they only saw Lucius at first. One lone Vassish that leapt off the prow of a merchant sloop. The ship had other soldiers, a few requisitioned from the mine and two from the guard regiment that Sera had been training, but Lucius took point.

    ¡°March out here and surrender,¡± he bellowed, drawing out his infantry blade. A few of the faces vanished, darting to the shadows of the island and perhaps into unknown caves and estuaries. Their flight meant the abandonment of their crop, which was all the same to Lucius.

    Not all fled, one swaggered out with a thumb in a rotten loincloth that barely covered his genitals. The farmer licked his teeth, what fangs he had left, and said something in the native dialect.

    Lucius half turned and shouted, ¡°Isalin!¡±

    The old man of [Tongues] shouted back, ¡°He asked who you are.¡±

    ¡°Lucius von Solhart, lord of the misty isles.¡±

    ¡°Mudder, lord of Little Doe Island,¡± the farmer said, mirroring Lucius¡¯ tone of authority. He grinned and laughed.

    Lucius didn¡¯t banter words with him, he didn¡¯t assert authority. Any claim of providence, of divine right, would have been on deaf ears even if the local could understand him. The reality was that Lucius stood upon ground Vassermark only ruled on paper. Throughout all of history, the one true way to know if you ruled a land was to extract taxation from them, be it gold or levied soldiers. That tithe of submission was the proof of governance, rather than protectorship. No tax collector had ever bothered Little Doe Island.

    As such, Lucius did not set foot upon that plantation as the rightful lord, but as a conqueror.

    He slashed the man¡¯s cheek open, cut it to the bone and opened his mouth halfway across his face. The violence began then, like he had slit open the bottom of a coin purse. Before the other men had even dismounted the ship, a calamitous shouting gripped the island. Weapons of base and cruel design appeared in the hands of men. Bows with barbed heads. Axes made from the teeth of sharks. One even fought with a whipped laced with frog poison.

    Lucius waded through these offenses, letting them break off across his steel armor. The arrows were made of mere bone. They cracked upon his armor. The shafts of wood were soft and splintered on impact. Wherever his blade met their ax, it cleaved through the twine and sinew securing the teeth. Their only advantage was in numbers. They eventually tried to surround him, three to one, with fish spears pointed at him like he was some feral hog to be captured. He attacked their weapons and made an opening, leaping from their trap and upon them.

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    He spared what men he could, for questioning, but the entire conquest of the island took less time than it would have to walk to the cliff summit. With the sun not yet at noon, he had laid five men to their ends and defeated three more.

    Lupin disembarked from the ship in time to see him rip a crude arrow from his arm. The barb kept him from pulling it free, so he had to snap it off and push it through. ¡°You know,¡± the merchant said, skirting the draining blood of the ax fighter. ¡°This isn¡¯t my first time seeing violence, but you make my other scrapes look like child''s play.¡±

    ¡°Thank you. Pirates?¡±

    ¡°Aillesterran, yes.¡±

    ¡°Not a very pleasant group, are they? I had my own run in with them before I came down here.¡±

    The merchant scoffed. ¡°I¡¯m surprised it wasn¡¯t after. They like to lurk the horizon. They¡¯re like¡­ scavengers. You know, there are wild dogs in the wastelands. They cackle like men, and¨C¡±

    Lucius only half listened. He didn¡¯t need any explanation of pirate behavior. With one ear open to nod along to the civilian¡¯s story, he kicked open the doors on the farm huts. The mud shacks could hardly be called barns, but locks were an alien concept, as were most amenities. Curiously, he found a number of luxury goods. Tea sets gilded and painted. A golden pipe sculpted like a dragon¡¯s mouth. Other such things, some of which he pocketed for himself, which had clearly been handed over as payment for the kuku bud¨Cpawning at what must have been robbery rates.

    Then he found what he had been hoping for. Amid barrels and sacks, there was one cinched tight and unlabelled. It took a good amount of guess work, but he eventually found the right one, and revealed fifty pounds of the illicit crop.

    ¡°What¡¯s that?¡± Lupin asked.

    ¡°Their last harvest.¡±

    The merchant peered out at the field, at the dark nuts sprinkled between the leaves. ¡°But they look ready to harvest again.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s a fertile crop.¡±

    ¡°Remarkably so,¡± Lupin said, stroking his mustache. ¡°How much do you think that bag is worth?¡±

    Lucius slung it over his shoulder and said, ¡°A long vacation in the mines.¡±

    ¡°If it weren¡¯t illegal. Smugglers value.¡±

    Lucius cocked his head at him. ¡°Are you asking me the price of subverting my own edict?¡±

    The merchant paled and backed, stumbling excuses over one another. He hadn¡¯t said a single sentence of consequence by the time Lucius deposited the bag at the rotting dock and returned to the field with a torch. He started to walk the line, touching the flame to plant after plant. ¡°Get back to the ship,¡± he called, ordering his men away from the intoxicating smoke. He himself kept a bit of wet cloth across his face and his breaths shallow.

    As the flames consumed the field, the wounded farmers began to wail like animals. They threw themselves to the ground and wept. Lucius strode past them and said, ¡°Gag them if you need to.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s all?¡± Lupin asked, clambering back up the gang plank of his ship.

    Lucius dropped the sack of loot beside the ship¡¯s mast and said, ¡°That¡¯s all. Now we¡¯ve got informants and something they want. We¡¯ll turn up another lead soon enough.¡±

    Lupin was left to pace the ship, fussing with his coat and muttering to himself. The captain in his employ kept his mouth shut and ordered the shoving off of the ship. Lucius directed him back to Aliston, and he made some scowls at the sun. The quickest way back took them through a number of sea channels he didn¡¯t know personally. He complained about tides and split currents, of surprise reefs they might find, and began to argue with the navigator. The two of them fell into an argument in the guttural trade tongue of sailors that bastardized half a dozen languages in the most simplistic of grammar.

    Nothing they said changed the amount of time it would take to return to proper port, and that left plenty of time for Lupin to make his pitch. ¡°My lord, if I may,¡± he began. ¡°I understand that you don¡¯t wish such a rug to be sold in Vassermark, but if people are in such demand for this, then there may be other uses.¡±

    Lucius had been looking for a distraction from Sammy¡¯s work stitching the prisoners up, and enthused the man. ¡°And what would that be, Lupin?¡±

    ¡°What if I sold it elsewhere? Up and down the Giordanan coast perhaps. I could even bring it all the way to aillesterra. I don¡¯t have the connections to get it to the central kingdoms, and I understand that would hardly be acceptable, what with their near vassalage. But, is this not the kind of product that could be used to extract wealth from the enemies of the kingdom?¡±

    Lucius made the mistake of considering the idea. He frowned and looked to the sky, because he was considering how much about the demon to explain to Lupin.

    The merchant took it as encouragement. ¡°If it enfeebles their workers, isn¡¯t that all the better? Imagine the twin fountains of gold and war, can¡¯t you picture it now?¡±

    ¡°I can, yes, because it would look like exactly what has done to us¡­ you almost make a good argument that this might be the work of Aillesterra right now. Don¡¯t you think they¡¯d already be wise to the kuku bud? If you were caught bringing this to their port, I imagine they¡¯d flay you in the street.¡±

    ¡°Smuggling exists in all cities, Lucius.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m sure it does, but¨C¡±

    ¡°Ship!¡± the navigator bellowed. Every head on the deck spun to face him as he swung his hand over the railing. All expected to see some measly fishing vessel. A trumped up rowboat to drag nets across reefs. At the most, perhaps a small smuggling vessel fit to shuttle in the night. What they saw instead was twin masted and cruising across waves. It cut through the channels, careening at them while a green flag billowed at the peak of the mast. Lucius didn¡¯t need to see the insignia to recognize it.

    ¡°Well then, they found us,¡± he said, striding to the prow as the crew scrambled to their stations, for pirates had set their sights upon Lupin¡¯s craft.

 3-12 - The Force of Gales

    ¡°What are our options here?¡± Lucius asked.

    The captain spat over the side of the railing and barked a new order to adjust the sails. ¡°Not good,¡± he answered, producing a tin of chewing tobacco and packing his lip.

    ¡°Do you have cannons?¡±

    ¡°You mean those things they¡¯ve got on the walls of Rackvidd? I heard what they did to the rebel fleet, but no, I ain¡¯t got any. They use ley, don¡¯t they? The stuff out of the wastelands?¡±

    Lucius nodded. ¡°That they do, and some fine craftsmanship. I wonder what the bishop is doing right now¡­¡± He had plenty of time to muse on that. In the age before cannon shots, piracy wasn¡¯t particularly quick. The best option was to pull up alongside the other craft and volley arrows, which meant they had to be close enough to see one another. There were no long distance scuttling shots, only a harrying of prey and hoping that the lesser vessel would run afoul of a shoal.

    As it turned out, his life would have been largely the same if he had been with the bishop in the wastelands, but fighting the cannibals instead of fighting the eastern theocracy.

    For the second time that year, he was relegated to watching as triangular sails chased after them. He meandered to the back of the ship and took from one of the sailors a large bow. The poundage was immense, fit for an oarsman, but he was able to draw it back. Even still, the pirates weren¡¯t close enough.

    Lupin walked up behind him, wringing his hands. ¡°It¡¯s the Cyclops,¡± the merchant said.

    ¡°The what?¡±

    ¡°The terror of the seas. She never loses her prey.¡±

    ¡°Is this some kind of person? Or a monster?¡±

    Lupin shrugged. ¡°She¡¯s not human, that¡¯s the only thing people know for certain. Some say she¡¯s a skald, mixed with the trolls. Others that she fought her way out of the wastelands, one of the man-eaters. Or perhaps born of the emissaries themselves.¡±

    Lucius sneered. ¡°Legends grow, and that¡¯s only one ship. If the Cyclops is aboard it, I¡¯d like to meet her.¡±

    Lupin nodded. ¡°Aye, maybe we¡¯re lucky. Maybe this is just one of her dogs, but even then¡­ well¡­ perhaps I should be blunt that there are multiple reasons that merchants are hesitant to do business down here at the bottom of the world.¡±

    Lucius looked about himself, at the misty islands to either side. They almost looked like the stumps of enormous trees, felled by giants and left to fester in the water. All about him, mossy cliffs were home to colorful birds, climbing goats. The archipelago was a maze, and that favored the vandal, despite how far from home they were.

    ¡°Vassermark doesn¡¯t control the southern coast, do they?¡±

    ¡°They barely control Giordana at the moment.¡±

    ¡°How is Raymi going to shuttle his troops?¡±

    ¡°I dare say he won¡¯t be. They might have to march.¡±

    ¡°That will take them months.¡±

    ¡°And will cost them a great deal of money.¡±

    Lucius snarled and drew the bow back. He strained it till the lacquered wood wanted to splinter in his grasp, then he loosed. It soared and faltered in the wind, slanting over before the sea snatched it with a wave. The distance had given him a measure though, and he nocked a second arrow.

    It seemed to give the pirates a measure as well, and they slowed their approach to his utmost limit. Of course, he cursed himself for not giving them a false measure and then attempting to pick off the captain. It seemed, however, that despite the wind, the pirates decided for a parley. One of their number stood up at the prow of their ship and cupped hands around her mouth¨CLucius had to assume it was a she based on her voice alone, for the outfit couldn¡¯t have been more ambiguous. ¡°You happen to be the new lord?¡±

    The two ships were distant, but the wind was with him. He had no need to call for someone with the [Roar] stigmata, indeed at the time he wasn¡¯t even sure that Lupin employed such a man. He bellowed his answer back, letting the wind carry it. ¡°And if I am?¡±

    ¡°Are you? Or is he just a rumor?¡±

    ¡°Why don¡¯t you come over here and find out?¡±

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    ¡°You¡¯re not a merchant ship, are you?¡±

    Lucius paused to glance at Lupin. The merchant could only shake his head and fetch from a coat pocket a flask. The ship was still getting up to speed, and both vessels were started to jam through the waves and fight the current. Impacts shuddered through the deck and they had to brace against the railing as water spilled from one end to the next.

    The pirate shouted again, ¡°No merchant would set a fire like that, but you¡¯re not much of a war ship, are you? And if you had a cannon, you¡¯d have shot us by now, yeah?¡±

    ¡°Are you the Cyclops?¡± Lucius shouted back, and glanced to the crew. Half a dozen had assembled near him, squeezing bows and looking to him for direction.

    The pirate seemed to laugh, but the wind muted her for lack of her stigmata¡¯s empowerment. ¡°You¡¯re not the lord then, are you?¡±

    Lupin scoffed. ¡°How could she conclude that?¡± he asked.

    The hair on the back of Lucius¡¯ neck stood on end. The verge of danger loomed in his mind and he spun about. The ship was careening past a cliff, the sheer edge of a volcanic mountain like a wall to the sea. The haze of mist seemed almost endless before them, particularly in the top down light of the noon sun, but he could see the waves ahead of them. The rose and fell in line with the current, but the wind was shearing across their tops so fierce sea water was ripped free and splattered across the island like horizontal rain.

    The captain noticed it too, that freak gust storm. Both he and Lucius screamed out, ¡°Brace!¡± as the nose of the ship entered the cross wind and twisted. Worse than throwing anchor at speed, the nose of the ship was thrown to the side. Men screamed, the deck bucking beneath them. Lucius was tossed into the railing so hard he flipped over, grasping the rope as his feet danced across the waves. The ship began to drift sideways, fighting the current and wind, twisting between them. Sails jerked and flapped as men scrambled to adjust heading. The wheel was fought with and the crew scrambled to regain control before slamming into a reef.

    And in doing so, they lost speed.

    The pirates slid up like a dancer. The only thing Lucius could do was kick his feet against  the deck and shout, ¡°Archers!¡± The pirates took the first volley just before their ship slid into the crosswind. Iron-tipped shafts pelted into wood and flesh. One guard fell without even a cry, blood merely squirted from his mouth before he pitched over the side and vanished to the waves. Another struck Lucius through his armor, punching through the plate and jabbing into his muscles. ¡°Return volley!¡± he commanded, kicking his feet against the hull to find purchase.

    The only thing his feet found was a below deck port window, and his boot nearly smashed the glass out before he found purchase. Sammy stuck his head up from below deck, still blotted in the blood of his patients¨Cthe prisoners¨Cto shout, ¡°Save him, he can¡¯t swim!¡±

    ¡°I can too!¡± Lucius roared as half the crew adjusted the sails and the other half scrambled to line up along the side. They loosed arrows back, scattering shafts across the pirate vessel before another volley bounced back at them.

    Lupin threw himself halfway over the side and grabbed onto Lucius'' armor to haul him up, saving him from another swim with pirates. Both men sprawled across the deck as the helmsman caught a current and shot their ship around the corner of the island. For a moment, the two ships were too distant for arrows. Men rolled over one another and shouted in pain. They called for the doctor and ran the wounded men back for bandaging.

    Then the reprieve ended as quick as it began. They were almost set for another volley of arrows when one of the men stood up at the back, hands empty. He was a young lad, too young to understand his own mortality as he stood with middle fingers raised to the pirates. He shouted vulgarities at them and activated his stigmata. As if possessed by spirits, their arrows twisted in the air and soared up. Some ripped holes into the sails, but most flew harmlessly past to the waves beyond. ¡°Loose!¡± the kid screamed, dropping his arms.

    The sailors leapt up and nocked arrows. Their own volley soared true, felling three pirates from their deck. No other volley came, the Aillesterrans turned, breaking their advance and putting distance between the two ships. ¡°What are you doing?¡± Lupin shouted. ¡°Kill them!¡±

    Lucius grunted, ripping the arrow out of his back, and said, ¡°It¡¯s too far.¡±

    ¡°Then turn around! Let¡¯s slaughter the rogues. With that power¨C¡±

    ¡°Ah, sorry,¡± the kid said, dropping to his ass on the deck. Sweat poured from his brow and stained his shirt. ¡°I probably can¡¯t.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s fine,¡± Lucius said, scratching his chin as the pirate ship began to shrink from view. ¡°Clearly, I should have asked about stigmata before we began this trip.¡±

    The kid laughed as the captain stomped across to see what had happened. ¡°I¡¯m not very useful in a fight. Just, sometimes I can help get the ship free of sand.¡±

    ¡°No, no, your power has much better uses than that,¡± Lucius said as he walked over and offered the lad a hand up.

    ¡°You flatter me, m¡¯lord.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯d like to hire you,¡± he said, clapping a hand on the boy¡¯s shoulder.

    The lad blinked and gaped, then looked down at Lucius¡¯ waist. ¡°Uh, sir.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll pay you a fair wage and compensate your captain. Trust me, i can make much better use of you and your ability.¡±

    The kid cleared his throat. ¡°I¡¯m not much of a fighter, m¡¯lord, but I think maybe you should see the doctor?¡±

    Lucius laughed. ¡°No, not fighting. A bit of wind is hardly useful in war. Trust me, I¡¯ve got a much better use.¡±

    ¡°Sir,¡± the kid said, grabbing Lucius¡¯ arm to steady him. ¡°You¡¯re bleeding heavily.¡±

    Sammy stuck his head into the conversation with a scowl, and gave Lucius a firm shove. He had lost feeling in his legs without realizing it and toppled like a felled tree. ¡°Roll him over, would you? We have to get that armor off him,¡± the doctor said as Lucius groaned and finally realized how light headed he was, for his healing hadn¡¯t kicked in yet. He hadn¡¯t even thought about the presumably minor injury, because he had been too taken with the notion of how to use a man who could summon wind from nothing.

    There was a fantastic use for such an ability, one which would solve one of his biggest issues.

 3-13 - A Better Use For Gales

    Lucius put the young sailor, whose name was Walter, to good use indeed. He was given one of the most important jobs in all of Aliston, and told he should be proud to make a living with his gift from the gods. Not many people could be so productive for so little effort. More than that, it was something only he could do. In all the Misty Isles, no one else had something equivalent to his [Albatross Gale]. Lucius assured him that making wise use of one''s gifts was the obligation of wisdom, the trait of humanity that lifted thema bove animals.

    All those consolations did little to lift his spirits as he was used to funnel air into Kajsa¡¯s smelting furnace.

    The physics involved were obvious and effective. The forced air flow was more effective than any amount of blacksmith bellows and he could stoke the charcoal to such a blinding temperature the forge didn¡¯t even emit smoke. The fuel was obliterated by the incineration and in doing so heated the crucible until the gold nuggets melted together and could be poured into wax molds.

    Nobody much paid attention to Walter¡¯s despair as they weighed out the golden slugs. One for the delivery of supplies and Kajsa was given to Lupin. Another for the hiring of his ship to Little Doe Island. A third for him to return to Rackvidd and hire an inspector for the upgraded factory, as well as certain alchemical supplies that could not be sourced in the Misty Isles.(1)

    ¡°And now, I can honestly say that it is a pleasure working with you, my lord Solhart,¡± the merchant said, slipping the payment into his pocket and shaking his hand. ¡°Do you have any messages you would like delivered?¡±

    ¡°Yes, actually,¡± Lucius said, and glanced at the petite alchemist.

    Kajsa was a sweaty mess, only half removed from her heavy leathers. The outfit had been fitted to someone twice her size, but the gold was needed well before new clothes could be fashioned for her, so the extra burden only exhausted her more. But, she had done as requested and furnished Lucius not only with sufficient gold to pay Lupin, but with plans for a proper refinement factory.

    ¡°Kajsa, take the rest of the day off,¡± he said, and she gave a feeble nod of approval. Then he turned back to Lupin. ¡°Actually, I do need you to spread some news for me,¡± he said, and the two of them strolled back to the heart of Aliston. The town was quiet, that peculiar lull following the noon heat driving people indoors and to their beds. Only the multi-colored birds still flitted about around them.

    ¡°Normally,¡± Lupin said, clasping his hands behind his back. ¡°Lords in your position are concerned with beginning a spy network, a system of informants. They¡¯re hiring sycophants and courtiers and getting ears into every castle.¡±

    ¡°Who says I haven¡¯t already done that?¡±

    ¡°True, the Solhart family is established. You¡¯re not one of the great families, but you¡¯ve certainly earned your place beneath the king.¡±

    Lucius frowned, which Lupin likely interpreted to be some form of rebellious sympathy. The merchant happened to be precisely the sort of idiot who would say he agreed with Jaque Mordare¡¯s ideas without actually understanding the consequences of ceding all rights to the general will of the electorate. He never imagined it was as simple as Lucius being reminded there were people out there who certainly could call him a fraud. ¡°What I need you to do is declare a bounty for me. I¡¯ll draw up the documents before you go of course.¡±

    ¡°A bounty? What for? The pirates?¡±

    ¡°Not quite.¡± Lucius¡¯ frown flipped to a grin as they neared the harbor. There was more life to be had in sight of the sea. It was where the sailors chose to drink the afternoon away rather than sleep it away. ¡°I want to put a bounty on kuku bud plantations.¡±

    That halted Lupin in his tracks. The merchant sputtered. ¡°You¡¯d levy men against our own territory?¡±

    ¡°Against criminals. There¡¯s something you have to understand, Lupin. This is why I won¡¯t let you transport the kuku bud. It¡¯s not just a plant, not just a drug, it¡¯s laced with magic. The plant is itself a physical manifestation of evil. That sounds like sophistry, like I¡¯m talking out of my ass and putting on airs and a dozen other bits of trite rhetoric, but I couldn¡¯t be more literal. That plant is the flesh of a demon that feeds on souls. The languishing it causes is not some mere side effect, it is the rot of that person¡¯s very essence and I mean to do battle with the demon.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m afraid I don¡¯t quite follow this jesting of yours.¡¯

    ¡°It¡¯s not jest.¡±

    ¡°You speak like an evil god hides in the mist.¡±

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    ¡°Close enough to the truth.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s blasphemy.¡±

    Lucius laughed. ¡°I think if you read the various scriptures you¡¯ll in fact find myriad reference to outer gods, and evil beings, and the devouring terrors of the night. When you return to Rackvidd, find one of the temples to Lumis. I¡¯m merely claiming that one such being is here now.¡±

    ¡°Then you need a priest!¡±

    ¡°Perhaps, time will tell. I happen to know where to find one if I need one. For now, what I need are good foot soldiers in this war. The enemy has footholds and they need to be burned out. I don¡¯t have the resources to find them all right now, but I do have the gold. Spread the word, bring me the ships and I will give them my own letters of mark.¡±

    The merchant huffed and shook his head. ¡°I must say that I don¡¯t know how I feel about this, my lord, but I am a loyal subject and if you need me to bring a missive to Lord Raymi, then it is my duty to do so.¡±

    Lucius¡¯ smirk faltered when Lupin changed the terms like that, but he didn¡¯t push the issue. ¡°I¡¯ll get you the paperwork by dawn, will that work?¡±

    Lupin bowed. ¡°I have some preparations to make.¡±

    Lucius nodded and watched the merchant take leave. Then he added, ¡°You didn¡¯t take any of the seeds, did you?¡±

    ¡°Certainly not.¡±

    ¡°It was good adventuring with you then, I wish you safe travels.¡±

    And so, Lucius had one of his largest issues squared away, and once more set himself up as bait. Over the next several weeks, no more attempts were made on his life, giving them the breathing room to sort the affairs of Aliston. New soldiers were recruited and trained, new order imposed on the town. As part of the forced rehabilitation of the kuku addicts, he organized a number of public works projects, digging up old roads and modernizing them.

    It was nearly a month later that someone from the king¡¯s bureau arrived on the docks of Aliston, along with one of Lord Raymi¡¯s direct subordinates. Naturally, Lucius threw a small feast to celebrate. Lamdo had managed to not only replenish the serving staff of the manor, but grow it. As the boy had suspected, his war on the drug had the effect of bringing life back to the city. If nothing else, he was giving a swath of working age men work to do that showed visible reward.

    Lucius hosted the party from the main street plaza adjacent to the docks, not entirely at his own expense. While the people of town were invited to certain tables, the food and drink were not provided free to them. The entertainment, on the other hand, was. In addition to a meager troupe of minstrels to fill the air with the pluckings of their lyres and the trebels of their voices, all the men of the town were invited to challenges of strength, with honor and alcohol heaped on the victors.(2)

    All this played out, across plates of well-buttered venison, out of a sense of diplomatic investigation. Lucius had to posture and display the wealth he was generating, even if it was meager as compared to any other duchy of the kingdom. Lord Raymi¡¯s delegate, Peter Rayz, had to appreciate it all and mentally log it away. The two of them were soldiers at heart, and both understood the importance of supply lines and logistical security.

    While some of the soldiers were taking turns hoisting a cask of water onto their shoulders, to much revelry, Peter Rayz said, ¡°You¡¯ve made quite a stir back in Rackvidd, Solhart.¡±

    ¡°Glad to hear that, I suppose. What did I do?¡± the boy responded coyly, swirling his goblet of wine. He had drunk less than he had appeared to, leaving his eyes sharp as he browsed the firelit revelry. The demon had yet to take his bait for the bag of kuku buds, but there was ample opportunity.

    ¡°Your recruitment of¡­ shall we call them maritime mercenaries?¡±

    ¡°To my knowledge, no one has taken me up on that yet.¡±

    ¡°Because all the good ships are being requisitioned for the reconquest of Puerto Faro, or for maintaining the bishop¡¯s expedition south. Everyone was already spoken for when that gold-sniffing Lupin made your announcement.¡±

    Lucius at once read between the lines to infer Lord Raymi had acted to prevent any private vessels from taking the offer, and that if Rayz was bringing it up, there was room for negotiations. ¡°I would think that securing the southern coast would be of an utmost urgency. I couldn¡¯t imagine waging a campaign while pirates could raid my supply lines and then escape off the edge of the map.¡±

    Rayz nodded. ¡°Indeed, that has become a problem for us. The Cyclops sunk three of our ships.¡±

    Lucius almost spilled his drink. ¡°What? How?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s what we¡¯d like to know. There were no survivors. We only found out by rumor. Had to scout the shipwrecks after the fact. This monster the easterners have hired is dangerous, Solhart. But, we have an advantage.¡±

    ¡°And what would that be?¡± he asked, though he already suspected the answer.

    ¡°We have cannons. They were proven effective at Rackvidd, and Lord Raymi has begun mass production, as he can. Given the importance of logistics¡­ my lord has seen fit that a small detachment of engineers should be stationed here at Aliston with one of the new defense cannons. Our traders need a port that they can take refuge in, if they¡¯re to supply us. And that means the easterners can¡¯t just waltz in for a raid.¡±

    The danger, in the diplomatic sense, was of course that Raymi was sending his own cadre of spies and loyalists into Aliston. Every action Lucius took would be recorded and reported. For a normal lord, this would hardly be an issue, but Lucius was engaged in a theological war with an entity the other lord hardly understood. Nothing would be construed correctly, but he couldn¡¯t refuse them either. With an easy smile belying none of that, Lucius said, ¡°I can begin arrangements for them at once.¡± The benefits of actor training continued to pay off for him, while he drank and thought about how he could steal off to slaughter a demon without getting branded as some form of blasphemer.

 3-14 - Troubling Troubadours

    A special tower had to be constructed at the eastern edge of the harbor, like a miniature fort. The town of Aliston had begun a metamorphosis from Lucius¡¯ efforts, and he suspected because the demon had sought different fortifications of its own. The corruption of the city had to be put on hold while other strategic resources were secured for the long war. That was the way of demons and angels alike. Just like a child needs immediate gratification, and it can be agony for an adult to wait weeks, spirits who measure their lives by centuries hardly grasp the concept of hurrying.

    This isn¡¯t to say they are laggard in action, but that they do not get impatient. If they know they will eventually win by one course of action, it does not matter to them if it takes years. This is an oversight that humans can sometimes take advantage of, but it also let Lucius build his base without molestation from the being of the veil.

    Lord Raymi sent a dozen men to Aliston, along with a single ley cannon of enormous size. King Arandall had been quick with the blueprints I provided him, and Raymi saw fit to use his weapon defensively. Personally, I didn¡¯t hear of this till much later, else I would have cautioned the boy that it implied Raymi wanted to force the Cyclops to make a play for the Misty Isles. Weapons are better for offense than defense afterall. Unfortunately, Lucius didn¡¯t know how the weapon compared to others in caliber.

    The defensive power of a cannon can hardly be understated, in those times. The linear amplification of momentum allowed for nearly horizontal firing trajectories, allowing for a very sturdy roof above the crew. Given no naval ship could bring a catapult to the fray, they had to rely entirely on archers and chemists. Some ships had ballistae to deal with, but those were categorically weaker than a ley cannon.

    As such, it was the kind of weapon that one didn¡¯t much care to have around because it essentially declared that the city would be attacked. The city would repel the attackers, but the people of the Misty Isles preferred to not be attacked at all.

    The march of progress couldn¡¯t be stopped however, and the growing greed for gold and industry crept into the port. It started in the pubs, as these things often do, as more and more establishments opened themselves up to feeding the northern sailors while the rest of the town napped away the heat. The non-stop construction work was pushed to resume in the evenings, and the stability of proper cobblestone roads increased foot traffic. Where historically a light rain storm would reduce half the city to mud too thick to walk through, men and women could still scurry from store to store even in the middle of such storms.

    The marketplace began to adopt a Giordanan flare as multi-colored awnings became permanent fixtures, staggered about to block the sun but not break the breeze. The change was such a curiously fast affair that it hadn¡¯t even had time to cultivate a crop of thieves. Lucius was able to walk without protection from one end to the next, listening to the bustle of life. His mind had been consumed by the fate of the deserter, as a fleeting distraction.

    In a sense rescued from the gold mine, he had a seemingly loyal soldier that had marched halfway across the world with him, but he had knowingly left them all behind to see the king. The men¡¯s existence had given credence to his stolen identity, but without the mind numbing fear of imminent death, there was the risk that they would make some innocuous comment and catch him for the impersonator he was. Of course, that problem had nearly been solved throughout the rebellion, but now he had one of those snakes under his foot and he didn¡¯t know if it was about to bite him.

    His instinct had told him it was wrong to leave the deserter in the mine, but also that he shouldn¡¯t let the man join the guards. That had pushed the deserter into a sort of limbo, and he had assigned him as a support laborer for the cannon engineers. Had I been present, I would have simply seen to the man¡¯s death, but Lucius still lacked that form of ruthlessness.

    It still brooded in his mind, and distracted him right up until the moment he realized Kajsa was standing in front of him with a meat skewer in one hand.

    She blinked and swallowed, giving him a quick bow and a mumbled, ¡°Good to see you my lord.¡±

    ¡°Kajsa, I didn¡¯t realize you had the day off.¡±

    She cleared her throat. ¡°Well, the factory is almost done, now that we have Walter the fuel problem is solved but that¡¯s not the only limited factor.¡±

    ¡°Oh? What¡¯s the problem now?¡±

    ¡°Ah, well, it¡¯s not much of a problem. It¡¯s just a labor thing,¡± she said, twirling some hair around a finger and not meeting his gaze. ¡°For the chemical brine to work, the gold ore has to be reduced to powder. Historically this was done by hand, but the factory now has a water wheel to automate the process. Now it only takes one worker to process it all but¡­¡±

    He arched an eyebrow at her.

    ¡°It¡¯s slow. I mean, it¡¯s as fast as it gets shipped to us, I ran all those numbers, but it¡¯s not as quick as the smelting process. Does that make sense?¡±

    ¡°So, you¡¯re saying you automated the factory so well you¡¯re not actually needed anymore.¡±

    ¡°Not true! I¡¯m the only one who can manage the mixing of the chemical brine!¡±

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    He held up a hand. ¡°Calm down Kajsa, that was meant as a compliment. If the factory doesn¡¯t need you, that means I can give you some other projects¡­ in addition to letting you have time to yourself.¡±

    She was certainly dressed to have some time to herself, a tight corset dress that flared out around her legs. In a more northern climate, she would have had stockings and boots, but the heat of the isles dictated mere sandals. The alchemist kept her hair short out of necessity, and there in the street it was hardly even tucked back behind her ears. ¡°Well, it¡¯s not so much about time to myself, I get plenty of that with my books and experiments. It¡¯s time with other people I need¡­ People who don¡¯t work for me, you know?¡±

    Lucius sighed. ¡°As the governor, I understand your plight better than you could imagine. Is a minstrel troupe in or something?¡±

    She thought for a moment, and then her face brightened with the realization that she was about to spend her boss''s money instead of her own. A minstrel troupe was in, though a rather small one. They had already disgruntled the pub owner by promising him an ability to put on a play, one of the latest creations from the capital, a masterwork of Gertah¡¯s literary mind. It was meant to be a tragic tale of war and love, of rival leaders dueling across the spans of their lives. The entire production proved to be held together with nothing more than twine and luck. Actors vanished, songstresses ended up in bed with ship captains, one of the lead troubadours got his hand broken over a gambling dispute, and the rest of them had resorted to baudy dance songs to squeeze complimentary drinks out of the clientele.

    Of course, this means it went as well as could be expected from a rag tag troupe of performers at the edge of the world. That didn¡¯t mean that Lucius wasn¡¯t grinding his teeth at their farce. Master Wilhelm would have beaten them all about the head and set them straight long before, but Master Wilhelm had been of a different sort.

    The two of them were given a table near the window and the crowd gave difference to them. The serving girls brought mugs of beer at once and Kajsa was soon grinning. Her cheeks turned apple-red as she snickered at the jibes and puns. She even joined in with the foot stomping and chorus cheering.

    It was Lucius who found he couldn¡¯t enjoy himself and the alcohol lifted him out of his seat.

    ¡°Don¡¯t you have someone with some range to their singing?¡± he asked, crowding the lead bard into a corner.

    The man cleared his throat, assessing Lucius quickly as someone of means but not as the island governor. ¡°I do have one, yes, a falsetto man. He could shatter a fine glass¨Cnot that he would!¡±

    ¡°Where is he?¡±

    The bard cleared his throat and gestured at one of his employees. ¡°Around here somewhere. We shall fetch him at once. Is there a particular song you wanted to hear?¡±

    ¡°Anything that isn¡¯t about sex,¡± Lucius declared, and half the room booed him. ¡°Oh shut it,¡± he snapped back at them and swung a hand at the window. ¡°The sun is still up, for Lumius¡¯ sake. You all are too sober yet.¡±

    ¡°Speak for yourself,¡± one shouted back at him.

    ¡°Now now,¡± the bard said, jumping back to the middle of the room. He strode between the tables, happy to be away from Lucius. ¡°The man has a point. Surely you wouldn¡¯t go to a fine brewery and only ever drink the same beer, would you? Variety is the essence of life!¡±

    The room stared back at him. They mumbled and muttered until the pub owner said, ¡°I¡¯ve only got the one beer,¡± and set a cleaned mug down on the bar counter with a clang. ¡°And I¡¯ve only got the chicken curry on the menu too.¡±

    The bard cleared his throat and dabbed sweat from his forehead with what appeared to be a lady¡¯s handkerchief. ¡°Don¡¯t you all worry, you won¡¯t be disappointed. Just a moment so we can arrange the next song, yes?¡±

    Lucius returned to his table with Kajsa and found her smirking at him. ¡°I bet that makes it hard to feel like a noble.¡±

    Lucius hefted his beer and peered into the amber depths. ¡°You know, I can tell you from personal experience that it¡¯s better to be a bounty hunter than a noble.¡±

    ¡°When were you a bounty hunter?¡±

    ¡°Before the fiasco in Puerto Faro,¡± he said quickly. The real Solhart had never done such a thing. ¡°The difference between bounty hunting and soldiering is rather slim, depending on the war situation.¡±

    Kajsa glanced around the room and saw the singer stumble in with them. He was a gangly youth with a soft face and facial features too small for his round cheeks. ¡°I would imagine, based on my own experiences¨CI¡¯ve been up and down Vassermark and met many a vagabond and nobleman both, you know¨Cthat you¡¯d be here drinking either way.¡±

    ¡°The trick to good governance is to make it so you don¡¯t have to do much at all.¡±

    ¡°Are you trying to automate people? Like some kind of money making island factory?¡±

    ¡°I prefer the term economic liberty.¡±

    Kajsa grinned and snickered. ¡°And to think the rumors said you had been sent here to suffer.¡±

    ¡°Shhh, don¡¯t tell the king¡¯s court.¡± Lucius snickered as well.

    Kajsa wetted her throat and loosed a question out her lips. ¡°Did you want this to happen? Was your family¡¯s land not good enough for you?¡±

    Lucius felt his smile fade and he grabbed his mug with both hands. After a moment¡¯s consideration, staring into the dregs of his beer, he said, ¡°This might sound silly, from your perspective, but a low noble is as powerless to a high noble as a peasant is to a low noble. When the king says he wants a mine in the southern continent, the nobles aren¡¯t given a choice; they''re sent to war like anybody else. Worse at times because they¡¯re tracked. They¡¯re given responsibility. You can¡¯t even desert and run away because bounty hunters will hunt you down and kidnap you for ransom. The only thing you can do is claw your way up the ladder of power, no matter what you have to do because if you don¡¯t the things you cherish will be trampled on and destroyed by someone who did. They will stamp their boot into your face to reach just an inch higher on the¡­¡±

    The singer had wandered to their table and stood behind Kajsa with a blank expression. He loomed over the confused girl as she twisted to look at him. Lucius had been too distracted with Kajsa to realize the music hadn¡¯t started, and he thought first that the man had come over to ask what song Lucius wanted to hear.

    He saw only too late the gaping pupils blotting out the man¡¯s eyes.

    Kajsa let out a quiet and surprised, ¡°Ah.¡±

    The man didn¡¯t have a flicker of emotion. Not a twitch of a facial muscle. He stood like a puppet and pulled the knife out of Kajsa¡¯s back, dripping her blood on the floorboards.

 3-15 - Now, Its Personal

    The pub had a fireplace. It wasn¡¯t lit at the time, because there was no bone-drenching monsoon to suk the life out of everyone. Similarly, the walls had plenty of pegs to hang cloaks and coats. They were simple and crude, carved from roots and fitted at roughly eye level so drenched fabrics could drip themselves dry amid a storm. During the damp season, the Misty Isles could never be said to be dry, the owner used the pegs to hang mugs. Many of the tankards had been dyed, lacquered, or painted with designs, messages, or crude graffiti. It made for a rather charming atmosphere of personal investment which made sailors more inclined to return and spend more money.

    The minstrel troupe had dragged their singer back after he had discovered the other kind of establishment the Misty Isles had, and one which Lucius had not yet found. Had he rooted it out, had he imprisoned the kuku bud distributors, that singer perhaps would never have found the drug. If he hadn¡¯t smoked it, he would not have touched upon the veil. Had he not done that, he would have kept his wits to himself. And if the decisions had been his entirely, he would not have, in all likelihood, stabbed Kajsa.

    But, the world is filled with could-have-beens and speculating about such things is the realm of a fiction author. In my role here, I am a historian. I write the world that was, as can best be deduced from all written accounts, recollections, memoirs, and even more arcane methods. Sometimes the data conflicts, and it is my duty to determine the proper story, but in this event all agree.

    Lucius took the singer, who had lost his mind without any foresight of the consequences, and smashed him into one of those pegs. He drove the wooden post through the man¡¯s eye, punctured the skull and crushed his brain. The knife clattered to the floor as his body hung there like a piece of laundry, his front slowly turning red.

    He turned, sweeping his cold gaze across the room. None moved. Even the dead man¡¯s employer was too shocked to know whether to be outraged or to fall on his knees and beg forgiveness. Lucius looked at one person than the next, as quick as he could, burning to his mind any who seemed to smirk or smile; any who reveled in the harm done to Kajsa. He noted three, all too drunk to be certain they were with the demon and not merely amused by the retribution.

    Kajsa was fumbling at her side, plucking at her dress to see where the wound was, how much it bled. The strength was already draining from her body and she fell to the ground. Pale of face, she looked up to Lucius and said, ¡°Wasn¡¯t¡­ expecting¡­ that.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯ll be alright,¡± he said, bending down beside her. He took one look at the wound and clamped her hand onto it. ¡°Press as hard as you can.¡±

    ¡°Can¡¯t you?¡±

    ¡°I need to carry you to help.¡± With one arm under her legs and the other behind her back, he lifted her off the pub floor and turned to the door. Half a dozen people scrambled, yanking chairs and tables away from his path. He marched back to the street, sun already set. The stars twinkled above like a stadium of onlookers. The manor was a long trek uphill, but Sammy was there.

    He turned the other way, to the dockside hospital. He didn¡¯t trust the nurses in the slightest, but Sammy had spent weeks properly stocking the place. With the expectation of war and insurgency, Lucius had instructed him to prepare it for injured. He just had never expected the first would be Kajsa.

    There was no guard posted outside, and the door was unlocked. ¡°You¡¯ll be alright,¡± he promised, his voice hushed as he shouldered through the door. Two nurses looked up, quietly carrying diminutive oil lamps between the beds of the sick. They squinted their eyes and recognized him just before chastising him for barging into a place of healing. ¡°Get Sammy,¡± he ordered, his voice that of a military commander. A dozen sick patients lurched in their beds, ripped from sleep by his harsh voice. ¡°And get me your tools. She¡¯s been stabbed.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll be fine,¡± Kajsa said. ¡°You don¡¯t have to be¨C¡±

    ¡°You,¡± Lucius barked when he spotted a man with a broken arm. The splint laid across his forearm to immobilize his wrist. He likely needed the rest, but I had taught Lucius the principles of infection and he knew better than to give her a disease ridden bed. ¡°Move.¡±

    The man with the broken arm scrambled out of the bed, bowing his head and almost fleeing from the island governor. Of the two nurses, one had done as commanded to get Sammy and the other brought a bundle of medical supplies. She whispered an apology to the injured man and promptly ignored him as Kajsa was laid onto her side. ¡°Where is it?¡±

    Lucius snatched the little workblade she had and sliced open Kajsa¡¯s dress. He tore the fabric apart and used some to wipe the oozing blood. It was dark and viscous. ¡°We need to close the wound.¡±

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    ¡°We need to clean it first,¡± the nurse said, and ran to the small cookfire. She threw rags and kindling into the embers, working up a blaze to boil a pot of wine.

    ¡°Don¡¯t,¡± Kajsa croaked out. She lifted a blood hand and beckoned. Her voice was as hollow as breath. ¡°Bring it.¡±

    ¡°Do it,¡± Lucius ordered.

    With a shake of her head, the nurse took the kettle off the blaze and brought it over. In her mind, she was surely thinking about all the patients who succumbed to sepsis because of improperly boiling the alcohol.

    ¡°Get a cup to pour it into,¡± the alchemist said, gesturing at the pot vaguely.

    Lucius watched the nurse¡¯s reaction, then grabbed her wrist. He forced the nurse to apply pressure to the wound and got the cup himself because he saw the woman barely spoke Vassish. He almost started pouring it for her to drink when Kajsa stopped him.

    ¡°Wait a moment.¡± She touched the kettle and he felt the pot vibrate. It almost wanted to rattle out of the handle he gripped it by. ¡°Now pour it,¡± she said, letting her hand fall. ¡°Slowly decant it.¡±

    Lucius did as she said, gently pouring it into the cup to only skim the very top. What came out was perfectly clear and made his eyes water when he sniffed it. ¡°How did you? You have a stigmata?¡±

    ¡°Useful, isn¡¯t it?¡± she said with a grin. ¡°Maybe, something to bite on though?¡±

    Lucius found a gag bit in the bag of medical supplies and gave it to her. She chomped down on it before the alcohol was poured onto her wound. Immediately, her back arched and she whimpered in pain as purified ethyl alcohol burned her raw nerves. The nurse quickly wiped the wound clean and loomed over Kajsa¡¯s back. Blood continued to ooze out of her, but no air bubbles, so the nurse pressed down with a clean rag.

    ¡°We need to stitch her up, or clot it or¨C¡±

    ¡°You need to step aside,¡± Sammy said as he bursat through the door. He didn¡¯t even have a shirt on and sweat poured down his slim body. He took a moment to suck in breath, push his matted hair out of his face, and strolled over.

    At last, Lucius was able to take a breath and step back, Kajsa¡¯s blood still dripping from his hands. The actual physician took over, cleaning the wound once more and opening it up to look inside, then needle and thread were in his hands. While he started tying knots, he had the nurse pour in some medicinal powder that made Kajsa writhe in pain again. Lucius jerked forward, a knot gripping his throat, but whatever it was made the pain subside quickly. She didn¡¯t even whimper again as he began to dig the metal through her skin to sew it shut.

    She lost consciousness shortly after it was done and Sammy didn¡¯t even slow his treatment. He rolled her face down, almost naked, and rubbed some manner of salve across her back. ¡°She needs food,¡± he said, wiping his hands off.

    ¡°What kind?¡±

    ¡°Meat,¡± the doctor said. ¡°And lots of broth.¡±

    ¡°Then let¡¯s bring her back to the manor. Get her to her bed, to safety. I¡¯ll wake the chef.¡±

    Sammy nodded. ¡°The guards will be here soon. They can carry her. Lucius, what happened?¡±

    Worry transformed inside him and he had to force his jaw open so that he could speak. ¡°War was declared.¡±

    ¡°What does that mean? From who?¡±

    ¡°The demon. The drug is still in this city. They stabbed Kajsa, maybe killed her! To threaten me. I think it knows that attacking me directly is pointless, so it¡¯s coming after everyone else.  It just showed that anyone in any place can be weaponized against me.¡±

    Adam stuck his head into the hospital and rapped his knuckles against the door. When he made eye contact with Lucius, he strolled in with his thumbs stuck into his swordbelt. The man had no armor on, just night clothes along with his weapon. ¡°M¡¯lord,¡± he said with a nod as he peered at Kajsa from a distance.

    ¡°Good, the two of us can carry her,¡± Lucius said, looking for a stretcher.

    ¡°Aye, we can do that,¡± the soldier said, scratching his jaw. ¡°Quite the¡­ ah¡­ demonstration you left there.¡±

    Sammy frowned. ¡°What¡¯s that mean?¡±

    Lucius shook his head and found himself wishing for some of that distilled alcohol. ¡°I killed the man who stabbed Kajsa.¡±

    Adam snorted. ¡°He gave the whole town something to gossip about for a month, I wager.¡±

    ¡°They would have regardless. Come on,¡± Lucius said, spotting the stretcher at last.

    ¡°What did he do?¡± Sammy asked, addressing the soldier.

    ¡°He made a wall ornament out of the man.¡±

    ¡°He deserved it,¡± Lucius hissed, tossing the stretcher on the ground beside Kajsa¡¯s bed. ¡°She needs a blanket,¡± he added, looking at the exposed curves of her hips and ass.

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry about it, m¡¯lord. Up north that might have you marked as a savage, but you¡¯ll be respected for it by the locals.¡±

    ¡°I wasn¡¯t worried about it,¡± Lucius said, staring his subordinate down.

    The soldier nodded and bowed back a half step as Sammy threw a clean blanket over his patient. The three of them eased her onto the stretcher. Lucius and Adam lifted her up, discovering just how light she was; as if she were no more than a child. They carried her back out of the hospital and to the street. When he set his eyes on the distant glow of his manor, Lucius growled out an oath.

    ¡°I¡¯m going to slaughter that fucking demon.¡±

 3-16 - Protecting the Ladies

    Aisha was livid. ¡°You expect me to pack my things and leave? First of all, what things? I own like three outfits and a couple instruments. Second of all, did you forget the entire reason I am with you in the first place? You¡¯re trying to send me back to Rackvidd of all places, where everyone knows me.¡±

    ¡°Less than you would think,¡± he said, putting his hands to her arms. Halfway to embracing her, he hoped the contact would soothe.

    It did not. ¡°I¡¯m not going back to Giordana, not alone. You think I¡¯m in danger here? I¡¯ll be in ten times more danger there!¡±

    ¡°You¡¯ll be under Lord Raymi¡¯s protection. I¡¯ll see to it. And if something happens to you there, I¡¯ll burn it to the ground myself.¡±

    She crossed her arms and pulled back. ¡°Just as soon as you¡¯re done torching the isles?¡±

    He pulled up and set his face. ¡°The demon has to die, Aisha. There will be no negotiating with it. This is war.¡±

    ¡°You and what army? Did you forget that problem?¡± She broke away from him and sat down on their bed.

    ¡°I¡¯ve been working on that problem. The first privateer showed up already. They¡¯re sailing around the edges, charting the currents and looking for opportunity. That will put some pressure. Pressure will show the cracks. When I find those, I¡¯ll lead a small team¨C¡±

    ¡°Who can you even trust to have your back? Sera? Sera and who else? The twins? That trollkin?¡±

    He paced across the room and sat in a small reading chair beside the window. ¡°Like I said, a small group. I¡¯ll need more of course, for holding positions, for suppressing rebellions. But the demon I can handle by myself. Bringing too many people is a risk anyways. I wouldn¡¯t be able to know they were all clean. One saboteur is more dangerous than twenty enemies.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re rushing because you¡¯re scared.¡±

    ¡°I am scared!¡± Oil flew from the lamp when his fist smashed the table beside him. He had to snatch it up before the flame spread. With nowhere else to put it, he had to cross the room and set the candle upon his trunk, where he kept his armor. ¡°Look, Aisha, the only thing I have confidence in is myself. I know that I won¡¯t die. That¡¯s the one bedrock foundation of my world. I don¡¯t know that I can protect you, not like this.¡±

    ¡°Shouldn¡¯t you keep me by your side then? Keep me close?¡± Her voice was soft as cotton, her face downcast.

    He turned away from her and said, ¡°Kajsa was close. She was right across the table from me and now she might die¡­¡±

    ¡°I was right,¡± she said. ¡°You were close with her, weren¡¯t you?¡±

    He glanced over his shoulder and nodded. ¡°She was my friend. Smarter than me too. Halfway to grown up and yet approachable. Of course I liked her, but that was when I was a nobody, when I had no power. I didn¡¯t even have two hands! But that¡¯s the past. This is now. She¡¯s my alchemist. We¡¯ll run out of money if we lose her.¡±

    ¡°You could lease land, couldn¡¯t you?¡±

    ¡°In the long term, I plan to. Or, rather, I plan to teach Lamdo how to. Nobody will be interested now though. Not until they have to levy conscripts again¡­ But the money is needed now, Aisha. I can¡¯t take out a loan and wait half a year and hope the markets will favor me. I need to be the one offering loans. I need her.¡±

    The redhead pouted at him, but kept her concerns to herself. She fixated on a seed of jealousy and the more she grasped upon it, the more ashamed of it she became. Her emotions towards Lucius retained a certain uneasiness, a taint of improper beginning. Doubt haunted her that her affection for him was born of mere circumstance and fear. That very fear whispered to her that he might feel the same.

    Over the past weeks, she had comforted herself with superiority, that Kajsa couldn¡¯t compare to her. Distance could make all the difference. No degree of talent could change the fact that Lucius wanted her across the sea from him, and the wounded alchemist would stay behind like a fixation of guilt for him.

    Of course, that very concern made her feel ashamed that she even considered it, because she had no evidence whatsoever that Kajsa thought of herself as a rival or even considered Lucius as a man. He was her employer and perhaps nothing more. Thus, the muddy knot of emotions inside her squirmed like eels and not one word of it reached his ears.

    ¡°If I¡¯m to go to Rackvidd, I will have to go as your spokesperson. That merchant Lupin seems to have been worthless.¡±

    Lucius had produced a washing rag and used it to dab up the spilled oil. ¡°And you think you¡¯d be better?¡±

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    She brushed her hair back and shifted the way she sat to drape more of her body towards him. ¡°Did you forget that my father was a merchant?¡± You think I learned nothing but songs?¡±

    ¡°I didn¡¯t think that¡­ ah, well¡­¡± Lucius put on a diplomatic smile. ¡°You weren¡¯t exactly given your freedom.¡±

    She sighed. ¡°My father benefited immensely from my mother¡¯s counsel. Plenty of men do, it¡¯s the dirty secret of Giordana and the secret ingredient to many arranged marriages.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s a pity the talent doesn¡¯t immigrate more often.¡±

    ¡°You should be considering yourself lucky, you know? To have a woman so talented, so intelligent¡­¡±

    He noticed the invitation at last and strolled towards her, removing his belt. ¡°I confess I¡¯ve been a bit blinded by your beauty.¡±

    ¡°You need to try harder with your flirting, dear.¡±

    ¡°If only I had a bard to teach me,¡± he said, climbing atop her. ¡°So, you¡¯ll go?¡±

    ¡°For a time, I¡¯ll go.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll send Sera with you,¡± Lucius said, and planted a kiss on the nape of her neck. She smelled only of her body, no hint of perfumes left in the dead of night.

    Her hands roamed his body to help the unraveling of his clothes. ¡°You need her.¡±

    ¡°I need her to protect you.¡±

    ¡°Who will train the guards?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll have to find someone else.¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t be silly, where are you going to find someone like that?¡±

    ¡°I have a plan,¡± he said, and he began the mirror of her work, freeing her body of her nightgown.

    They coupled, a fresh memory for the both of them. They anchored the night within their minds like a diary of the body. The next morning, Lucius rose before the frogs did. He bathed himself in cold water and went to the training grounds. While the soldiers were still getting dressed he stood with the target dummies, slashing through the motions of everything Leomund had taught him. As he had distantly hoped, Sera Lynnfield joined him, though she came in full armor.

    ¡°Need a sparring partner, my lord?¡±

    Sweat prickled his body, fighting with the morning mist for supremacy. The fires of war smoldered in his chest, every swing a bellows blow to stoke them. ¡°I need you to protect Aisha, actually.¡±

    Sera glanced back to the manor and nodded. ¡°I heard about Kajsa. Sammy says she¡¯ll pull through.¡±

    ¡°She will, but I don¡¯t know if we¡¯ll be so lucky again.¡±

    ¡°Got to make your own luck, my father would tell me.¡±

    Lucius nodded. ¡°Couldn¡¯t agree more, but it¡¯s going to take me some time to find the demon still. During that time I need you.¡±

    ¡°Of course.¡±

    ¡°I need you in Rackvidd.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m sorry?¡±

    Lucius set his training weapon aside and walked over to her. ¡°I¡¯m sending Aisha to Rackvidd, to keep her safe. She¡¯ll be my economic ambassador as well, but I have to keep her away from this thing¡¯s clutches.¡±

    Sera blinked. ¡°You¡¯re asking me to leave with her?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m sorry, you¡¯ll have to leave Sammy with me too. There¡¯s no one else I can trust with this,¡± Lucius said. Which wasn¡¯t entirely true, he just didn¡¯t know where the Tolzi brothers were.

    Sera opened her mouth but couldn¡¯t find the words. She tried to gesture with her hands, to work up the logical construct she needed. The tumble of frustrations inside her defied her, refused to be staked down to the simplistic thing called language. Eventually, she sighed. ¡°For how long?¡±

    ¡°Just a few weeks, your expenses will be on me.¡±

    She sagged, her arms hanging like weights. ¡°Careful what you promise, I can have an appetite.¡±

    He grinned. ¡°As long as you keep Aisha safe, it¡¯s money well spent. Do try to get Raymi to cover your hospitality please.¡±

    ¡°When do I have to leave?¡±

    ¡°The first ship that¡¯s going to Rackvidd, which might be a few days yet. So, I need you to stick to Aisha while she¡¯s here until then.¡±

    Sera huffed and crossed her arms. ¡°And what are you going to be doing until then? That you can¡¯t protect her yourself. Shouldn¡¯t you be hopping to be her hero?¡±

    ¡°Last time I was a hero was last night, and I made a wall decoration out of a man. It¡¯s not a good look for me. Besides, I need to go raise an army.¡±

    ¡°What? Gunna stand on the street corner and show how tough you are? You might get some mercenaries that way but this is the Misty Isles, not the middle kingdoms.¡±

    ¡°No, I¡¯ve got a better idea than that. There are men far more motivated to risk their lives. I¡¯m going to recruit from the mine. I¡¯ll offer them double rations and a commutation of their sentencing on condition that they fight. It¡¯s dangerous, to arm prisoners like that, but I can¡¯t think of a better way to get a militia on short notice.¡±

    ¡°Didn¡¯t one of them try to kill you just a few weeks ago?¡±

    Lucius habitually stretched the little wound that prisoner had given him and said, ¡°It¡¯s not a perfect plan, but it¡¯s the best I¡¯ve got. That¡¯s also why I need Aisha in Rackvidd. I need her to entice some ship crews to come down and fight. Going to promise them land and then get them to throw out the Aillesterrans for me.¡±

    Sera pursed her lips and shook her head. ¡°You¡¯re playing a dangerous game, my lord.¡±

    ¡°Of course I am.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯d be very upset with you if you hadn¡¯t given me at least the night to say goodbye.¡±

    He grinned. ¡°Might be two nights if you¡¯re lucky.¡±

    ¡°I suppose I need to go check the docks?¡±

    ¡°Please, and when you have, I¡¯d be happy to spar with you or perhaps have the chef cook up a meal of your choice. You name it.¡±

    ¡°I will,¡± she said, and turned back to the manor.

    Lucius picked his training blade up once more and faced the scarecrow. The glowing lantern face of the demon loomed within his mind, transposed to wicker flesh and he attacked it.

 3-17 - Recruiting An Army

    The warden spent the morning in a coughing fit, sweating like a leaking dam.

    The effort of using his stigmata seemed amplified, as though the presence of his liege drove a panic attack into him. ¡°They¡¯re all here, m¡¯lord.¡± His gesture was feeble, far too little to encompass the near one thousand prisoners that spent their lives ripping glitter from the dirt, awaiting an unplanned burial.

    Lucius clasped his hands behind his back and surveyed the group. The gesture was almost meaningless; nothing more than to show he could hold the silence of their attention. ¡°To those of you who don¡¯t speak Vassish, I apologize. You¡¯ll have to get a translation later. I¡¯m here because I¡¯m short on time. I have things I must do and little time to do them. My resources are limited. If gold were endless and laying upon the beach maybe then I could hire a knight order to come down here, all drawn up and girded in shining steel. Some of them have so much money they even armor their squires. They look great on parade, but I¡¯m not paying for a parade. I¡¯m going to pay for fighters and nothing more.¡±

    The men, half prisoner and half slave, didn¡¯t know what to make of his speech. They shuffled their feet and glanced at one another. Some murmurs of translation passed from one bowed head to the next. The sun blazed overhead, no shade or breeze to give them reprieve as they listened.

    Lucius had been given one of the guard towers to stand on, an impromptu pulpit which he descended from. His voice carried loud across the crowd regardless. ¡°I¡¯m sure you lot are familiar with the wastelands, the southern continent. You¡¯re familiar with the degeneration of humans that live there. The cause of why has been a mystery, but it¡¯s simple really.¡± He pointed to the sky and scanned the front row of prisoners. ¡°It¡¯s the sun.¡±

    Some of the guards, the free men of the mine, glanced at one another, but Lucius carried on. ¡°Travelers say it¡¯s a peculiar thing, like the sky is a haze. The sun shines, but you can¡¯t say from where. Shadows change at random and night comes like a sorry debtor. The very passage of time becomes confused because they¡¯re cut off from Lumius. It drives them to insanity. They seek refuge in perverse demons and occult ritual. The cannibalism is but one example¡­¡±

    Some of the prisoners scowled, hard faced men with sunken eyes and tanned skin. They were fit and their backs unbowed. Lucius made note of them, meeting their gazes as he went on. ¡°What do we have here? Mist. The same haze and confusion, just to a lesser degree. We¡¯re at the edge of the map, the end of the world. Lumius and the goddesses can still reach out and help us, but the creatures can reach out too. They whisper false promises and seduce the unwary. You¡¯ve all seen it happen. You¡¯ve seen the people who disappear. They aren¡¯t escaping. Their sentences didn¡¯t run out. They turned their backs on civilization, on completing their imprisonment and returning home. Rather, the jungle swallowed them up. They sank into canopy shadows and handed their lives over. Those men were eaten by the islands.¡±

    To simply tell men of the nature of their world can be a difficult thing, and Lucius didn¡¯t have much experience at it yet. I believe he should have played his cards close to his chest as they say. He had to take account of the people he spoke to: criminals. They were frustrated men beaten down by the mine and yearning for escape. He didn¡¯t need to give them justifications beyond his mere permission.

    But he did.

    And they tilted their heads. They sneered in confusion. They shook their heads and closed their ears.

    Thinking he primed them with righteous cause, Lucius paced before them and barked out, ¡°I need men to fight the source of this problem, to burn out the roots. Serve me and your sentences will be commuted, nullified, ended. If you¡¯re welling to fight, assemble at the docks. If not, return to your hovels and shovels, you won¡¯t be leaving anytime soon.¡±

    With that, he turned his back to them and marched off. He left so abruptly, the prisoners stood in shock. Confusion broke out among them, hasty conversations and translations. Some scrambled to follow, they shoved through the ranks of dusty miners and chased after him. These were largely the young among the prisoners, and those Lucius most needed for his purge.

    The warden followed after him as well, pleading. ¡°My lord, how will we meet our quotas if you take away the workers! We have debts, obligations, requirements! The onus on us is from the crown!¡±

    Lucius waved him off and waited for a coughing fit to subside. ¡°Don¡¯t worry about that,¡± the young lord said. ¡°I¡¯ll be replenishing your supply soon enough. Be it from Raymi¡¯s war, or from my own. You might have to teach farmers how to mine, but the quotas will be met.¡±

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    ¡°But, with locals? They barely work enough to stay alive! They have no industry.¡± Worse than his fears, Lucius planned to send the most impotent of the archipelago; those who grew and smoked the kuku plant. ¡°When we first came to the Misty Isles, we tried hiring them and it was a catastrophe. They scratched at the surface, but the moment they didn¡¯t see an immediate glint of gold they could pick up with their hands, there was nothing we could do. They just left, bored!¡±

    Lucius thought for a moment about the problem of money. He had never been an expert at economics, and I made the mistake of giving him some offhand comments on the subject without properly explaining concepts like purchasing power to him. Supply and demand was obvious, and I gave him enough lectures as it pertained to wartime logistics, to scarcity from raids and disasters and how to mitigate them, how to plan for them. The Misty Isles had a peculiar problem of a decrepit economy that he felt personally. Even with money there was frightfully little to buy. The beer in pubs was no better than swill made in one¡¯s home. Under such circumstances it was little wonder the locals couldn¡¯t be motivated.

    They hadn¡¯t been indoctrinated with the allure for gold, with the lust for luxury, with the taste of status. A most problematic state of affairs for an ambitious ruler.

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry about it, we have weeks of backlog regardless. Our shipments will be regular soon and no one will notice. If I have to, I will return some. The injured perhaps. It¡¯s more important that I root out this demon. Don¡¯t worry, I¡¯ll put them to good use, as is my right as governor.¡±

    The warden paled and bowed as he backed away. The ship captains Lucius had brought with him had already been brought up to speed. He had two, one to bring himself back to Aliston, and another to settle them on another island. It was a shabby thing by design, more of a barge than a ship. It was barely fit to shove across a placid lake, and he liked it that way. He wanted the prisoners¨Cthat he was about to arm to the teeth¨Cto know one hint of a storm would capsize the vessel, and take them with it. He allowed no thought of mutiny.

    Then, he turned to the growing assembly, the self-selected wheat from the chaff. They weren¡¯t all wheat though, not by a long shot. Many were old timers, those who had lost hope of ever leaving. Lucius¡¯ speech had rekindled a thirst for life in them, memories of freedom. It wasn¡¯t just the simple freedom of a serf however, it was the freedom of barbarous man.

    Jacque Mordare had very wrong ideas about humans in the savage state. He presumed that such a man could not be found any longer, but in truth the regression to form is far too easily. There exists a thirst that lives in every beat of a man¡¯s heart, perhaps hidden, perhaps at the reins. A thirst to do as one wills, a drive to power. A drive to kill and steal, to pillage and rape. It can blaze up like wildfire, feeding upon the deadfall clutter of civilized life. Even with the full knowledge that it destroys, that it begets revenge and sorrow, that it builds nothing to be proud of, there are always some who succumb to it.

    When Lucius said the price of their freedom was to inflict violence upon others, he left that island with some three hundred men at his beck and call, a force almost rival to the garrison he took from Puerto Faro and yet to be augmented by an armada of privateers.

    He loaded them upon the flimsy barge, commanding the warden to take stock and count, to log name and number of them. Their sentences would have to be officially commuted, and he needed to know who had answered the call that day because he knew a future day might come when he would have to levy the prison once more. Those fearful stragglers would likely not get such a good deal as these.

    While the prisoners were settling themselves into rows and piles, clutches and huddles of sore flesh between the barge railings, the warden stepped next to Lucius with a frown. ¡°Many of these men will be of little use to you.¡±

    ¡°In a fight? Perhaps, but what use would they be at the mine? Armies always have menial chores to parcel out.¡±

    And with such brusque confidence, he shoved off the island. For many, that was the last they ever saw of the mine.  It vanished into the mist as they traveled south and landed upon an island of weeds. Former settlers had clearcut the woods and tried to till the soil. The demon had consumed them however, and left behind house and barn like hollow tombstones.

    Lucius disembarked with the men and marshaled them as barrels were unloaded. ¡°Listen up, I need everyone who has military experience to stand over there, and everyone else to stand over there,¡± he announced. Shortly, all the men had shuffled to various groups and groups within groups. He split them up by training and nationality. He quizzed some on what their responsibilities had been, for he wasn¡¯t of particular familiarity with the land forces of Aillesterra. To his surprise he even had a few men from Skaldheim.

    The assignment of squads and leaders was the most precarious of work, because he had to split up any potential sub-factions from the mine and make sure their only uniting feature was their allegiance to him¨Ccontractual as it was. On top of that, he had to make sure each of them was lead by someone who spoke Vassish. The elderly and infirm of the army were distributed fairly as he could, and then he spoke to them once more.

    ¡°I hope you weren¡¯t expecting to fight your first day. War is mostly about out-marching your enemy. Tonight you make camp,¡± he said, and gestured at some of the unloaded supplies. ¡°Clear this field, set your tents, get cook fires and fill your stomachs. Tomorrow, I¡¯ll return and if you¡¯ve been able to put up a wall, I¡¯ll bring extra rations. If you don¡¯t know what to do, ask your squad leader. Dismissed.¡±

    And then he left them on the deserted island with axes, tents, and a good deal of confusion.

 3-18 - The Jezzabelle

    Kajsa was not recovering well. Lucius found her the next morning still asleep despite the frogs. Her face had gone pale and purple bruising covered much of her torso. With all his travels to and fro Aliston, Lucius made the time to visit her himself that morning, because he knew he would be gone for days if not weeks. A ship had been chartered for Aisha and Sera, both of whom were seeing to their preparations without him. As such, he knew he had to strike at the demon to set the pace of the war on his terms.

    He visited her with broth and bread, with a simple porridge to fill her stomach. ¡°Kajsa,¡± he said, watching her stir and shift with the dawn light.

    She had been in the shallowest of sleep and roused from his words. ¡°Mn, Pojka?¡± she asked, her words slurred with sleep. She rubbed her eyes meekly, not seeing how Lucius stiffened from the mumbled slur of his true name. ¡°Sorry,¡± she said. ¡°Is that you Lucius?¡±

    Ever the actor, he smoothed his posture and offered her a cup of water. ¡°How are you feeling?¡±

    ¡°Horrid,¡± she said, rolling over in bed. She propped herself up enough to drink but couldn¡¯t sit up. Sweat had drenched her nightgown, making it cling to her body and the sheets as well. Her hair was a matted mess with knots that looked like they wouldn¡¯t ever come out. ¡°Sorry, I haven¡¯t been sleeping well. The heat is¡­ I was dreaming about a kid I used to know.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s fine,¡± he said.

    ¡°The doctor, Sammy, had to operate on me last night. It still hurts, but¡­ I guess I should expect a cauterization to hurt.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m sure he only did what he had to,¡± Lucius said, looking at the yellow bruising patches that had reached her neck.

    ¡°Feels like I got stabbed¨Cno, wait, this is worse than when I got stabbed. The actual knife? In and out, barely even noticed it. Sammy jabbed me with a fire prod!¡±

    Lucius couldn¡¯t help but laugh. ¡°At least your humor is in one piece.¡±

    She rolled her eyes. ¡°Oh, do not get me started on humors. These nurses! One of them was trying to get me to drink salt water so I would puke out my bad ¡®humors¡¯ as if those are even real things!¡±

    ¡°Just rest and eat. Trust me, I have plenty of experience at healing.¡±

    She gingerly took the broth and the bread, dipping the fresh loaf into it. ¡°What is your stigmata anyways?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s¡­ hard to explain. The more hurt I am, the quicker I heal. It doesn¡¯t replace lost blood though. Only food does that. Food and less time than a normal person needs.¡±

    She sighed. ¡°Too bad you can¡¯t just give me some of your blood.¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t think it works like that.¡±

    ¡°True, and it would probably foul up with my own stigmata. Magic can be finicky like that.¡±

    He nodded. ¡°I didn¡¯t realize you had a stigmata.¡±

    ¡°It can be useful at times, but to explain how it¡¯s useful is more work than it¡¯s worth normally. Not good dinner conversation.¡±

    ¡°Try me, what does it do? Whatever you left behind in that kettle, it was the worst dregs I¡¯d ever seen in my life.¡±

    ¡°Distillation without the fire. Simple really, but except for making stronger liquor, and the world has enough strong liquor(1), the only uses are esoteric to say the least. It helped me get my alchemical credentials young though. Most girls my age would still be stuck in a temple somewhere.¡±

    ¡°Did you always want to leave Jarnmark?¡±

    She frowned and furrowed her brow. For a moment, she drifted through memories while chewing her breakfast. ¡°Not that I have anything against the Ashe family, but there was something about being on the wrong side of the sea. You know? Like, on the mainland, you can just walk somewhere new. You try to walk somewhere new in Jarnmark and you¡¯ll get eaten by a bear.¡±

    ¡°I hate to break it to you Kajsa, but you can¡¯t walk anywhere new here either.¡±

    Her cheeks colored. ¡°I know that, come on. It¡¯s just a childish concern, but I was a kid back then, so it¡¯s my right to have had a childish concern! Sorry, my mind has been in the past all morning it seems. I¡¯m wasting your morning.¡±

    Lucius shook his head and offered the porridge to her. ¡°Kajsa, you got stabbed right in front of me. Of course I want to see you get better. You talking like this is the best thing I could hear right now.¡±

    ¡°Better than the frogs.¡±

    ¡°Better than the frogs, and the grunts of soldiers, and the yelling at the docks. You wouldn¡¯t throw me out on a morning like this, would you?¡±

    ¡°When I have to get dressed I would.¡±

    ¡°Point taken,¡± he said, almost sliding away from her in his seat, but the room was small and she didn¡¯t seem to mind him.

    More accurately, she was thinking about the past still. ¡°You know, I knew someone else, when I was young, who had a stigmata like you.¡± Of course, she was referring to him. ¡°He¡¯s the one who wandered off and¡­ well, we don¡¯t know if he got eaten by a bear or something else, but he never came back from the woods.¡±

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    Lucius cleared his throat and turned his head to look out the window. ¡°Maybe he managed to walk somewhere else. If he could heal, it would be hard for a bear to kill him, wouldn¡¯t it?¡±

    ¡°Would have been, yes. But there¡¯s also the thought that what if he had to survive being mauled? Like, could you heal faster than an animal could eat you?¡±

    ¡°I could kill it faster than it could finish me off. If I had to just endure, that would be a very painful mess.¡±

    Kajsa sighed and stirred her porridge. It was tasteless slop, but they both knew she had to choke it down. ¡°Have you ever been to Jarnmark?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ve visited. The Ashe family has been very prosperous. The king practically dotes on them.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s changed since when I was a kid. It¡¯s like everyone has gotten swept up with themselves, with the iron smelting. There¡¯s this obsession with it because the king keeps talking about how it¡¯s the backbone of the empire. I don¡¯t like it there anymore. Down here at the edge of the world is much better.¡±

    Lucius knew perfectly well that it was only a matter of time before the zealotry of purpose reached the Misty Isles, by his own intention. Gold and food and luxury would pour back to Vassermark to fuel the war machine. But those fields had not yet been sown, much less reaped. The morning had been growing long in the tooth, and he could tarry little more time. ¡°Rest up. We don¡¯t want to see your wound fester.¡±

    She smiled at him. ¡°I¡¯ll be back to work soon, don¡¯t worry.¡±

    ¡°You are the least of my worries right now. All my other worries will be far away, which makes them all the worse,¡± he said, and excused himself from the room.

    He headed down to the docks after girding himself in steel. Dressing for battle made it somewhat better when Aisha and Sera arrived to board the Jezzabelle for Rackvidd. Their clothing trunks were carried for them by some of the guards, who didn¡¯t seem very upset to be helping the ladies. All the frustration in the docks seemed to be bundled up on two legs and wore a terracotta dress.

    ¡°So, we¡¯re leaving for the month,¡± Aisha said, glaring at him as Sera slipped by.

    ¡°Yes, that¡¯s what we agreed.¡± His words were monotone, as flat as water¡¯s surface.

    ¡°I brought my instruments with me. I think the more cultured people of Rackvidd will prefer them.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯ll certainly have more competition. I¡¯m sure you¡¯ll be compared favorably.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re not going to visit at all, are you?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m going to be fighting, I can¡¯t. But, perhaps I¡¯ll fetch you myself after I slay the demon.¡± He smiled.

    She didn¡¯t return the expression. She crossed her arms and nodded. ¡°I want letters.¡±

    ¡°Letters?¡±

    ¡°Yes, daily.¡±

    He winced. ¡°I¡¯ll write to you as often as I can.¡±

    ¡°Daily.¡±

    ¡°I can only write as fast as ships leave and ships for Rackvidd are weekly at best. You understand that, don¡¯t you?¡±

    ¡°Fine, weekly then, but I want letters. I want to hear how wonderfully your war is going and how cold your bed is at night.¡±

    ¡°It will be the coldest, don¡¯t worry.¡±

    ¡°It had better be,¡± she said, putting a finger to his chest.

    Rather than continue the banter, Lucius grabbed her, slipping a hand behind her neck and pulled her in. She couldn¡¯t speak with his lips on hers and after a moment he gave her a shove to the gang plank. She stumbled like she already had sea-legs and then she was on the Jezzabelle. The captain tugged his hat off and gave a sweeping wave, but the crew were still prepping the ship for departure.

    A different ship captain joined him, young and as dark skinned as charcoal. He had to spit a wad of tobacco out from his lip as he turned to face the Jezzabelle. Crossing arms as thick as anchoring lines, he said, ¡°Ship¡¯s ready, Sir.¡±

    ¡°Give me a moment, I won¡¯t have this again,¡± Lucius said, and the captain nodded. They both stood and watched as the ship for Rackvidd finally shoved off and crept into the waters. Sails unfurled and puffed out with gentle wind. Its departure almost couldn¡¯t be seen, as if it stood still and merely shrank across the horizon. He saw a distant wave from someone in red and he waved back.

    Then he departed Aliston and rejoined his fresh army.

    Their camp was shabby compared to a knight order, but better than anything he had trekking across Giordana. A queer sort of industry had spurred them on. Men remembered what it was like to have agency and several had taken charge with vigor. Tents were pitched and cookfires smoldered. By the smell of it, they had managed to fell some wild deer to add meat to their diets, but by the time Lucius arrived, even the bones had been boiled down to improve the taste of the porridge he had left them.

    Lucius strolled through the camp unannounced, but the whispers of him ripped through the ex-prisoners quick enough. Men woke one another up, rousing and marshaling to face him. Most stood with pride in their chests as he nodded at their work. While no palisade had been constructed, they had clear cut the camp for firewood and stacked the sturdier logs around the edge. He hadn¡¯t been expecting anymore, so he didn¡¯t scold them for the incomplete camp.

    It is very important that every aspiring leader knows better than to expect more of his subordinates than they can give. Such friction between lord and servant has been the downfall of countless unknown nobles.

    He was lucky that part of his mind was too preoccupied with women, vestiges of puberty still within him as they were, that he didn¡¯t even bother to harangue his men. At most he made small talk with them, to query those he saw with more light in their eyes than average. When assigning the squad leaders he had made sargeants of men he knew little about, and some had to be deposed.

    After his speeches the day before, he nearly left the men in shock and confusion that he didn¡¯t repeat the effect, but¨Cafter a look at the sun¨Che announced that he wanted to test their archery. Bows had been left as well as axes, but they were crude things of low poundage. Against a proper army, they might have been less than useless. Against unarmored zealots they would suffice and ranged supremacy could decide any battle.

    While most men were setting about arranging an archery range¨Cthey laid out a tree trunk and a rotten scarecrow¨Ca few of them thought it would be a good chance to escape. The ship that had brought Lucius was still moored off the shore, rowboats at the ready, and the prisoners outnumbered the crew three to one.

    One particular genius figured all he had to do was kill Lucius, so he took one of the bows and got out of line. He meandered about like he didn¡¯t know where to go, then tried to loose a shaft into him.

    He evidently didn¡¯t know about the previous time a prisoner tried to kill the young lord.

    <hr>

    <ol>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">The world could always use more liquor.</li>

    </ol>

 3-19 - Decimation

    The arrow slipped past Lucius. He saw the attack, the betrayal, from the corner of his eye. He pulled his head back, felt the brush of feathers against his nose, and turned on the archer. The prisoner swore, scrambling to knock a second arrow. Lucius¡¯ only hesitation was from mere surprise. The would-be assassin was a fair distance from him, and Lucius had to charge the man.

    The other prisoners-turned-soldier dove out of his way rather than take a side, most realized that their fate would be acceptable in an escape but the likelihood was nil. He didn¡¯t want their help regardless, drawing his sword without even a shout.

    The assassin cursed, tossing the bow aside and grabbing a wood ax. He wrapped his calloused hands around the haft, squeezing it like the neck of a goose he meant to eat. That man bellowed. He puffed out his chest like frightened prey and screamed. The clash between them took the form of huge swings. They threw their bodies in and out, light on their feet, baiting one another¡¯s attacks. They each stuck their faces forward, baring teeth, and pulled back at the swipe of steel.

    Of course, in such a match up, the one with the sword had the advantage. Eventually, the heavy head got away from the man. The steel edge bit into the loam. A mere instant of resistance and he didn¡¯t pull back in time. Lucius was upon him. First a boot to the stomach, finding it hard and lacking in fat. His hack aimed not at the chest but ripped a red line across the assassin¡¯s arms. Blood rained between them, squirting into the man¡¯s grip. He tried to pull the haft of the ax between them, taking it in both hands¨Cone at the base and one at the head.

    For a moment, Lucius was kept at bay, unable to hit anything but wood as the man retreated. Then he had a proper measure of the man¡¯s strength. There was steel in the assassin¡¯s bones, certainly. Living in a mine would allow nothing less. But there wasn¡¯t enough.

    With a snarl, Lucius stopped the graceful feints and flourishes. He had already demonstrated his technical prowess and it wasn¡¯t needed. He hammered his blade down, letting the steel slam into the ax haft. Then he did it again, and again. He pummeled the assassin¡¯s grip and forced it down, chipping bits from the handle with every strike until he cut through it. His sword parted the assassin¡¯s rags and then he stabbed it through the stunned man.

    He gave a jerk, a twist. The feeling was familiar to him, the sawing through flesh and organ as he cut intestines to sausage and killed the man. To the assassin¡¯s credit, he didn¡¯t collapse on the spot, but all he could do was grunt and grab hold of Lucius by the shoulders. He strained, face turning red and veins bulging as he tried to push himself forward. He managed one step, and the next brought him to his knees.

    Lucius let him fall and stepped back, blood marring his breastplate. With a flick, he cast the mess from his sword and turned to the crowd. ¡°Squad leaders! Assemble your men.¡±

    All knew that punishment would be forthcoming, and his silence on the matter only made them more nervous. Group by group, the volunteer soldiers formed into ranks up and down the camp. They stood near their collective tents and waited for his pronouncement. At no point did Lucius call for guards, for support, for the sailors to protect him. He never even flinched in fear. Before whispers could grow into spurred revolt, he spoke. ¡°There¡¯s an old tradition in Vassish military forces. It goes back hundreds of years. Some say even before the calendar. It¡¯s born from the brotherhood of arms. You see, an army is a collective. You are all organs in one being. So when one of you rebels, all are at fault. Do you understand?¡±

    The men did not like where he was going with that, but the undeniable fact was that they could have stopped such a conspiracy. They knew it. He knew it.

    ¡°Look around you. Yesterday, I formed you into groups of five. That means your squad and the squad across from you make ten. Each of you, pick one from among you for decimation,¡± he ordered. With a cocky grin, he added, ¡°If you¡¯d like, the ten of you can try your hand at killing me, but there won¡¯t be any survivors if you do that.¡± Then he marched to the end of the camp and sat upon a stump.

    Soon enough, ten of the men did try their hand at killing him. If twenty had gone at once, he might have been in trouble. If they had been truly trained, they might have pinned him down and bested him. They were neither however. Without spears to hide behind, they regressed to the crude manner of brawling that men the world over know instinctively. They surrounded him and one by one jumped in to wail at him. Of course, they always opened by taking a swing at his back, when they thought he wasn¡¯t paying attention, but it didn¡¯t work. The boy was used to such fights. He had a way of making it seem like they were the ones at a disadvantage¨Cby striking at the weakest and most scared. He disengaged from his aggressor to lunge and cut apart the craven.

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    It didn¡¯t take him very long to kill all ten, and he didn¡¯t feel bad about it either. They would have been saboteurs of a sort if left within the army, and it was good sparring practice. No one else tried to kill him that day, and he washed himself in peace. They had scored a few cuts on him, but they were shallow.(1) The bleeding had stopped by the time the victims had been identified for decimation.

    Lucius walked back through the camp, looking at the men thrust to the front. They were broken souls, shaking and terrified more of the nine men behind them than of Lucius. Mostly, the elderly men had been volunteered. Some had protected their old men and selected otherwise. He could only hope the men had identified the traitorous culprits.

    He did not distribute clubs to the army. He did not order the murder of the one out of ten.

    ¡°Bind their hands and put them on the ship. Take them back to the mine,¡± he ordered, his words soft, businesslike. He didn¡¯t condemn anyone or question their choices. He barely remembered to add, ¡°And bury the killers.¡±

    He then had the bravery to spend the night with them. With a tent for himself, he slept without guard. He couldn¡¯t have been safer. Every man who might have wanted to kill him was burdened in his own mind with the realization that he had singled someone out for death to protect himself.

    He rose to the croak of pew frogs and donned his armor once more. Emerging from his tent, he spied one of the squad leaders crouching beside a morning cook fire. The man had done nothing more than heat his morning gruel, but Lucius singled him out regardless. ¡°You, you¡¯ll be my camp steward from now on. How loud is your voice?¡±

    The new steward was of middling age, almost old enough to be Lucius¡¯ father, but stood half a head shorter than him. ¡°Loud enough, m¡¯lord Solhart.¡±

    ¡°Assemble the men for archery testing,¡± he ordered.

    The man nodded and turned his back to him. ¡°Get up you louts! We¡¯re finishing the archery thing,¡± he screamed, and planted his hands on his hips.

    ¡°You¡¯re not a very educated man, are you?¡±

    ¡°Can¡¯t say that I am. I was a shepherd, m¡¯lord. Before the war.¡±

    ¡°Which war?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t know, it was in the north.¡±

    ¡°A long way from here.¡±

    ¡°At least the weather is better here. Better mist than ice, I say,¡± the steward said, and finished warming his breakfast.

    Eventually, the men were lined up at the improvised archery range and each given a turn to demonstrate their marksmanship. If they could hit the target they were given passing marks and exempted from frontline duties. If they couldn¡¯t, they were given clubs and axes.

    In the end, it wasn¡¯t much of an army. It was a rabble. But history has long made fools of men who made light of rabbles. What they lacked in discipline could be made up for in tenacity, given the right motivation.

    After a few more hours, wherein they worked to complete the camp palisade, Lucius assembled them at the shore. The barge had returned, enough to transport them into the archipelago. He stood between them and the vessel and said, ¡°Right then, tonight will be a raid. They should be taking a nap right about now, and we¡¯re going to give them a rude awakening. If they surrender, take them prisoner. The mine needs the workers now that you¡¯re gone. We¡¯re after a poisonous plant called the kuku plant. If you can¡¯t identify what the plant they¡¯re growing is, get me.¡±

    And with that, the squadrons of men were loaded onto the barge, armed as they were. At this point int he narrative, I¡¯m not sure I have properly impressed onto you, the reader, just how many islands are in the Misty Isles. It was certainly one thing for Vassermark to dash their colors across the region on the maps. The other great kingdoms even agreed that they had dominion over the islands. But at this time, Lucius still do not have proper sea charts and could only guess at how many farms, how many hovels and tribes laid within the archipelago. The only thing he could do was move from island to island doing the work of cartography himself. He hoped there was less than one hundred islands, one of which would have the demon. Taking into account the dozen or so islands already in economic transaction with Aliston, the odds seemed good for him.

    In truth, there were over five hundred islands, most of which looked utterly identical, had no names, and spoke with such thick dialects that even Isalin struggled to speak with them. But he didn¡¯t understand this at the start. He approached it one step at a time, and that step was from the barge to the shore.

    His newly levied army pillaged everything they came across. Not for money¨Cthe locals had no money¨Cbut for livestock. Lucius couldn¡¯t stop the army, for hungry soldiers are most dangerous to their own commanders. The only thing he could do was make promises of restitution, and arrange a sort of shell game of moving supplies. What the army didn¡¯t eat from one island, he seized and sent to the previous to make whole any honest farmer. It was those working for the demon that he robbed blind.

    The first plantation he found was on a nameless island, one almost passed over as nothing but rock and sand. The only reason they even stopped was because they sighted giant tortoises and one of the locals claimed they were good eating. Mere curiosity on Lucius¡¯ part¨Cand the thought that he might send some north to the king for favor. The island had been volcanic in nature. From the sea it had nothing but black cliffs, a mesa of lifeless dirt. But the center was a crater lush with life and the fires of men.

    He brought his own fire upon them.

 3-20 - Crater Eyelet

    The raid on Crater Eyelet, as he marked it on his sea chart, began as the sun kissed the horizon.

    They didn¡¯t have guard dogs, but their goats did rather the same job. How such stubborn creatures made it to the Misty Isles may be a mystery forever, though likely some Giordanan refugee based on the coloration patterns. Be the beast black or grey, brown or white, a few gave annoyed bleats at the quiet approach of men. Nothing loud, but a territorial noise where nothing should have crept up the island at all. It gave the locals time to realize what was happening, while the Vassish tried to find a slope they could descend. They moved like shadows upon the sky. Their loudest noise was whispered promises to the goats to eat them that night.

    Lucius found a gravel slope near one flank and leapt down it. The stone crunched and slid beneath him, cascading into the valley as darkness devoured it. In a crash of rock and flesh, scraping steel and sandals, he skidded to a stop at the edge of a fallow field. Weeds sprouted from between piles of manure¨Ca tradition the islanders surely kept without understanding. It was something they did because their ancestors did it, or perhaps the demon told them to. They would have had no understanding of fatiguing the fields.

    Lucius marched across it silently, approaching the fields of lush bushes ahead, and beyond them the cook fires. While he was still twenty paces off, he recognized them as the kuku plant. Huge as sapling trees and so laden with the demon¡¯s fruit the branches drooped like a weeping willow tree. Just inhaling made his nose tingle faintly numb.

    The man who emerged from the field had a mask on, wet and clinging to his face. He spotted Lucius, his eyes wild and red. Shock held him, his mind grappling with the surprise¨Cthe goats had been right to bleat. ¡°Shit, Vassish!¡± he screamed, spinning on his heels.

    Lucius sprinted after him. Over his shoulder he barked, ¡°Fan out! Encircle them!¡± He plunged into the field, like a nightmare copy of a wheat field, and gave chase. While his men tried to scramble down the slope, often opting for safer routes than his own, the archers jogged to the front. They fingered their bows, squeezing the butt of arrows as dusk swept the world around them and blinded them. The only trustworthy light was the glow of cook fires, and then the dancing of torches.

    The only thing Lucius could trust was also the only thing he had to trust; that even if he was caught up in friendly fire, he wouldn¡¯t die from it.

    Out the other side of the field, chasing the phantom of the farmer before him, he burst onto their ruddy trail. So sodden with mist and spilled irrigation, the mud almost sucked his sandals off. It squelched beneath him, soaking his feet and buying them time to rally. While they lit torches and found weapons like the haul of a battlefield scavenger, Lucius found the stone trail. Slabs of rock thrown into the mud that would have broken a wagon¡¯s wheels, but made for the only sure footing like he was wading a river.

    When he reached them, one among them stood like a shaman, swinging a smoky censor. The islanders inhaled like men and exhaled like beasts. They roared, straining their muscles and bulging their frames like cobras in the night. Such numbers, not even ten, wouldn¡¯t have been much danger. The dark favored the individual, it drew out the difference in skill and his stigmata meant a protracted fight could only help him.

    They had a stigmata of their own. Sadly, I was not given an opportunity to see the precise sigil upon the shaman¡¯s chest, but I did see a drawing of it. I have dubbed it [Monsoon Haze] but I am still on the quest to find it once more. The power was remarkable.

    Smoke exploded out from the shaman, swallowing up the entire world. All eleven of them, Lucius included, were thrown into a world of smoke. The field, the farms, the land itself, all was obliterated from their senses, augmented as it was by the burning of the kuku bud. Their foreign speech became a tangle of syllables, a chattering cry in Lucius¡¯ mind as the drug made its way into his lungs and to his mind.

    He steeled himself, having already experienced the drug before, and kept his stance wide, his grip firm. The islanders fused with the smoke. It wrapped around them like armor, obscuring all but their weapons which swung about like marionette toys. Lucius parried and dodged, but his counterattacks found nothing but air.

    Outnumbered as he was, the task of tracking dark clubs in the smoke mounted until he lost track. Blunt ax heads hammered his sides. Crude swords made of obsidian lacerated his arms. The cackling of madmen haunted him. They taunted him for his hubris that he could invade them.

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    Then he caught one by the back of their weapon. He cleaved down sharp, blasting past where a proper weapon¡¯s crossguard would have been. His steel found the flesh of a wrist and broke through skin and bone. The islander howled as blood squirted out from his stump and the weapon fell to the ground.

    ¡°Got ya,¡± Lucius hissed at the haze. The weapons all hesitated, surprise staying their attack for the moment. He charged them. The nearest to him had only a club so he threw his shoulder into the man. He had grasped the essence of their power¨Che had been missing because they weren¡¯t in proper fighting stances, not because he couldn¡¯t hit them. The weakness of their attacks had been the clue.

    When he slammed his shoulder in, he found the wirey flesh of an emaciated farmer. The man stumbled back, feet sticking in the mud, and Lucius cut him down.

    The islanders rallied, shouting death at him. They still outnumbered him eight to one within the grasp of the haze. They traded blows, cutting him left and right. They stripped the clothes from his arms and legs, ripping flesh beneath. In turn, they took out one man¡¯s leg, another¡¯s throat. Their foreign jeers and insults passed from one ear to the next as he began to pant.

    ¡°M¡¯lord!¡±

    ¡°Loose ar¨C¡± A club struck him in the back of the head, hard against his helmet. It dazed him, broke his defenses. He inhaled the smoke with a grunt and fell to one knee.

    The command had made it to their ears though. His raiders blindly loosed into the smoke. From outside they could see the howling and leaping, the screeching of monsters beyond their comprehension. They loosed again and again, uncoordinated and inaccurate but they so outnumbered the islanders that it didn¡¯t matter.

    Men screamed in pain, coughing blood, and more the raiders loosed. They dared to march closer, and the shaman retreated. The smoke moved with him, exposing body after body and then exposing Lucius on the ground¨Cto a knee and a hand. Arrows had punctured his armor, leaking his life to the ground. Around him were seven islanders, dead or dying.

    Some of the raiders hesitated, repeating the shout of ¡°M¡¯lord!¡±

    His eyes were only on the smoke, on the capering form of the shaman as they retreated to a barn. He snarled and ripped one arrow out. Throwing it aside, he shouted, ¡°Surround them!¡±

    ¡°You need a doctor,¡± one of his squad leaders urged, grabbing him and helping him to his feet.

    ¡°Surround them and burn them!¡±

    There was hardly a fight after that. Lucius stumbled back to the edge of the farm, coughing but hardly feeling the pain. The effect of the kuku bud burned thick in his mind. His raiders did as commanded, surrounding the barn with torches and set fire to it. Oily smoke billowed to the sky and blotted out the stars. Men and animals screamed. The doors broke down, both came fleeing the blaze. While the animals were spared, the enemies were not.

    The smoke curled around unnaturally, draping itself across the crate like a dome. It blotted out the light of the moon and loomed down to Lucius, the eye of it lit by the blaze. The demon manifested itself, pressed it¡¯s will into the distant corporeal world. Its voice was the wind, its wrath the smoke.

    ¡°You will die, Northerner! You, and all that you love. I will consume you all. I will rot your bones and suck your marrow.¡±

    The squad leader gripping Lucius trembled. He gawped up at the sky and asked, ¡°What in Lumius¡¯ name is that?¡±

    Lucius laughed. He couldn¡¯t have been happier for the demon to show itself like that. Not all his army saw it, but enough. They would spread the word to the other soldiers and they would have a cause. More than a cause, they would have a fear and¨Cso long as Lucius could pull off the act¨Cthey would have a hero to cling to. He couldn¡¯t have asked for a better stage to shove off and stand proud. He spat out the blood from his chest and grunted out, ¡°Men!¡± They took a moment to turn towards him, to hear him over the whimpering and panic of the dying. ¡°Do not be afraid. Raise your fists and cheer. Tonight, we spat in the face of a demon. Look! Look at it impotent. It can do nothing but rage. We have slain its warriors and won!¡±

    Some of the braver, or perhaps more confused, men threw up their arms and cheered. They whooped with him and their reward was rain. The smoke turned to the first storm of the wet season. The sky itself pelted down at them, drowning their fires and torches. The regular heat of the Misty Isles became a bone chilling swamp in the dead of night. The only structure that could have sheltered them all had smoldering timbers and no roof. They were forced into the hovels of the men they had slain, shivering and wet without even cookfires to warm themselves with.

    Lucius stayed strong, leveraging the pain killing haze within him and his own regeneration to stay afoot. He took on the burden of mercy killing the injured. No medical hope existed for them, so he slipped a dagger in through the ribs again and again. By then, his armor and clothing was as soaked as could be. He stripped down to his small clothes and entered the only hovel that had produced a flicker of light.

    It was the shaman¡¯s shrine, and his soldiers stood in the far corner from the twisted effigy of the demon. Before it was a bowl filled with the burnt ashes of blood and fat. The smoke stained the wooden carving horridly.

    Lucius grinned at it. He had found something even better than the bag of kuku bud from Little Dog Island. Now, he had the face of his enemy itself, to be displayed in Aliston.

 3-21 - An Introduction Over Drinks

    There is a certain habit of people to look down on the old men who play at war from the confines of a drawing room. Those decrepit and callous beings who sign away lives with quill and wax. Of course VALOR is on the battlefield. HONOR is in defeating the enemy. But victory comes from logistics. Of course, the best logistics in the world will be for naught in the hands of a fool, someone still needs to walk over to the enemy and stab them to death. I by no means wish to downplay the importance of that risky business, but as they say an army marches on their stomach.

    It is the fortune made by a young boy¡¯s lusts that this aspect of history is enlivened. For it was not dusty old men leering at their cup girls deciding the fate, but Aisha. She arrived in Rackvidd like a fruit about to ripen, her colors just about to change as she came into herself thanks to the responsibility Lucius had given her.

    Not everyone could see the change about to occur in her, but one man did.

    This man was a drunk, a wash up with the taste of defeat rotting in the back of his throat. No amount of beer could wash it from his mouth, and each night brought nightmares of remembrance. He was a captain, but his crew were strangers to him. All his friends and allies, those who served him through thick and thin, their bones littered the sea floor. It wasn¡¯t even Vassish ships that passed over them, but Aillesterran.

    But this man, Captain Thornby, was the prize catch, not the fisherman.

    Aisha stepped up on a wooden table with a familiar grace. She wore slender heels fit for a noble¡¯s ball, which might have slipped into the cracks between boards and yet never did. Her mere presence demanded their attention and the talking quieted. ¡°This town is like a drawn bow, held but not released,¡± she said, shocking them with her simple words rather than a song. She didn¡¯t even have a lyre in her grasp. ¡°You can feel the tension, can¡¯t you? The preparation and hesitation? The way the season is changing. Rackvidd is caught in a political storm.¡±

    She spoke in Vassish, perfectly fluent after all her time with Lucius. She even had a bit of a noble affectation to her pronunciation which caught the ear of the mercantile class. ¡°There was supposed to be a war of reclamation eastward, but then every nobleman with ambition sprinted northward to join the prince. Rackvidd has an army and a half, with a bruised ego too, but your enemies are allowed to lick their wounds. The time to strike back has already passed. Do any of you really want to sail over now?¡±

    Some men jeered her as a coward.

    She held up a hand. ¡°Aillesterra hasn¡¯t been sitting on their hands. You won¡¯t be fighting desert traders for horses and camels, you¡¯ll be getting ambushed by eastern pirates. The Cyclops¨Cyou¡¯ve heard of her, haven¡¯t you?--knows how Vassermark works. She knows the political delays. She¡¯s taking this time to prepare.¡±

    One man, drunker than Thornby by a good measure, stood up. He was built not like an ox but more like a dairy cow, which let him bellow. ¡°Who are you to talk? You Giordanan wench.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m here to offer a solution. Good pay. Land. Glory. You want it, you name it and go get it,¡± she said, letting a smirk creep onto her face. The man couldn¡¯t have interrupted at a better time as far as she was concerned.

    ¡°We sail for Lord Raymi, not you,¡± the fat man retorted.

    ¡°Are you not free men? I thought this was a sailor¡¯s bar, for captain and crew who live in Sapphira¡¯s realm. What is Raymi but one lord among many? I¡¯m here as a representative of Lucius von Solhart, governor of the Misty Isles, and he has put out an open call to all men of the sea to come south!¡±

    For a moment, she let the bar whisper. The name Solhart still had mixed reactions in Rackvidd. It was only a few months prior that he was known both as a war hero and as the fool that lost Puerto Faro. Arguing whether he should be lauded or scolded was a favorite pastime for drunks, particularly those who had fought in the siege. The news that he had been appointed the governor of the southern archipelago still hadn¡¯t truly sunk into the psyche of the city.

    If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

    ¡°He is offering a letter of mark for all who would assist him in rooting out rebels and pirates from the Misty Isles. Payment in gold for captured ships and any land liberated from insurgents will be parceled out as reward. It¡¯s good, fertile farm land for those interested. I know plenty of you are in love with the sea, but the Misty Isles are a place of endless summer, ripe for the plow and far from war¡­ once the issues have been sorted out. And think about it, do you really want to sail on Giordana while pirates are at your backs?¡±

    With that, she hopped off the table and strode through the crowd. With her head high above the seated men, she locked eyes with Miss Lynnfield and took a position in the corner of the tavern. A local bard, much less talented than her, plucked a hesitant tune as men began to stir between the tables. A few rose. They moved to join her and ask about terms. They inquired on payment and about the farming conditions. They were first mates and deckswabs,  inconsequential sailors who could only beg their captains and the rightful owners of their ships. Many were mere traders with aspirations for more, willing to consider violence. The entire group of them put together were like so many minnows¨Cnot worth one real fish.

    Until Thornby approached her.

    ¡°My name is Jason Thornby, I¡¯m a man of the sea. Could I ask of you your name?¡±

    ¡°Aisha Canta, I¡¯m¡­¡± Her stumble over her own title was not lost on the man. ¡°Lucius¡¯ representative to Rackvidd, and presently, a guest of Lord Raymi. Are you interested in the work?¡±

    ¡°It might be that I am, but work is only as good as the man one works for. Please, tell me about Solhart,¡± he said, stealing a seat and planting himself down before her. ¡°I don¡¯t think I¡¯ve ever heard of a man using a woman like you to speak on his behalf in my life.¡±

    She cocked her head, sizing him up. Young and strong, but perhaps old enough to be a decision maker. ¡°Why? Do you think I¡¯m not qualified on the matter?¡±

    ¡°I think you¡¯re too beautiful,¡± he said, and held her gaze with an unwavering firmness like he was the stone of the earth despite the sea.

    That was like a hammer to her confidence. Her mature face shattered to reveal the embarrassed teen that she was¨Cnot even nineteen yet. Sera interjected, her knight to the rescue. ¡°I think you¡¯d get along with Lucius great. You have the same taste.¡±

    Thronby nodded. ¡°If he sees you truly, then why are you here? Rather than with him?¡±

    Aisha was able to control her emotions once more through the sheer power of her pout. ¡°Didn¡¯t you hear my speech? It¡¯s too dangerous in the Isles right now. There¡¯s this group hiding between the islands. They¡¯ve tried to assassinate him multiple times now. He wants me where it¡¯s safe.¡±

    ¡°And that¡¯s what we¡¯re needed for? To kill assassins?¡±

    ¡°The ones supporting them, yes. The islands haven¡¯t actually been brought into subordination. There are enclaves hidden on the islands hostile to Vassermark. To deal with them, Lucius is offering to hire armed ships.¡±

    ¡°And pay them with the booty we claim for ourselves.¡±

    ¡°Largely, yes.¡±

    Thornby nodded and stroked his beard and nodded. He turned the idea over and judged his own perceptions. He weighed the drunkenness of his mind and compared it to the truth of his spirit. Some scholars believe alcohol to be the enemy of truth, but this is a silly notion. Men are the enemy of truth, the baggage they carry with them. Each soul in Lumisgard carries years and years of bias, most of which is passed down from parent to child like a disease. Inebriation can let a man see past that, though there are much better drugs to consume for that purpose. Still, in vino veritas. Thornby understood this, and he judged the cause good.

    ¡°I¡¯d like you to join me tomorrow,¡± he said, opening his eyes once more.

    Aisha was taken aback, but his presence was like a ward to all others in the bar. While he spoke to her, none other would approach. It hinted at his importance, but little more. ¡°That¡¯s a very bold invite.¡±

    ¡°Your lady friend may join us,¡± he said.

    ¡°Even bolder.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯d like you to meet some people. Or rather, I would introduce you to them. It will be a far better use of your time than speaking to the common men.¡±

    She let out her breath and composed herself. ¡°I think I understand your meaning now. This would be for tea, then?¡±

    Thornby shrugged. ¡°I¡¯m sure they¡¯ll have tea, yes. They mostly get together to smoke tobacco and make bets.¡±

    Aisha and Sera glanced at one another. When the knight gave the nod that she wasn¡¯t worried about safety, Aisha tentatively asked, ¡°What kind of bets?¡±

    Thornby held out his arms and laughed. He seemed to take in the whole establishment with his presence as he said, ¡°What other kind of bets would I be talking about? Bets on ships and lives, on cattle and gold. My lady Canta, I would like to bring you to the Shipping Investments Guild; the bankers of Rackvidd.¡±

 3-22 - The Shipping Investments Guild

    The Shipping Investment Guild owned a lovely villa within Rackvidd, if one had the pleasure to enter inside it. The outside was like a hermit crab¡¯s shell, hard and thorned, spiky and stolen from a previous purpose. The building had once been some Giordanan lords¡¯ palace; it might have even ruled over Rackvidd at one time, in effect if not in official capacity. The walls were thick and blunt, with crenelations of ancient concrete atop the outer wall. The entire city could fall to siege and those within would weather it easily. They had their own granary, their own cistern, and somewhere in their walls they had their own escape route. Like rats, they could scurry out to ships in the night and make off with at least part of their fortunes.

    I say part because the villa itself was most of their fortune. Rebuking the sandstone, the concrete, the exposed timber and plaster of the city, their villa decked its insides with polished marble and gold leaf. The servants were all well tailored and quiet. They moved about the halls in soft slippers such that even their approach was hushed. The effect, amplified by tapestries and draperies and the regular placement of aromatic herbs, was to muffle the din of  the city completely, like the villa were removed entirely from civilization and yet prospered from it. The only noises permitted were the grumbling, the arguing, and the swearing of the men with ledgers.

    To argue was in their blood. It was used like a whetstone for their minds, to keep them sharp and irritable while nothing lucrative could be done. Without new ship arrivals to speak of developments afield, they soon ran out of work to do. When I tried my hand at their work, I soon found it to be boring. It was more something to make off-the-cuff decisions for as I busied myself with more fruitful¨Cand more laborious¨Cmatters. But, the men of the SIG had no ambitions beyond gold. Their minds could appreciate art, but not create it. They hardly even considered women as something more than an irritation from their youth and a source of thieving heirs.

    This is a natural sort of moral decay in regards to wealth. If they were drawn to such mundane joys they wouldn¡¯t have the focus to accumulate more of their wealth.

    As such, it is often best to let them be shut up with their money while everyone else finds how to profit from their profit.

    Selling them overpriced, faux-luxury foods was a favorite tactic and one they were willfully blind to. And so, I hope I have sufficiently set the stage to explain why some of the wealthiest men in the city were dining upon oversized sea bugs known as lobsters. There was a great disconnect in the perceived value of those bottom dwelling invertebrates, because the poorest dock workers ate them as well. The difference essentially came down to whether one could afford sufficient butter, which was in high demand upon that coast.

    This explanation had not yet reached Aisha¡¯s ears, and when Thornby set her down, she couldn¡¯t hide her queasy expression. Nearly a dozen black eyes stared at her, only some of which were human. The lobsters laid upon their plates as if upon the sea floor, indifferent to the ripping and tearing of their roasted insides.

    The most outspoken of the men was an old crook by the name of Faezel. He listened to Thornby¡¯s introduction with tight gaze and dabbed his mouth clean. ¡°You¡¯re telling me that the Solhart boy really did take you with him North?¡±

    The question took her aback, the temporal leap nearly half a year in time. ¡°You were at Raymi¡¯s feast, weren''t you?¡± she countered.

    ¡°Of course I was. I have investments in the city¡­ as you can see. After such a sudden revolt¨Cthanks to your brother, Aisha¨Cand its sudden suppression, there were inquiries I had to make about the nature of our peace. You see, when you look at the world like we do, the individual people simultaneously don¡¯t matter, and they can make all the difference. It¡¯s really the quality of the people that makes the difference. This Solhart fellow. He¡¯s young, impulsive, but by Sapphira he¡¯s like a one man maelstrom!¡±

    Much of the table muttered agreement, and Aisha sympathetically blushed and nodded. One of the other investors took that as cue to say, ¡°The thing with maelstroms is they stir things up but they don¡¯t hurt everybody. A wise merchant can profit handily from a catastrophe, and your man is such a catastrophe but with a mind of his own.¡±

    ¡°I assure you,¡± Aisha said, swirling a wine goblet, ¡°That he only has the splendor of Vassermark as his aim.¡±

    Faezel laughed. ¡°That must go over well with Raymi, but you¡¯ll need a different tact here, my lady. Are you his lady? Or his mistress? I should like to know with what authority you speak.¡±

    She pursed her lips and hung her head for a moment. Sera stiffened, her honorable instincts waiting for the signal to denounce the man, but Aisha said, ¡°I¡¯m his mistress. Lucius is a nobleman. You know his kind don¡¯t marry for love.¡±

    Faezel nodded. ¡°And I should think that soon enough his mother will be tying him down. I hope for your sake that she doesn¡¯t choose a jealous woman.¡±

    Aisha blinked. The conversation catapulted her through the realms of concern and into a completely different paradigm. It stunned her and left her gaping like a fool as the investors continued to speculate. The other one said, around a cheekful of lobster, ¡°I suppose it will depend on how well he does managing the Misty Isles. Whether he is on the ascent or on the wane.¡±

    Faezel nodded, tearing up a heel of bread. ¡°Yes, I should think so. If he¡¯s ousted or recalled, his best hope would be to marry a lady from the central kingdoms. Which of them will survive the war though, hard to say.¡±

    ¡°If he conquers the islands though.¡±

    ¡°And with his opposition to the prince¡¯s faction?¡±

    ¡°A war hero no less. The stories are all the rage. Lot¡¯s of public support.¡±

    Faezel said, ¡°The war vagrants will flock to him, if they don¡¯t flock to the prince.¡±

    ¡°Wherever he goes is likely to prosper.¡±

    ¡°And if he produces another miracle?¡±

    Stolen novel; please report.

    ¡°I don¡¯t think the king can let him do that. He¡¯s too low!¡±

    ¡°The king sent him to the Misty Isles to kill him. Everyone knows that. What¡¯s to stop him from trying something else?¡±

    The other investor recoiled from the table, shaking his head. ¡°Bah! You¡¯re speculating on two tricks!¡±

    Faezel¡¯s grin was growing rattish. ¡°I¡¯m speculating on it because he put up a damn good show already and if the Isles consume him then it¡¯s none of our concern.¡±

    ¡°You can¡¯t just call it a hypothetical, Faezel. This girl here is asking us to stick our thumbs on the scale. She¡¯s here asking us to make him succeed!¡±

    ¡°And if we do make him succeed? Where does that leave us?¡±

    ¡°With the favor of a boy and nothing more. If we use our weight then what will he have accomplished?¡±

    Faezel swung his fork around like a conductor¡¯s baton. ¡°What will it matter if he was the one to accomplish it? It will look like he was and besides, the offer for farmland is a good offer. You can¡¯t ever go wrong investing in land. It¡¯s what makes a noble family rich!¡±

    ¡°That fact right there should show you that he¡¯s a fool. What kind of self-respecting noble gives their own land away?¡±

    ¡°One¨C¡± He held up his fork to the sky, buttery lobster dripping down to his fingers. ¡°Who knows he won¡¯t be keeping the Isles. If he does make the islands turn a profit, the prince¡¯s faction will immediately strip him of it and give it to someone else. The position is only temporary, a governor! By selling the land now, he gets the use of it and then denies his enemies the profit. I think he knows exactly what he¡¯s doing, how the games are played, and he might be more steps ahead of us than we can guess.¡±

    ¡°Faezel, you¡¯re conjuring thoughts into the boy¡¯s head that simply aren¡¯t there. Not everyone is a Trireme master.¡±

    Aisha cleared her throat, arresting their thoughts from the conversation. She smiled, having plucked her opportunity after suppressing thoughts of future jealousy. ¡°Lucius is an excellent Trireme player. It¡¯s cards that empties his purse. Let him make a plan and he¡¯s unbeatable.¡±

    Faezel looked at her, chewing his food until he finished his thought. Seemingly ignoring Aisha, he turned back to his fellows and asked, ¡°What girls are even available to be propositioned? Would they have to break a marriage proposal?¡±

    ¡°Some of the northern girls. They¡¯re always hard to pin down.¡±

    ¡°What about the Montisferro girl?¡±

    ¡°No one would be able to pry her from her mother¡¯s skirts. The Raymi girl perhaps?¡±

    ¡°That would be reaching too low, I think. Securing an alliance that already seems firm. Foolish. Maybe one of the Feugards?¡±

    ¡°Wasn¡¯t she slated for the prince?¡±

    ¡°I thought that was just a rumor.¡±

    And so their conversation went, ideas and names flying from mouths and hardly being listened to. Aisha set her face in growing consternation as she tried to remember everything that was said, but half their statements were conjecture and the other half contradictory. Eventually she began to fail. She sank down on the table, resting an elbow and hanging her head. Sera put a hand on her shoulder and laughed softly.

    She was just about to resign herself to drinking and waiting when Faezel said, ¡°What about the Ashe family? And don¡¯t say that¡¯s reaching too high. The princess would be too high. The Ashe girls are merely near the top and their father has taken on the role of the antagonist, hasn¡¯t he? I think, that if Lucius succeeded in his punishment, and if the prince flounders in the east, then it would be a terribly powerful statement for the Ashe family to take him in.¡±

    ¡°No,¡± Aisha said. All the stories of those girls swelled up through her mind. Their attitude and abuse of the helpless boy they knew as Jarnpojke. She held Lucius¡¯ pain like it was her own, but then she caught herself. Lucius von Solhart had no reason to spurn the Ashe family, a strong potential ally no less. Lucius von Solhart had never been to Podrest. There was no history there at all.

    Sera covered for her quickly. ¡°Gentlemen, I think you¡¯ve finally touched upon a nerve. You are having this discussion in front of his woman, don¡¯t you realize?¡±

    Faezel wiped his mouth clean and when his napkin went away, a devilish grin was upon his face. ¡°How silly of me. My deepest apologies, Miss Canta. I¡¯m so used to having only men around me that I didn¡¯t think. You see, in Vassermark, it can be very troublesome for a man. Family titles move from mother to daughter and the relations between sisters can make or break a family¡¯s fortune. Of course, when a family has only borne one daughter to their name, it is not uncommon for the husband to dote on a mistress. I can understand that you wouldn¡¯t want your Lucius snatched away by so many sisters at once. The Ashe family was very¡­ fecund this generation.¡±

    She smiled and nodded. ¡°That was unbecoming of me. I apologize.¡±

    ¡°Nothing to apologize for, not to an old codger like me. You¡¯ve got youth in you still. You should be taken by your impulses.¡±

    ¡°Still, do you really think he might be wed to the Ashe family?¡±

    Faezel turned back to his fellows. Their conference was held through glances and nods. ¡°I think he just might, but not without being tested again. They¡¯ll want to wring him for all he¡¯s worth before settling him down. Maybe give him a position in the war campaign¡­¡±

    ¡°And if he fails he might yet,¡± one of the other men said, smirking. ¡°They¡¯re still looking for someone to marry Miss Ruby, aren¡¯t they?¡± The table erupted in groans and laughs. ¡°I jest of course. Lord Danyl wouldn¡¯t let a brother-in-law come into the fray at this point. Too bad for her though.¡±

    Faezel sneered. ¡°She shouldn¡¯t have fallen for a sophist. Lord Danyl can only hope that his little sister didn¡¯t pass on the stupidity to his daughters.¡±

    Aisha tilted her head. ¡°Are women allowed to take paramores?¡±

    Faezel shrugged. ¡°Some do, but I don¡¯t think your Solhart will be in fear of that. The Ashe girls are extraordinarily uptight. They don¡¯t even dance with other men at balls, except for the prince and they¡¯d cause a scandal if they turned down the prince.¡±

    Sera said, ¡°Maybe they like women.¡±

    Faezel smirked. ¡°I think you¡¯ll find that¡¯s less common outside the knightly orders, Miss Lynnfield. And if they do, that¡¯s good news for Miss Canta, isn¡¯t it? She wouldn¡¯t be competing with them for the man¡¯s affection.¡±

    Aisha rose from her seat, her burning cheeks having at last gotten the better of her. Thornby stood up from the far end of the table, having listened to the entire conversation with his mouth shut. ¡°Gentlemen,¡± he said, and gestured at the window where stars then shined across a blanket of lavender. ¡°I think we have drawn things out quite enough for our new guest. I can tell, but I don¡¯t think she can, that you all have made your decision.¡±

    Aisha blinked at him. ¡°What?¡±

    ¡°Yes, I think we have,¡± Faezel said.

    ¡°Then you should tell her upfront,¡± Thronby said, his eyes set on the merchant.

    He grimaced and stood up. Setting his napkin aside he cleared his throat. ¡°Miss Canta, I would invite you back tomorrow, when a scribe can assist with a degree of paperwork. We of the Shipping Investments Guild would like to invest in the Misty Isles. We know you need men and ships first and foremost, and we are prepared to offer up to fifty privateers for a period of up to two months.¡±

    Sera had to subtly grab Aisha¡¯s arm as the shock took her balance away. ¡°That would be wonderful,¡± Aisha said.

    Thornby bowed to the merchants and took it upon himself to escort the women away.

 3-23 - Backdoor Politics

    Aisha contained herself long enough to be escorted back to the palace by Thornby and Sera. His presence ultimately did nothing for her safety, as Miss Lynnfield could cut down any rogue the city had to offer, but he wouldn¡¯t hear otherwise and accompanied them across the dark city. He refused to be anything less than a gentleman, for as he said, ¡°I was just your interlocutor and now I will be one of the fifty captains. How could I, Captain Thornby, be anything less than a gentleman?¡±

    Aisha returned the decorum with all that she could muster. She smiled and curtseyed and wished him the best. She even agreed to meet with him once more, once matters were settled. She nearly overdid it, under the eyes of the maid staff of Raymi¡¯s palace, for her heart was racing and her mind bounded with the overflowing success she had stumbled into.

    When the door shut between her and the romantic, the facade shattered. She grabbed onto Sera and Sera grabbed onto her. ¡°Wine,¡± she declared, all the tension spilling through her.

    ¡°Wine?¡± Sera responded, nodding a few times.

    ¡°Wine!¡± And like school girls they raced to the cellar. They even took the maid with them, barely explaining themselves as they charged through halls and into the cellars. They snatched up candles and laughed, gliding over the steps and into the cool recesses of storage. The serving girl had to guide them the last way, much at their pushing and urging, but they rewarded the maid with scant explanations and a cup of her own.

    ¡°We did it!¡± Aisha declared as the bottle of red sloshed about in her hand, half empty for their tankards.

    ¡°To backdoor politics!¡± Sera declared, thrusting her mug to the ceiling as she cackled.

    ¡°Hooray?¡± the maid offered and she sipped her glass hesitantly as the two other girls slammed most of their drink.

    Aisha spun about as the wine warmed her belly and then she grabbed hold of Sera once more. ¡°Even Lucius couldn¡¯t have pulled that off better.¡±

    ¡°It was outrageous, really,¡± the lady knight said.

    ¡°I think you should pick one of the drawing rooms to drink in,¡± the maid said, but she was clueing in quickly to the act of listening and learning.

    Thus, they burst into an unused study in the guest wing. Up in the third floor of the palace, they could almost hear the marching of the rooftop guards. It was so high that the palace was able to have an open window from which they could look at the city. It was barred of course, but could be opened for a breeze as they giggled and poured more wine for each other.

    It didn¡¯t take long for Sera to clear her throat and get to the hard topic at hand. ¡°So, that captain is smitten with you.¡±(1)

    Aisha flinched like she had been caught in the night. ¡°I have no control over that. I wasn¡¯t even putting on my charm.¡±

    ¡°Just because you weren¡¯t trying to woo him like one of your barfly saps, one of these sun-crazed Giordanans, doesn¡¯t mean you weren¡¯t pushing his buttons. You know?¡±

    ¡°Well, if I was, how can you say, I mean how can you imply that I had any hand in it? I had no such intention.¡±

    ¡°Oh?¡± Sera responded, cracking a new grin. ¡°You¡¯re just the innocent girl who first seduced a nobleman and then, when that noblemen needs help, you didn¡¯t use your womanly prowess to secure him his help?¡±

    Aisha scowled. ¡°I did no such thing! Besides, he¡¯s too old. All my life I¡¯ve been in danger of my father marrying me off for money. You think I¡¯d be interested in an older man now?¡±

    ¡°Hmm, so a younger man is more your speed? It¡¯s a good thing Lucius doesn¡¯t have any younger brothers I guess.¡±

    Aisha retaliated, leaning in towards Sera, the two of them upon a lounging sofa. ¡°I think,¡± she said, precariously holding up her wine still. ¡°That you¡¯re just projecting your own tastes onto me. I think you find him mysterious and tall and competent. I think you¡¯re the one looking at him as something to be wooed away from the sea, for him to give up his passion for the world for only a passion for you. You want those flinty eyes to only have room for you. Don¡¯t think I don¡¯t know how cloistered girls think, I was practically raised in a temple and I have to imagine your knight order has similarities to say the least.¡±

    Sera had recoiled, sliding away from Aisha as she went on, which only invited the drunk girl further on. ¡°Oh? You think you know what the White Gold Order was like?¡±

    ¡°People are the same all over,¡± Aisha said, and she had to slap a hand onto the couch to balance herself.

    The scene made an immense impression upon the serving girl with them. The tangle of legs at one end. How Aisha¡¯s hair drifted down across Sera¡¯s chest. How both of them were flushed in the face, perhaps not just from alcohol. Their breathless accusations nearly left them panting for air. It awoke a fire in that girl, and before the year was even out, she had stopped working as a serving girl and become a novelist. Her first patron was Felicia vi Raymi, and her career exploded from there in the hushed whispers.

    Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

    Of course, nothing happened between Aisha and Sera, no matter what rumors spread. The actual truth was Lord Raymi caught up with them after his duties ended for the night. A man such as him, far from his own family and much distressed by the tensions of politic and war, could hardly be blamed for seeking the company of women, though not of the intimate variety of course. As such, he intruded upon their discussion at just such a time as Aisha was brushing her hair behind her ear. Shock became fluster and both women scrambled back to their seats as if cold water had been thrown upon them to drive out the alcohol.

    ¡°There are bedrooms, you know,¡± he said, not moving from the entry of the room.

    Aisha cleared her throat. ¡°That wasn¡¯t what it looked like. She was teasing me.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s true,¡± Miss Lynnfield said, with a nod. ¡°Miss Canta doesn¡¯t seem to be used to having men fall for her.¡±

    ¡°I am too!¡± the redhead shot back. ¡°The difference now is that I¡¯m already spoken for. I¡¯m not hiding behind my father¡¯s reputation.¡±

    Raymi strolled in and took a seat. ¡°And this happened while at the taverns and bars? During one of your recruitment drives?¡±

    With a sigh, Aisha composed herself and said, ¡°Are you familiar with a Captain Thornby?¡±

    After a moment of stroking his beard, which had grown out considerably since the attack on Rackvidd, Raymi said, ¡°I believe I am. He was in the initial conquest fleet of Giordana. The eastern flotilla if I recall. His ship was destroyed in a storm.¡±

    Sera snorted. ¡°Maybe he¡¯s not a very good captain then.¡±

    ¡°On the contrary, there was nothing he could do about it. He had taken refuge in a friendly harbor and the storm was simply so strong it overran the port. Dozens of ships were scuttled like that. Sometimes the goddesses throw luck so bad at aman there¡¯s nothing that can be done about it.¡±

    Aisha asked, ¡°But, is he a good captain?¡±

    ¡°As good as could be expected, I think. Why? Will he be taking up your man¡¯s war?¡±

    She nodded. ¡°And you aren¡¯t mad that we¡¯re doing this? Taking away assets?¡±

    The old man snorted, a much more impressive noise of disgust than Sera had conjured up. ¡°I can¡¯t see that it matters much. We¡¯ve been given contradictory orders and only my direct retainers will sail out with me. The problem is Jumeaux and Puerto Vida. They say they still wish to be our vassal states, and that will be all well and good if that¡¯s true, but nobody trusts them while the bishop is away. The king wants to use the river as logistical support should there be a war in the central kingdoms, but forcing a fight at Puerto Vida might provoke an uprising too soon. We¡¯re in pointless tension, if you ask me.¡±

    ¡°Well, if all goes well in the Misty Isles, we will at least clear up one frustration for you.¡±

    Raymi nodded and whispered to the maid. She scurried off to fetch him a drink as he said, ¡°Yes, getting rid of those pirates will be a relief from everyone¡¯s mind. It¡¯s a near impossible task however. The cannons are the real solution, in my mind. The Aillesterrans can¡¯t get within eyesight of us now, and we¡¯ve started equipping some of the war ships with the ley cannons. We¡¯ll be able to sink them without fire or ramming. The naval advantages are unprecedented! It¡¯s like we have catapults the size of a single man.¡±

    ¡°Sometimes, a single man makes all the difference.¡±

    Raymi grinned and sat forward in his chair. With his elbows on his knees, he met Aisha¡¯s gaze. ¡°You know, the Lady Solhart has been making inquiries. She sends messenger birds every week trying to reach Lucius.¡±

    Aisha stiffened in her seat, a change immediately noticed by the maid when she returned with distilled wine for her lord.(2) ¡°Surely, she is aware that if she wishes to reach her son that she needs to send her messages to Aliston?¡±

    Raymi sipped the strengthened liquor. ¡°Yes, it¡¯s not as though she has to go to the middle of the desert to find him¡­ anymore. But, instead, she¡¯ll be sending her daughter to meet with him.¡±

    ¡°Isn¡¯t that unusual? She¡¯s the heir, isn¡¯t she?¡±

    ¡°It would be more unusual if the heir never saw the world at all. Are you implying it would somehow be dangerous to visit her own brother¡¯s domain?¡±

    ¡°Actually, yes. Weren¡¯t we just discussing the ongoing problem with pirates?¡±

    ¡°Surely her own brother can keep her safe.¡±

    ¡°He didn¡¯t feel that he could keep me safe.¡±

    ¡°I suppose I should write back about the danger then, shouldn¡¯t I? I might be able to forestall her arrival some more weeks,¡± Raymi said, his gaze on the amber drink.

    Aisha¡¯s gaze narrowed. Her mind was murky with drink, but keen enough. ¡°That would be of great aid, my lord. You know, protecting one¡¯s daughter is a very important thing. Her safety, and her dignity too. Lucius was the one who stood up for your daughter¡¯s dignity not too long ago.¡±

    Raymi froze. His gaze flicked back to her. No one made a noise for a moment. ¡°I think it¡¯s getting later than I realized. I¡¯ll send the message in the morning. I imagine, however, that she will come down regardless. When the war does begin, travel will become that much more difficult. I think what you should hope for is that Lucius wraps up this business with the pirates before then. I wish you the best with the merchants, Miss Canta.¡± He rose from his seat, downed his liquor, and left with a short order to the maid.

    The girl hung her head and turned back to Aisha and Sera. Meekly, she said, ¡°I¡¯ve been instructed to show you back to your rooms for the night.¡±

    Both of them winced and grumbled, but retired rather than put up a fuss. Aisha went to sleep that night wondering whether her diplomacy had helped or hurt the matter, or if perhaps she was underestimating Raymi. The man seemed to know that Lucius was not who he said he was, but she didn¡¯t know what kind of ambition the lord of Rackvidd held.

    The last thing she would have expected arrived the next morning. With her barely dressed and her head pounding from wine, her lawyer arrived to handle the contracts.

    <hr>

    <ol>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">A hard subject for them at least.</li>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">This of course cemented the fantastical musings within her mind.</li>

    </ol>

 3-24 - Legal Negotiations

    Their lawyer was my lawyer, as it was in those times when I couldn¡¯t do the work myself. I was still preoccupied with my arrangements in the north. I had not been told of the nature of Lucius¡¯ foe yet, that word had to be conveyed to me by the very same man later that week. To call him a man would be to call a well tailored suit of clothes a man themselves however. At least, he had more wit than a tailor store mannequin, and he was familiar to Aisha.

    The Divine Beast, Golden, arrived at Rackvidd to do my contracted business, and had already been paid his dues. He moved with a pop in his step and a smile on his face because his stomach was long since full and because rather than a body of feathers he introduced himself as a man. The farce was whimsical to him, and so far beyond the imaginations of any servant that they couldn¡¯t even guess he was anything but human.

    The man-eater wore a silk robe dyed the color of the night sky at sea and embroidered with startling white thread which danced about his lapel and hems as though birds had been transformed into stars and cast upon his attire in new constellations. The outfit fluttered as he walked, his slippered feet ghostly upon the ground.

    He found the two girls having breakfast upon the roof. Between all the defenses and crenelations was a lovely garden and some colorful shades. All the flowers¨Cmost of which were cacti¨Chad to be maintained in pots and by the labor of punished servants dragging pot upon pot of water up from the wells, but the ambiance was nearly that of a northern garden. The toil of maintaining it was invisible to the girls who were baking like lizards in the sun, waiting for their hangovers to dissipate and wondering if their meager headaches were what older people moaned about.

    What they attributed to fresh air and tea, along with far too many cookies, was in fact nothing more than the passage of time before their appointed meeting with the Shipping Investments Guild, a self-delusion Golden saw through at once when he spotted them.

    To Aisha and Sera, he looked like a relic from the days of the Yellow King¨Cwhich, in a sense, he was¨Cand far more beautiful than any military man in Rackvidd. He had a glow to him which they interpreted as vitality and youth, when in reality it was nothing more than his overflowing gluttony, the spilling out of his own presence into the world. His skin was tanned and glistened in the light, but looked ghastly pale if compared to his black hair which swept down his back, held barely in place by golden hairpins.

    ¡°Well,¡± he said, with a magnanimous grin. ¡°If it isn¡¯t the traitor¡¯s little sister. It has been so very long since we¡¯ve spoken. Are you still doing the singing? Or have you finally agreed that it¡¯s a man¡¯s profession?¡±

    Aisha leapt up, slammed her hands onto the little table, which by no ways deserved to be slapped; it was a dainty thing if rod metal with a floral mosaic that had dutifully hosted thousands of tea parties for women and girls alike, and she shouted, ¡°Since when are you human?¡±

    Sera¡¯s head snapped over and she leapt to her feet as Golden sat down and poured himself a cup of tea. ¡°Aisha, what¡¯s going on?¡± she asked, hand to her sword.

    ¡°Oh calm down, would you? Your voices are so much¡­ I can¡¯t even put words to it, but it feels like you¡¯re digging needles through my skull when the two of you shout like that. It was much easier to tune out while I was in my natural form.¡±

    ¡°You don¡¯t even sound the same,¡± Aisha protested, retreating from the table but not from the shade.

    ¡°You can thank the body for that. It has a different temperament. The mind is not independent of the body, after all,¡± Golden said, and crossed one leg over the other to sip his tea.

    Sera put up her hand and said, ¡°Okay, yeah, sure, laugh about it. I¡¯ll play the dumb fighter person, but can someone tell me what¡¯s going on?¡±

    Golden laughed, Aisha didn¡¯t. She said, ¡°He¡¯s an emissary of Shepherd.¡±

    The Divine Beast crossed one leg over the other and picked up a sugar glazed cookie. ¡°I¡¯m more of a witness now than an emissary. Responsibilities change with the centuries. You understand, don¡¯t you? But, what¡¯s important now is that I¡¯m here to help you. You children need more help than you can imagine. You¡¯re prancing about and meeting people you should be afraid to even make eye contact with, and you haven¡¯t even gotten to the real monsters yet.¡±

    She glared at him. ¡°Real monsters like you?¡± She, of course, had not forgotten what he had done to her brother¡¯s corpse.

    ¡°Oh, far worse than me, little bard. I actually bothered to learn your language. The ones you have to be worried about are my runaway siblings. The ones off on their own, pretending Mother doesn¡¯t exist. But, don¡¯t worry about that just yet,¡± he said, and popped the cookie into his mouth. He cracked it between his teeth and washed it down with tea. ¡°Today, I am merely here to deal with the human monsters. The soul suckers and life drainers. Come now, let us go meet with the investors.¡±

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    The three of them arrived at the villa before the sun had reached its zenith. Golden took the lead, pushing his way through the doors and past confused servants. The staff ran about, alerting the merchants to the early arrival and preparing the conference room appropriately. Golden sat first, taking the central chair at one side of a long flat of cedar planks. Aisha sat beside him and Sera stood at her back, glancing out the heavy window. The thing had been cracked open for a spot of fresh air, but the lead lining and glass were each so thick that no cutpurse or assassin¡¯s arrow could possibly intrude.

    ¡°Are you sure this is a good idea?¡± Sera whispered when they could hear the approaching footsteps of their business partners.

    ¡°Relax. He¡¯s too simple to be dangerous¡­ to us. He gets paid too much and asked too little.¡±

    Golden cocked an eyebrow at her. ¡°My little bard, I dare say that was both an insult and a compliment at once.¡±

    ¡°Am I wrong?¡±

    ¡°Not in the least,¡± he said, and turned to see Faezel enter along with a younger man.

    ¡°Miss Canta! I see you¡¯ve brought a friend,¡± the old merchant said as his companion took the seat opposite Golden.

    ¡°My lawyer,¡± she said.

    ¡°And this is mine,¡± Faezel said, gesturing to the scribe. ¡°You may call him Bazzi. Just a standard precaution for business such as this. You¡¯ll understand.¡±

    Bazzi nodded and looked golden over with half-lidded eyes. ¡°Shake my hand, would you? That way both of us will be bound to tell nothing but the truth while we do this,¡± he said, and stuck out his soft hand.

    Golden smirked and gripped the man¡¯s hand. At once, panic gripped Bazzi. Golden didn¡¯t let go. ¡°Ah, I recognize this power. [Fleeting Interrogation], is it? My dear fellow, you¡¯ll have to do better than that. Why, this isn¡¯t fair at all! Your power does nothing at all to compel your own speech.¡±

    Faezel¡¯s eyes widened as Golden clicked his tongue, and the merchant at last made eye contact with the divine beast. He saw through the human skin suit and to the mass of presence that hid within his eyes. Faezel shrank into his chair, babbling. ¡°Why, we would never lie in such a¨C a¨C a cooperative agreement!¡±

    Golden laughed, still gripping Bazzi¡¯s trembling hand. ¡°Then, you won¡¯t mind a few conditions of my own? In fact, I¡¯ve prepared my own little set of assurances. An oath if you will. You don¡¯t mind, do you? Repeat after me, yes, that¡¯s right, say as I say. In the name of Shepherd, the goddess, lady of death and debts¡­¡±

    Three hours later, there was a break for lunch, and the two parties retired to different dining areas. Golden spent the time laying into Aisha with questions and nuances. He quizzed her on impressions and economics. He asked about the noise in the city, the quality of the beer, the drunkenness of the sailors, and a hundred other near-useless questions which he went on to meld together into the true picture of Aliston and its prospects. Sera chimed in where Aisha failed, and then he carried that information back to the conference room like a set of weapons and armor.

    Faezel sat down, his brow pulled low and his shoulders slumped. The pep of life had fled from him and he couldn¡¯t even raise his eyes to meet Golden¡¯s glib gleam. ¡°We¡¯ll sign,¡± he said, and that was that.

    That put Golden into a foul mood. He stayed no longer than was necessary to scratch his notary upon the paperwork and see that Aisha put her own name to it. The contract was made up in duplicate and each party took the indentured signatures of the other¡¯s contract as proof. Aisha had to be steadied on her feet once more, helped out the door by Sera, for the weight of the contract made her head spin. She was no stranger to the kinds of agreements and figures that a single merchant and his family could command. What the Shipping Investments Guild had made most noblemen seem to be paupers. The scale of economy she had just facilitated swamped her mind with awe, but did nothing at all to slake Golden¡¯s thirst.

    ¡°If you need me, I¡¯ll be gambling,¡± he said, scowling at the city.

    ¡°What? Like, cards?¡± Sera asked, gawking at the humanoid beast.

    ¡°If that¡¯s all I can find, yes. Why? Surprised?¡±

    The knight stepped back and looked away. ¡°Didn¡¯t take you for the sort.¡±

    He flicked his hand at her. ¡°You wouldn¡¯t understand, woman. I¡¯m pent up. That old codger disappointed me greatly. Maybe a youth will be more reckless,¡± he said, and headed straight for the poorest of neighborhoods, where rich men gave out bad loans backed by violence.

    Aisha made no move to follow him. She gripped the parchment to her chest and turned her gaze to the southern sea. ¡°I don¡¯t suppose this is good enough reason to go back to Aliston, is it?¡±

    Sera shrugged. ¡°I think that depends entirely upon whether your man has killed the demon yet. At least, in his mind it will. To any reasonable person, we absolutely should head down with the good news. Somebody needs to explain the contract to the young lord, right?¡±

    Aisha grinned. ¡°Yes, somebody indeed. If only there were a ship available.¡±

    ¡°If only indeed. I hear fifty ships were just contracted. They¡¯ll be very busy, won¡¯t they?¡±

    Both of them laughed at their own japes, for it was the only way they could find levity from the tension of the day. And to nobody¡¯s surprise, after the requisite few days of preparation, they were aboard Captain Thornby¡¯s ship, headed for the Misty Isles.

 3-25 - Public Display of Enmity

    The tune of Aliston had changed, as had the people. The heat still required daily naps to recover, but the evening had grown busy with the hammer of nails, the sawing of wood, and the march of boots. There was one more sound new to the port town as well: the moaning and begging of crucified murderers. Dozens of them lined the shore, well in sight of the main bazaar. They were tied up like animals, hung from the posts, and left for the sun and the birds. They cried out for mercy, but their pain was more a summons to join the new town guard.

    The rule of punishment had been made simple. Only the surviving kin could pardon a killer. To the rest of the city, their suffering was a warning against rebellion and a reminder of the poison the city faced.

    To a reader accustomed to a more peaceful life, such as a rural town with a high degree of trust, this must sound barbaric and cruel. Firstly, I must stress that one of the most important factors in preventing crime is the perception that punishment will arrive and it will be egregious. A slap on the wrist for murder, if someone just so happens to see it, would hardly stop killings. To be strung up until one¡¯s skin blisters, until they lack the strength to keep the birds from pecking at their eyes and tongue as they beg for water, that is a nightmare to ponder.

    And secondly, the static display was only part of the theatrics of control. Lucius had already brought back the rumor of the demon, a far grander prize than any land taken. In retaliation for his raids, the spirit of the smoke had wormed in through the dregs of society and driven them frothing mad. What should have been a shouting match became a stabbing. Cheats at dice became murders. Every degree of hostility that could be exacerbated was driven up and the change in violence could be felt like a change in the weather.

    To prove that it had a source, Lucius regularly inebriated one of the prisoners. From his stolen satchel of kuku bud he would light a pile and have it thrust into the face of one of the waning killers. The smoke filled their lungs and a horrid necromancy gripped them. They would convulse and cough, spitting out bloody phlegm and decay as their eyes rolled up. Their bones would creak and their joints crack as they thrashed upon their bindings.

    And then the spirit would speak through them.

    ¡°In all my years I can hardly think of another human so callous,¡± the spirit¨Cwhom Lucius had since learned the name Umbra¨Csaid. The intoxicated corpse of a man looked down at them from his crucified post, skin sallow and eyes rolled backwards. There were no convulsions of pain and no lisping from blisters of the mouth, as if the harm of exposure were immaterial.

    ¡°You haven¡¯t known many humans,¡± Lucius said, standing before the mouthpiece with his arms crossed. He had on his steel regalia, polished and cleaned as if departing for war. More importantly, he spoke in Vassish. Umbra spoke in kind, half-obscuring their words from the onlookers.

    ¡°I have lived for centuries, skulking about the shadows at the edge of the world. I have seen wars and betrayal the likes of which you couldn¡¯t imagine, child. You must think you¡¯re accomplishing something by warring against my flock.¡±

    Lucius listened and nodded. ¡°You must think I don¡¯t know you¡¯re absorbing their souls. I might be cutting off your hands and feet out here, but for every man I kill I make you stronger, don¡¯t I?¡±

    Umbra hesitated. ¡°Then why bother? You are only bleeding yourself out. You are no god, boy.¡±

    He laughed. ¡°Same reason I summon you every day. It¡¯s all part of the theatrics,¡± he said, and swept his arm across the cityscape. ¡°The people need to know there is an enemy, there is action being taken. With that comes will and conviction, and you can¡¯t accomplish anything without those.¡±

    Umbra did not move its sightless gaze from Lucius. ¡°Do you not wonder why I answer these summons?¡± the spirit asked. ¡°Do you not ask what I gain from it? Because I do not have to come here and speak with you.¡±

    ¡°You don¡¯t come anywhere. You aren¡¯t physically in this world, not yet.¡±

    Umbra smirked. ¡°The effort is there, and is best approximated as travel.¡±

    ¡°Shouldn¡¯t you be talking with more grandiosity? More anger? Where¡¯s the wrathful god of the storms? You sound like we¡¯re having tea together.¡±

    If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

    ¡°I am here, speaking with you, because it would be too much trouble otherwise to learn when you give in.¡±

    Lucius barked out a laugh. ¡°Likewise.¡±

    ¡°Soon enough you¡¯ll be here asking to be allowed to leave, to take your friends and your gold and to climb aboard ships unmolested. You will be on your knees with tears streaking down your face because you will have finally understood what I am capable of.¡±

    ¡°If you could do that to me, you would have already.¡±

    ¡°I was waiting for the right time.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re lying.¡±

    ¡°I wanted to put a knife to Aisha¡¯s throat, but you sent her away.¡±

    Lucius found himself lost for words. He gritted his teeth and snarled at the incarnation.

    ¡°I see everything in the Misty Isles. You knew that, didn¡¯t you? Were I a human, one of you filthy apes, I would have been called a voyeur. You do so love that woman, don¡¯t you? But, you sent her away before I could slip a seed of poison into her belly. Shame that. But, perhaps my attention is better spent on the short girl? What do you think? Governor?¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t even think about touching Kajsa again. Didn¡¯t you learn your lesson?¡±

    ¡°The same could be said to you, Solhart. Didn¡¯t you learn that everyone here is in danger?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s what the guards are for.¡±

    ¡°The guards are in danger too,¡± Umbra said, and cackled. At last, the body convulsed. A seizure gripped it and the prisoner¡¯s body hung limp from the restraints. Drool slipped down his front and urine stained his trousers as death took him.

    Lucius spat. ¡°Cut him down and burn him,¡± he ordered.

    Some of the new recruits that had stood behind Lucius moved forward to dispose of the body. The process had largely been for their benefit. They didn¡¯t understand any Vassish, but the manifestation scared them. Adam No-last-name stepped over, ducking his head to whisper. ¡°Things in the city are getting bad, m¡¯lord.¡±

    ¡°That means we¡¯re pressuring Umbra, doesn¡¯t it?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s hard to say we¡¯re winning when there¡¯s a murder every night. Sometimes multiple. Not even half can be attributed to Kuku bud.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s something that happens. When there is crime in the area, people are more likely to be criminal. People are more stressed, they have less patience. Once we capture Umbra, everything will be fixed.¡±

    ¡°But there''s the current problem. M¡¯lord, I think something has to be done now.¡±

    ¡°We¡¯re recruiting rapidly, aren¡¯t we?¡± Lucius said, gesturing to the two locals carrying the body to the outskirts of town.

    ¡°Untrained soldiers can hardly keep the peace,¡± Adam said.

    With a sigh, Lucius asked, ¡°What are you suggesting?¡±

    ¡°I think you need to bring some of the northerners into Aliston.¡±

    Lucius sneered and crossed his arms again. ¡°The freed men? The ones who belong in prison? They¡¯d be a bigger danger to the city than this demon.¡±

    ¡°Cherry pick the best of them, then. Do something before there are riots, m¡¯lord.¡±

    ¡°No,¡± Lucius said. ¡°I¡¯ll find some other means of keeping the peace.¡±

    Their hushed discussion ended as Lexa came running down the road from the mansion. She waved a hand without slowing and hollered for Lucius. There were a dozen reasons she could have needed his attention. The merchant Lupin might have returned, or word from Rackvidd. Perhaps a fire had broken out or Kajsa was able to walk on her own. Instead, she shouted, ¡°They got Isalin!¡±

    The old man was no more. His body wouldn¡¯t have even been found if the culprit had not alerted the guards to the abandoned shed. They were still chasing him through the jungle, but his physical description meant little. Lexa assured Lucius that they would find and capture the man, but it passed the boy over. He vaguely understood the nuances of language she tried to convey, but telling him the equivalent of ¡°he had an aquiline nose¡± did nothing but comfort him that his subordinates knew what they were talking about.

    It was a shallow distraction from the gore.

    The sequence of wounds could roughly be surmised from the flow of blood down one side but not the other. He had been stabbed through the armpit, likely taken unawares. A swift death which spewed his blood out quickly. There was no way he could have survived it while they butchered his body. The killer had made an absolute horror show of it, dismantling every joint and stretching out the limbs like a nightmare creature. His eyes had been removed and placed into his mouth, while his entrails had been piled into an altar beneath the abomination.

    Lucius looked it over and tried to find some level of meaning. Some symbology or cryptic message. He had seen the languages of the entire world and I had taught him half a dozen ciphers. He had studied and hunted godlings and consulted on engineering blueprints. There was almost no subject of science, nature, or philosophy he could not have recognized. All he witnessed was savagery.

    ¡°Burn it,¡± he whispered. ¡°Burn it down and I want an inspection of every property. If we can¡¯t find the owner, it¡¯s to be torn down for materials.¡±

    ¡°Aye, sir.¡±

 3-26 - Nervous Captains

    Thornby captained a ship known as the Blue Breeze II, an aging ship that sat humbly in Rackvidd¡¯s port beside a three masted leviathan it had to escort. While it was an older make and had been repaired more times than men could count, the Blue Breeze II had something few other Vassish craft had: a hardened keel. In the era before cannons, the most important means of destroying one¡¯s enemy was ramming¨Cpreferably by air speed. Naturally, the aim was to drive the strong keel wood into the vulnerable sides of the other vessel, but the shock still returned back. Neither ship would come out unscathed, often forcing the use of enormously heavy prows as defense against self-inflicted harm. The Blue Breeze II had all the strength with no special weight at all, thanks to the tending of a certain monk several centuries prior.

    Of course, the rest of the ship had to be regularly replaced, but it made for an impressively nimble water strider.

    It simply didn¡¯t stack up to the ship it guarded. Gold glittered from the railings and ley cannons stuck out like wings from either side. It was a three decked, three masted monster of a vessel, whose shipwrights didn¡¯t want to admit they had been too greedy with. She was top heavy and slow, dragged in the waves, and her only redeeming feature¨Caside from visuals¨Cwas her hauling capacity.

    ¡°I must say,¡± Aisha said as she stepped up beside Thornby on the docks, for both of them had nothing to do but wait. ¡°I¡¯m not sure I understand what the investors are thinking with this¡­ very impressive ship.¡±

    ¡°Colonizing,¡± he said as he unbuttoned the cuffs of his coat and peeled the fabric up around his forearms. ¡°Not the islands, not yet. That¡¯s probably the source of your confusion. They¡¯re going to colonize Aliston first. That¡¯s how merchants are¨Cthey want to set up a base of operations first, a place to put scribes and bean counters. They¡¯re going to set up shop somewhere they can put a manager, and it takes a great deal of capital to do that and not look like scam artists.¡±

    Aisha shook her head. ¡°My father was a merchant, but a Giordanan one. Compared to these people, he was a mere shepherd.¡±

    ¡°Desert caravan?¡±

    ¡°As well as river barges, depending on the season.¡±

    ¡°Important work, but the land of Giordana is poor compared to Vassermark. There¡¯s less wealth to accrue.¡±

    She lifted her chin. ¡°We make up for it in culture.¡±

    Thornby bowed an apology. ¡°Of course.¡±

    Their conversation was soon interrupted by another captain, one who was no stranger to either of them. Lupin came bustling through the crowds of porters, stroking his beard and shouting, ¡°I thought that was you, Miss Canta!¡±

    She spun, taking a step away from Thornby as though she suddenly found his presence problematic¨Cand indeed it was. She was not blind to his attentions, she simply wasn¡¯t moved by them and neither was she in a position to deny his aid. The man had been put in charge of the fleet chartered by the SIG and insulting him would endanger the entire agreement. She had come to agreements with Golden about occupying the man¡¯s time and slowly pulling him away from her, but the divine beast was still recovering from a prodigious hangover and refused to leave his cabin. She was on her own. ¡°Captain Lupin, you¡¯ve returned.¡±

    The older man grabbed hold of his lapel and stuck out his chest as he looked at Thornby and said, ¡°Indeed I have. You know, I really did spend too long down in Aliston, as far as my obligations went. Half a dozen towns were expecting me to stop by with my goods. I only had the time to spare for three of them and had to pass the rest off to a friend of mind. Only today I came back to take up my case with Lord Raymi once more.¡±

    ¡°Well, that is unfortunate timing,¡± Aisha said, and gestured at the ships. ¡°Lucius sent me here to work with Lord Raymi as well, and he even sweetened the deal. As such, I believe we¡¯ve acquired all the resources of men we will need.¡±

    Lupin frowned and nodded. He looked Thornby over, as well as the adjacent ships. ¡°You¡¯re going to war, then. Is that right? I¡¯m quite familiar with Captain Thornby¡¯s¡­ history.¡±

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    The other captain smirked. ¡°Aren¡¯t we always at war? Peace is only a question of how wide your horizon is.¡±

    Lupin nodded and turned back to Aisha. ¡°A moment?¡± he asked, with a gesture to a more desolate area of the docks.

    She glanced at Thornby, and agreed. ¡°What is it?¡±

    Dropping his voice, Lupin said, ¡°I went north for more than just trade, Miss Canta. I went to pray. I¡¯ve been deeply troubled since leaving Aliston, you see. That boy, Solhart, he has a way about him. He certainly does. A conviction and a certainty that can drag others along with him. Just talking with him he was able to fill my mind with gold and eke promises out of me that I should never have considered. He has no fear in him, neither of death nor of defeat. I should have known that it was nothing more than the reckless abandon of youth, and yet he sucked me in.¡±

    She crossed her arms. ¡°Lucius has that kind of confidence because he has that kind of skill. He can lead an army to war, insult a prince, and fight monsters. I¡¯ve seen him do all three and I have not yet seen any limits. If he thinks he can do something, I have no reason to doubt him.¡±

    ¡°Perhaps you simply haven¡¯t known him long enough. Solhart wasn¡¯t always a successful lad, you know. He was rather unimpressive, and prone to gambling. I¡¯m afraid all you¡¯re seeing now is a fool deluded by his own success.¡±

    ¡°Do not call him a fool.¡±

    Lupin¡¯s cheeks colored, but he didn¡¯t raise his voice. ¡°Miss Canta, I went north to a private temple, where I could spend time attempting to commune with the gods. I sought clarity of mind and I got it. That boy has started a war of paradigms. He has pitted his world view against another and the uneasy part is that he seems to be winning.¡±

    There is an old adage about asking a fish if it is wet. Of course, until a fish had been pulled out of the water by the fisherman, it hardly has any idea what water is. In a similar manner, Aisha had for so long been stuck fast to his side that she had been unable to perceive the effects he had. Her time in Rackvidd had been slow, and yet still momentous by her associations because of him. The revelation was in the difference perceived.

    But, she wasn¡¯t going to besmirch him.

    ¡°Isn¡¯t that all of war? Pitting one way of life against another? A clash of morals or ethics or simply greed? I fail to see how Lucius is doing anything different and even if he is, what would be the problem?¡±

    Lupin sighed. ¡°Did you know there is a temple on the outskirts of Aliston? One reclaimed by nature and abandoned by its priesthood? The locals don¡¯t even go there, nor will they tear it down. They fear its curse, but they also crave its blessings.¡±

    ¡°To which god?¡±

    ¡°I cannot say, and I suspect the locals do not know either. They do not enter it except in the most dire of circumstances. The legend I was told was of a mother with a sick child. She brought it to the temple to beg for healing, and she got it.¡±

    ¡°The emissaries have been known to do much the same. It is not so strange.¡±

    He hesitated and leaned closer to her. ¡°Only the child returned. That is why they fear the temple and yet will not tear it down. But, from what I could see of the boy, he will burn that place without a second thought. He won¡¯t lose sleep over it, in fact I doubt he would even remember doing it some years from now. That is a temperament which I fear¡­ and yet I cannot shy away from him. I cannot deny that his opportunities are the best. I will still work to arrange shipments to and from the Misty Isles because I know my actions will change nothing about him or his goals. The only thing that would change is whether I make the profit, or somebody else does.¡±

    She shook her head. ¡°Is that all you wanted to say?¡±

    With that, he bowed and stepped away. ¡°Respectfully, and should you ever need help getting away, you may come to me, Miss Canta.¡±

    Thornby swept up beside her as he left, and took her by the arm. With his gaze fixed upon Lupin, he asked, ¡°Is everything alright?¡±

    She felt faint, for while Lupin had not laid a finger on her he had assaulted her with fear and doubt. Thornby¡¯s grasp took far more of her weight than she would have liked, until she picked her words. ¡°Actually, he told me something very interesting. I think if I can report that to Lucius I won¡¯t have to come back to Rackvidd afterwards.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s a good thing, yes?¡±

    ¡°A very good thing indeed.¡±

    ¡°Hopefully it is still relevant in two weeks when we arrive.¡±

    She blinked. ¡°I¡¯m sorry? How long?¡±

    Captain Thornby grimaced. ¡°The more ships which must tag along, the slower we go. We can¡¯t even speed ahead, because the Blue Breeze II is one of the defenders. Think of it as an opportunity to relax.¡±

    Aisha shook her head. ¡°Now I understand why Sera went book shopping.¡±

    Thornby laughed. ¡°I will do my best to entertain you at dinner, and I think that black haired fellow you brought will be a source of fun as well.¡±

    ¡°Oh dear,¡± she said, staring at the ship. ¡°I¡¯m going to be stuck on this ship with him¡­ maybe I should ask that he be moved over to the big ship¡­¡±

 3-27 - Recognition

    Kajsa awoke one morning with a clarity of mind. The fatigue of recovery had loosened from her throat and let her rise up to declare, ¡°I am hungry.¡±

    The maid on duty to help her rushed to inform Lucius, who had already risen before the frogs. He listened, and declared, ¡°Well, get her some food.¡± But, as is so often the case, first reactions hardly contain the complexity of the situation. While the manor had a chef on hand, procured from one of the restaurants at great expense, it was the larder that struggled. Lucius had known that the locals were hesitant to do business with him and his employees, but not the full extent. Rumor had spread through Aliston that those who cooperated with the tyrant would face the reprisal of the spirit.

    At first they had raised prices. They had feigned short supply. When they started saying, ¡°No,¡± the chef had hidden the problem as best he could. When he emerged¨Ca greasy fellow who kept a thin mustache¨Cwith nothing more than bread, lumps of butter, and weak tea, Lucius began to see through his deceptions. He wanted nothing more than to throw open the doors of the larder, to pour out the man¡¯s purse and, if necessary, imprison him.

    Kajsa was seated with him, however. She wore a simple blue dress of tough fabric, a kind that no noblewoman would ever touch but fit the alchemist perfectly. ¡°The town has changed,¡± she commented, working some of the warm bread in her hand to melt the butter. She looked across the garden to the sprawl of rooftops beyond, of which some had been improved and some knocked down.

    Lucius had been responsible for most of those changes, and yet the patchwork construction had evolved too gradually for him to pick apart. ¡°How so?¡± he asked, peering at the sediment within his tea. When he glanced to the kitchen door, the chef fled.

    ¡°The noise is different,¡± she said, and popped her meager breakfast into her mouth. After a moment of chewing, she swallowed and said, ¡°I can¡¯t quite put my finger on it, but it reminds me of a Vassish city now.¡±

    ¡°Aliston is a Vassish city. Has been for years.¡±

    ¡°No, it was conquered by Vassermark but it itself wasn¡¯t Vassish. You know as well as I they hardly pay taxes. They don¡¯t levy soldiers. The only thing of value is the gold mine, and that¡¯s staffed by imported prisoners. The city had its own life to it and now¡­ it¡¯s like there isn¡¯t as much talking.¡±

    Lucius picked at his own bread and shrugged. Half his mind roamed through the city as he thought about what he could do to get her a proper meal. ¡°Perhaps they talk less because they¡¯re working more.¡±

    ¡°Would you tell me about your hometown, Lucius?¡±

    He froze, his mind at once snapped back to the moment. He glanced over at the girl who had been one of his first friends. ¡°Hartpass?¡± he asked, referring to the diminutive city the Solhart family ruled from. ¡°What would you like to know about it?¡±

    She sipped her tea and closed her eyes. ¡°Tell me about the festivals, if you would. I grew up very far from Hartpass, the culture a bit different.¡±

    He scratched his chin, picking at his uneven stubble.(1) ¡°Well, there¡¯s Heartbreaker¡¯s Day.¡±

    Kajsa rolled her eyes. ¡°Everyone has Heartbreaker¡¯s Day.¡±

    He winced and dug through his memories. I had given him quite a primer on the Solhart domain, but there are always limits. Talking about his alleged hometown was like wading through a swamp and hoping to not kick a branch. ¡°The biggest other holiday is the Night of Lights,¡± he said after a moment. ¡°Mostly a drinking and feasting holiday after the harvest. For children and adults, they pitch tents and break open beers and everyone gorges themselves at communal tables. But, for adolescents, for those just coming of age, they¡¯re the ones given the lights.¡±

    She sat silent, raptured with his words and soaking them in without a single counterword.

    ¡°You see, the kids have to be put to bed, but as part of the festival, teenagers and the such are given candles right as the sun goes down and they have to keep them lit until dawn and aren¡¯t allowed in the tents¨Cthere¡¯s a follow up celebration at breakfast.¡±

    Kajsa tilted her head. ¡°What happens if the candle goes out?¡±

    He glanced around and leaned in conspiratorially, ¡°Most of them do. Especially in colder years. Snow can really make it hard. The kids aren¡¯t told anything about this, but the adults don¡¯t measure the wick or anything. So long as they show up with it lit, all¡¯s good. Some of the smaller towns leave a lantern out for teens coming back with unlit candles. The only way you can fail is if you don¡¯t realize that. Just about everyone figures out that as long as they stick with their friends, they can just keep re-lighting each other''s candles all night.¡±

    She planted her elbows on the table, her chin in her hands. ¡°And did you do this?¡±

    This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

    He hesitated. ¡°Of course. Just before the war.¡±

    ¡°With all the other kids?¡±

    ¡°Well, I had a few friends along as guards, but it would be rather shameful of my family to waive something like that, you know?¡±

    ¡°Hmm, that¡¯s strange, because I could have sworn the first forays through Giordana were over a year ago, in the middle of summer.¡±

    For a moment, he was paralyzed by recalculating his forged backstory. When the war against Giordana had begun, he and I were skirmishing against Drachenreich while he failed to learn the tongue. ¡°Has it been that long? It must have been two years ago then.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s a big time difference to get long.¡±

    ¡°You know how seasons are in Giordana, don¡¯t you? Warm and then hot. You can barely tell.¡±

    ¡°When did you get your stigmata?¡±

    ¡°When I was nearly killed at Puerto Faro. The rebels cut my head off. Didn¡¯t I tell you this?¡±

    ¡°You did,¡± she agreed, and sat back in her chair, still looking at him. ¡°It must be the fever speaking, all those dreams and polluted sleep. I¡¯m mixing you up with someone I used to know with the same stigmata.¡±

    He nearly choked. ¡°That¡¯s rare indeed. Did he go off to become a knight?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t know what happened to him. I never saw him again after the Ashe family took him in. He was an annoying little twerp the elder sisters of my temple kept foisting onto me because I was young¡­ but he was a smart kid. It¡¯s a real shame his life was ruined by losing an arm young.¡±

    Lucius stole a look into her eyes and found her not wistful, reminiscing in memory, but staring directly at him. He looked back out to the city vista and said, ¡°Then he must have had a different stigmata. I would grow an arm back, if losing my head was anything to go by. These things happen, even the rarest of abilities can have similar stigmata recorded. Some say that every single stigmata in the world is unique, and it¡¯s a folly of our own making that we try to name them simply because they¡¯re similar.¡±

    Silence gripped the two of them, and each quietly finished their simple breakfast. She pushed the matter no further, and eventually brought up her need to return to the processing of the gold ore. Lucius promised her constant protection, as he then had the recruits to do so, and she accepted without fuss. Their small talk waned and wrapped up with a promise that dinner would be better.

    Lucius saw to it personally, and brought Lamdo with him into town. He had the steward rattle off the list of problems the city faced as he moved from one store to the next. For most things, he left it to the direction of the more experienced governor, as he was quite comfortable with having scared the man into more studious action. Between each consultation(2), he stopped at grocers, fish mongers, farmers, and spice crafters. Each and every one of them tried to make excuses about why they couldn¡¯t sell to him. They claimed rotten food. They said everything had already been purchased by others. Some outright said they had been threatened on the matter.

    When Lucius saw weakness, he pressed the merchant and in private stores he worked out from them a list of names and places. This he passed on to the town guard and warned them they wouldn¡¯t be getting much sleep that night.

    One of the last gave him a cryptic warning alongside a basket of half-ripe tomatoes. ¡°The shadows you¡¯re looking for live out of the temple, m¡¯lord. They¡¯ve been given passage. You might be able to go in there and kill them all, yes, but you¡¯ll be cursed and I won¡¯t be saying more about that.¡±

    Lucius took the warning with a nod, made a mental note of the man¡¯s store, and took his things and his business back to his manor. Lamdo was dismissed to carry out his instructions and Lexa was called for to discuss what the temple was. If she didn¡¯t know, the twins would be sent to round the man up for a more detailed discussion.

    Lexa was not the first to arrive.

    While Lucius stirred a cast iron pan with crackling bacon, the room rich with the scent of tomatoes and peppers as butter thawed beside scallops, Kajsa slipped in. She was unfazed by the aroma, encouraged by their isolation, and made her presence known. The moment he met her gaze, she asked, ¡°The Solhart family doesn¡¯t put their children through the Night of Lights. I know because I was there last season trying to work for them. The whole family is too busy talking business. So, I have to ask, are you Jarnpojke?¡±

    He hadn¡¯t been raised by an acting troupe for nothing. ¡°That¡¯s a ridiculous question,¡± he responded.

    ¡°Is it? The kid I knew was taken in by the Ashe family, but left Jarnmark with a Royal Engineer. He¡¯d be your age, and he wouldn¡¯t know much about the Solharts. In fact, he was half-raised by actors and taught their tricks, he¡¯d know exactly how to behave like a noble as if he had been one. And most importantly, he¡¯d actually care that I had been hurt. He¡¯d sit at my bed side and he¡¯d cook me dinner. Any real noble wouldn¡¯t have given me a second thought!¡±

    Weeks of suspicion came bursting out of her as tears. When she finally gave the thoughts life, they almost overwhelmed her.

    Lucius should have denied it then. Had he stood his ground she likely would have never brought it up again. But, alas, he was young and still prone to mistakes. He set the pan off the fire and crossed the kitchen, taking Kajsa into a silent embrace as he held her to his chest and waited for the cry to subside.

    ¡°Why didn¡¯t you just tell me?¡± she demanded, clinging to his shirt.

    ¡°Because I¡¯m not Jarnpojke,¡± he said, smoothing her hair. ¡°Not anymore.¡±

    <hr>

    <ol>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">Puberty had not yet blessed him with a proper beard and yet he kept hoping it would grow in. I would have told him to mind his shaving better, but the women around him didn¡¯t mind the fuzz. </li>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">The matters of rulership are far more varied but also more trivial than a commoner imagines. There were issues of fights between soldiers and citizens, reports of stolen sheep, street side speakers insulting him, and so on. As a rule, he sided with his soldiers, and when the matter was between citizens, he sided with the poorer claimant unless evidence made justice obvious. The nay-sayers were permitted not because they helped his rule but because he wanted to pass discontent over to his successor.</li>

    </ol>

 3-28 - Dinner Onboard

    Writing a dramaticized history text, as I am now, can be a curiously challenging affair. There always comes times in a person¡¯s life when not much is occurring to them, but to tell the story chronologically one must cover distant events. Sometimes, the person in question had no knowledge of them at all, only getting confronted with the consequences much later. This is a failing on their knowledge, not in the grand narrative of life.

    Some readers might find themselves intellectually superior for thinking they know a better way of how to handle such knowledge conveyance, but that is of no matter. The truth is that there is no good way at all. Any method of exposition for such details can be called clumsy, slow, or difficult to understand. The best way would be to presume prior knowledge and carry on, but that would presume the reader has touched some other, inferior, text before reading this and that is not the purpose of this writing. As such, I have made the choices I¡¯ve made, and I expect I shall again in the future.

    To understand the decisions of my pupil and his companions it is required to understand the circumstances of politics and war and engineering and magic, and a dozen other aspects of life that simply cannot be reduced into the written form, not in the guise of a narrative at the least. Perhaps if you read ten thousand personal diaries each concurrently and kept them all straight within your mind you might not need such a simplification, but again, that is not the purpose of this text.

    Thus, I bring you my reader, to a scene of dinner conversation, with our little cast of travelers adrift between Rackvidd and the Misty Isles, sailing around rocky coves and dawdling for their burdened charges. With little for entertainment, gossip both personal and political is the best food for their minds.

    ¡°The war is going as well as could be expected,¡± Golden said entirely conversationally. He, Aisha, Sera, and Thornby were all sat down to dinner around the captain¡¯s table. As much as Thorny would have preferred something grand and private, they only had his own cabin to sit in with the door closed. It provided a pleasant view out the back window and had a door, but four was a crowd.

    ¡°I thought nothing had been declared?¡± Thornby responded. He still had not been properly acquainted with Golden, knowing him only as Aisha¡¯s legal representative.

    The Divine Beast in human form was not using his utensils properly. While they had all been served slats of fish pulled from the ocean that day, everyone else ate with a fork. Golden sliced his into strips and picked them up with his hand, skin and all. After sliding one down his throat like a spaghetti noodle, he shrugged. ¡°War begins before the declaration. The prince has moved a small army to Jumeaux to make a statement and build a presence. He¡¯s running roughshod over the people because the bishop is still on her expedition to the south and left a rather incompetent steward behind. The man can manage affairs certainly, but has no head for politics.¡±

    ¡°Jumeaux is a friend of Vassermark, isn¡¯t it?¡± Aisha asked.

    Sera frowned, clearing her mouth with a bit of wine. ¡°Holy cities like that are independent, aren¡¯t they?¡±

    ¡°There¡¯s independent from taxes and independent from military duties,¡± Golden said. ¡°The king extracts only a yearly gift from Jumeaux, but there is an understanding that they will support military endeavors. Free passage through their land, levied supplies of food, and so on. The prince is currently abusing them with that agreement, eating through their granaries in the name of prosecuting heretics. The real question is whether he will go north or east from there. North would secure Vassermark more against Skaldheim and in general be more profitable, but if he does cause a general uprising, he could get stuck in one of their cities for the winter. East would be safer and envelop Giordana along with Raymi¡¯s forces. Unfortunately for him, he lacks the skills to split his forces and take both. Either way, he can only move once his father declares a proper war.¡±

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    ¡°So,¡± Thornby said, sneering. ¡°He¡¯s trying to provoke an attack.¡±

    Sera frowned. ¡°Is he smart enough to do that? I¡¯ve met him more than once and find him to be a profoundly average fellow. Tricking your enemy into a blunder is no easy feat.¡±

    ¡°Indeed,¡± Golden said. ¡°I dare say it¡¯s a good thing the bishop has been absent. He might have been tempted to¡­ despoil her as a means of provocation. He¡¯s not one to respect the other faiths, you see.¡±

    Aisha shifted back in her chair, her belly feeling uneasy even in the mild rocking of the evening waves, and Golden¡¯s blithe reference cast horrid images into her mind. Within the moment, she had no choice but to set her utensils down and push her plate in.

    Thornby noticed and scowled at the other man. ¡°Perhaps you should keep that kind of speculation to yourself.¡±

    Golden laughed and sucked down another slice of fish. ¡°The speculation that matters is when the war will begin, and how much it will cost Vassermark. If it costs them so dearly that they look weak, Skaldheim might invade in full force. Would Lord Ashe be able to keep them in check if that happened?¡±

    ¡°Them?¡± Thornby asked, cocking an eyebrow at the man. ¡°Are you not Vassish yourself?¡±

    ¡°I belong to no nation, for I make no decisions and I pay no taxes. I am simply in certain employment at the moment. Think of me as an impartial outsider. It¡¯s what lets me speak so objectively.¡±

    ¡°He¡¯s from Giordana,¡± Aisha said, staring at Golden with half-lidded eyes. ¡°The real question is whether Giordana belongs to Vassermark at the moment or not.¡±

    Sera scratched her chin and asked, ¡°Would a war against Jumeaux be considered a civil war then? Conquest? Police action?¡±

    ¡°Subjugation,¡± Thornby answered, and rose from the table. ¡°I think I¡¯ve lost my appetite. For the evening, perhaps we¡¯ll have some music? I have a touch of talent, but not as much as Aisha. I think the two of us could make something pleasant as the sun goes down, what do you say?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯d be happy to,¡± she said, also rising from the table. Some of the sailors soon came in, cleaning up the table and taking away the plates. All to clear out the space and clean up for the next day. Meanwhile, Thornby led the way into the bottom of the hull. He held a small candle before him, casting light and shadows between the crates and barrels. The squeaking of rats could be heard, their claws scratching against the wood as they fled.

    Thornby was bent over, digging open chests to retrieve his own instrument¨Ca crystalline flute¨Cwhen Aisha asked, ¡°Do you have a stigmata, captain?¡± She sat upon a barrel of wine, one leg crossed over the other and eyes fixed upon his face.

    In the candle light, the contours of his cheeks and mouth were stark and sallow. No twist of a grin could make him seem anything less than serious, and likewise her own face seemed cut in the mold of some tense, emotional mask. The shadows gave them both an unusual intensity, and he answered truthfully, ¡°Yes, but I have never used it.¡±

    ¡°That would be a first.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s a very unusual ability, and one I don¡¯t relish the thought of using¡­¡± When Aisha didn¡¯t respond, he answered her curiosity. ¡°It¡¯s not a grand secret, but I¡¯ve been told that it can interfere with other people¡¯s abilities.¡±

    ¡°Captain Thornby, I think that¡¯s exactly the kind of ability you would need to keep hidden.¡±

    He smiled ruefully and fetched out the flute at last. Still in a wooden case for safety, he drummed it upon his thigh. ¡°It¡¯s not easily used. You must think I¡¯m a danger to Lord Solhart, but I assure you only one person in the world will feel the touch of my stigmata, and it is not him.¡±

    ¡°Only one? You say that like the rumors are¨C¡±

    ¡°The rumors are true, and if I ever meet that witch again, I¡¯ll kill her. My blade will find no other sheathe. You have my word,¡± he said, putting a hand to his heart and bowing.

 3-29 - To Capture Some Pirates

    For a few days, everything seemed to have been fixed with Kajsa. She was even able to return to work in the factory with Walter. The colony was able to engage in fruitful trade as hesitant merchants docked one after the next. They came with reasonable supplies¨Ctextiles and furs, which can always be sold for some amount of profit¨Cand found themselves excitedly filling their hulls with rare foodstuffs to bring back to Rackvidd, or elsewhere in Vassermark. The murders seemed to have been stymied by the simple running out of bodies that the demon could use.

    That very lull tormented his mind. It latched onto the worry hidden in his heart about what I would say of the alchemist. There was no deceiving his rational mind that he should kill her. The risk was absurd to bet upon a childhood relationship, barely rekindled over nursing an injury in a far away land. His entire life to that point, and the rest of his prospects, hinged upon maintaining the secrecy of his true identity. Of course, he didn''t know it at the time, but this was the very danger that his sister, of the Solhart family, posed. He and I had made some passing comments that perhaps the family should be killed off as things went on. No one would suspect him of it. As the son of the family, he would be hard pressed to take a claim even if his sister and mother and aunts died off. Further, if they weren¡¯t done in all at once, he would be expected to attend funerals and then what would we do?

    Kajsa was a much simpler matter, which had two clean solutions. The first, I already mentioned. The second was to make her his. Not just as friends, not just as childhood acquaintances, but as a woman. He was reasonably certain he could do it, or rather, that a confident and determined version of him could make her his. Such a Lucius von Solhart did not exist however. He was a lad of eighteen and the only relationship of his prior to Aisha had ended in heartbreak. He barely even know the love and affection of a mother. The guilty sting of sending Aisha away still nagged at him and whispered in his mind that he ought not to advance anything with Kajsa until after Aisha¡¯s return.

    This made living at the manor quickly intolerable, and a man of his standing had but one solution.

    After making sure that Lexa would personally protect Kajsa from further harm, he gathered up a posse. Axel, Polunu, and two dozen prisoners turned soldiers that his various sargeants indicated had some restlessness to them. Of course, they weren¡¯t particularly happy about leaving the relative comfort of the city, but raiding had become a matter of booty and they could easily imagine what booty could get them now that they were de facto free.(1)

    Raids had lately become less common, primarily because they had killed every outpost of kuku farmers they could find within a day¡¯s sailing. Charting the depths of the archipelago had to be done again and again, cross referenced and double checked. An island might seem to be one place from the south, but unidentifiable from the north. Nothing magical about it, simply the difficulty of cartography. Lucius did not have to go so far however.

    Rumor had come through to them that Aillesterrans had hidden themselves on a small island to the south known as Red Star Island, for the very uninspired reason that it had five jutting points of land that reached out from the central volcano. The fertile soil had been untilled and let to overgrow for no one lived on it¨Cthe belief was bad luck of haunted spirits¨Cand that made for exceedingly private coves to tuck a ship away for a day or two. The fisherman had chanced upon it while diving for pearls and thought he hadn¡¯t been seen. On promise of reward, he accompanied the group of soldiers to the island.

    They landed upon the opposite side of the island, trekking over the mountain, for the slope was shallow even if the ground was sharp flints. While on the western slope, they laughed and goaded one another, but Lucius ordered their silence as soon as they crested the edge. The forest swallowed their voices well, but letting the pirates flee would be disastrous.

    And there, as the fisherman said, was the sleek ship. Like a brown fish nesting for spring, it rocked between waves with the prow nuzzled up to a shore. Men dotted the sandy beach with no less than three cookfires. They had been on the island long enough to hunt pigs and deer, pygmy things but docile for lack of humans. The fat crackled in the blazes and the oily smoke reached even the Vassish half an island away. If there were a single predator to contend, it would have been nipping at the edge of their campsite.

    There were only soldiers.

    Better than mere prisoners, several of his soldiers had stigmata relevant to the raid. He suspected, and I would too, that their competency was the source of their restlessness and trouble making. So much the better. Five were deemed to be the vanguard. Two [Berserker]s, one man with [Gills], one with the always useful [Roar], and one man whose ability was described to me as the ability to make a mess of a rope.(2)

    Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.

    There was a good deal of wait, of creeping through the jungle hunched over to the mud. They approached as close as they dared, even felling one sentry with an arrow. The man hadn¡¯t truly been expecting anyone to arrive, and they caught him by surprise. With that simple action, they pierced the flimsy shell of protection. By the time the shout came up from the ship, it was too late for the Aillesterrans. The bulk of the Vassish troops charged down the slope like a hammer and drove them into the waves. They thought they could escape by pushing their ship back to sea, but all of their rigging had been undone and they couldn¡¯t even take out their rage on the advanced party for they had jumped back into the water.

    One can imagine how the fight went in such a scenario of despair.

    The important thing, for the story of Lucius, was that he took the captain alive. A man of middling age who roughly spoke Giordanan and thus could converse with Lucius. He introduced himself as Shiro, looking more at the sword in Lucius¡¯ grasp than at him.

    ¡°How many more of you are there?¡± the asked, letting his armed prisoners run amok with the camp. There were no women according to his glance, so he let them have their violence as they saw fit.

    ¡°Many,¡± Shiro said.

    ¡°How are you feeding yourselves? You come to islands like this? What do you do, hunt until your ships are full and go attack again?¡±

    ¡°Something like that,¡± the pirate responded. He was on his knees in the sand, his boots washed by the sea brine. Still, he sneered.

    ¡°Are you being paid by your government?¡±

    ¡°You wouldn¡¯t understand.¡±

    ¡°Sorry, my mistake. What a cultural faux pas. Are you being paid by your shrines to be out here on holy war? Does the snake really care so much about the people of the sea?¡±

    Shiro spat to the side and licked his teeth clean of blood. He had a few cuts across his body, but the felling blow had been a punch to the mouth by Lucius himself¨Chard enough to knock the sense out of him and loosen some teeth. ¡°You think we can¡¯t see? You¡¯ve devoured Giordana and now you¡¯ll burn the lands of Lumis because they don¡¯t want to bend the knee. Why would anyone think you¡¯re going to stop?¡±

    A few things went through his mind at that. The certainty that war would reach the forests of Aillesterra, that he himself would be at the front, and the curiosity of how the war was about to unfold. Perhaps it had begun already.(3) Such prophesies helped him little at all.

    ¡°Are you working for the cyclops?¡± he asked.

    That made Shiro grin. His anxious and pained wavering slowed as he finally raised his gaze to look Lucius in the eye. ¡°Wouldn¡¯t you like to know? The sins of your past come back to burn you.¡±

    ¡°Axel,¡± Lucius barked, standing up from the impromptu interrogation. He scanned the carnage quickly. Only his men still moved, and they mostly moved to parcel out booty amongst themselves. They squabbled over trinkets and bottles of liquor while others slipped purses into their own pockets. His second in command was not bothered by such temptations.

    Axel had been traversing the battlefield, stabbing one man after the next through the heart to bleed them out quickly. His actions were careful and deliberate. No malice moved his hands for they were not the kuku farmers that had terrorized his people; merely foreigners. The cruel kind of mercy brought many their deaths, but when Lucius called out to him, some few were left to crawl off and die alone. ¡°What is it?¡±

    The two of them had to speak in Vassish, leaving Shiro nearly in the dark as Lucius said, ¡°Tie this one up. We¡¯re going to put him on display with the others. Or at least, I want him to see that we might. I want him walked past the criminals then left in a prison for a day or two with no food. Get him a doctor if you must, but I¡¯ll speak with him when he¡¯s softened up.¡±

    Axel grinned. ¡°The fire of battle is tying his tongue?¡±

    ¡°It might be and I don¡¯t feel like torturing him at the moment. It¡¯s tiring.¡±

    ¡°But you¡¯ll starve him?¡±

    ¡°Yes.¡±

    Axel bowed. ¡°At your command, peace bringer.¡±

    <hr>

    <ol>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">After the first incident, Lucius had to create a sort of naval guard to make sure none of his indentured warriors were stealing off onto ships and at least one captain was imprisoned for hiring the men on. Escapees became quite rare after that.</li>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">This fellow ended up getting killed in a tavern brawl a few days before I arrived. From what I could gather for my studies, he wasn¡¯t a very bright individual. He had been imprisoned for gambling debt and then for attacking his guards. That escalated from a rather benign labor farm to the gold mine. He thought the unravelling made a great party trick. Fishermen with nets to mend disagreed.</li>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">Historians would later agree that the war had started at this point, as there is disagreement over whether a formal war was ever declared or even required. Of course, I am the authority on the matter.</li>

    </ol>

 3-30 - The Rise Of The Cyclops

    The eve before Aisha¡¯s return, Lucius sat down with Shiro and received the first version of the Cyclops.

    Aillesterra is a rather unique place among the realms of men. It is the only place I know of, in all of history, where civil war did not seem to beget outward weakness. Primarily, this is because of the theocracy overseeing the numerous families. They enforce a policy that each of their fiefs must supply the majority of their soldiers to the general defense. This points their spears both against the creatures from beyond the map, in the old growth forest that even they cannot cleanse with the help of their goddess, as well as to the north against Drachenreach. Thus, for centuries they have held back their rivals.

    And for centuries they have had some of the most dramatic civil wars one could imagine, where the death counts barely reach a few thousand and that¡¯s with the wholesale slaughter of rival families, cousin upon cousin, brother upon brother. In 754 CC, one such cleansing was underway to secure the position of Holy Maiden. One family wanted it and another had been granted it by the emissary. The nuances of which I don¡¯t plan to enter into greatly. What matters is that the chosen one was weaker and lost her house and family, but not her life.

    The girl Reiko, not even an adult, had to flee to the north, but could not seek refuge with the defending garrison. While many thousands of knights protected the realm, many of which had grown up in her own fief, they were all honor sworn to ignore such squabbling between the nobility. They could not let her in, not without alerting the elders. If so commanded, they would arrest her for the peace of Aillesterra. This was their way.

    But she did not seek refuge from the garrison, and so they had no reason to contact the elders. This was when she encountered the cyclops. A monstrous presence from across the world, they listened to the girl¡¯s story half-drunk and drinking more. The first point of greatest contention among the many stories that Lucius heard was why Reiko went to the Cyclops for help, and Shiro told him thus.

    ¡°The petty kingdoms between Aillesterra and Drachenreach are not prideful places. They are home to the dregs of the world and legends cling to them like odors. The Cyclops brought with them a legend of slaughter. Leading only a paltry force, the Cyclops slaughtered over one hundred Drachenreach warriors. They were still living high off the purses of petty nobility. Who better to recruit against a backstabbing noble?¡±

    Of course, no matter the quality of one warrior, one commander, a war couldn¡¯t be won alone. They say (me mostly) that a great commander can be worth ten thousand extra soldiers, but that only becomes true after you have your first ten thousand soldiers. Reiko had to provide those, and provide she did. Not from her family¡¯s fief, ford that was thoroughly occupied by her cousin¡¯s troops. With but the two of them, they returned to the forests of Aillesterra and snuck into her cousin¡¯s own city. With nearly every troop scouring the north for her, she went entirely unnoticed.

    Therein, she picked at a forgotten crack in her family¡¯s peace. Something that had been smoothed over and ignored with shadows and dust. She went to one of her family¡¯s oldest retainers, a man too old to serve and yet forced to watch as his children had been conscripted. Despite all the motivation in the world, even he was constrained by propriety. Victory with him at her side would either require that she marry a man about to die of old age, or that her rule be unearned.

    There was another solution though.

    One¡¯s vassals have a degree of freedom to change their allegiance in times of peace. While the old man never moved from his house, all the soldiers at his command decided at the same time that they were better off serving a new master. And so, she and the cyclops had an army overnight.

    This force presented itself in the rear of her scheming family and marched without hesitation. Battle after battle was fought until she forced her usurper cousin to retreat for sanctuary in the south, thinking that the maritime families would take them in at least territorially. They were wrong. The families of the south(1) blocked the usurper on the roads and forced a confrontation.

    Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

    Of course, the fight still favored the cousin by numbers, but as mentioned earlier a good commander is worth an extra ten thousand soldiers. The usurper was slaughtered and his head sent to the elders in a perfumed box. Reiko was inducted as the Holy Maiden within the year and the Cyclops went on to find new employment in the south, raiding the coasts of Giordana, the Misty Isles, and threatening Rackvidd.

    Unfortunately for Lucius, no matter how much he pressed the man, he was able to learn nothing of the Cyclops¡¯ tactics, their stigmata, or their origin. That last one confused him most of all, because he and I filled our war chest with bounties from those lands and had never heard of such rumors. The only conclusion he could reach was that the Cyclops¡¯ legend had inflated after saving Reiko, an after-the-fact justification. As for their origin, they were probably a defector from Drachenreich. A one-eyed creature akin to a troll would hardly be surprising from that isolated land.

    Lucius left the man imprisoned with a meager food ration and spent the following day going through the busywork of governance while considering his options. No matter how he thought about it, the fact that he had to fortify the port of Aliston before the Cyclops decided to become aggressive was the only smart thing to do, but he was already doing that. As a minor boon, he put the captured pirate ship up for auction and helped drive the price so high only a very confident merchant could afford it. That lined his chests enough to treat his soldiers and would eventually be one more revenue source for the city.

    The problem troubled him late into the evening, and left a restless energy within him. He tried sitting at the docks, dining on sea food and sampling a local wine which left him wanting, but the frustration didn¡¯t go away. He was nearly grinding his teeth as he stirred the leftover sauce. While he had been fighting, he had been able to absorb himself with that and pour out his energy upon his enemies, but back in the city he could only listen to what other people were doing.

    At that particular moment, he was thinking that he should be having dinner with Kajsa, but was instead listening to Adam No-Last-Name discuss a cave system that had been found on the south side of the island, buried by the forest. They were still trying to figure out how the original chef had been in communication with the demon because it wasn¡¯t just communication. Something like that could be done through dreams, through hallucinating on the kuku bud. Someone had given him the seed of the kuku plant to put into the steak as a warning. Probably how he had felled the pig, if that had been him at all.

    A mere cave system, a place for clandestine locals to meet up with cloaks pulled over their heads and by the light of the moon, it was all so cliche that he could hardly stomach it. ¡°Just bring a cadre of soldiers who have been misbehaving and make them map it out during the day.¡±

    Adam scoffed. ¡°You know, not all of us can brush off being stabbed by mutinous soldiers.¡±

    Lucius sighed. ¡°Fine, I need to get back out in the field again anyway. I¡¯ll leave the rest of the paperwork to Lamdo.¡±

    Adam grinned. ¡°A wonderful idea, and I¡¯ll be happy to join you so long as you¡¯re between me and the prisoners, yeah?¡±

    ¡°Oh yes, use your local lord as a meat shield. I hear all the greatest knights in the realm do that.¡±

    Adam laughed. ¡°That¡¯s how they live long enough to become the greatest knights in the realm.¡±

    They both topped off their wine and gave a toast and would have gotten on with a good evening of drinking if not for someone at the docks sounding the alarm. They wailed upon the harbor bell and it was Lucius¡¯ responsibility to go charging over to find out what the matter was. ¡°Ship spotted!¡± the man in the tower cried. The duties of a harbor watchman might seem to some as a trivial job and a boring one, but I must stress that it really was anything but. Maintaining the fire at night, which marked the edge of the harbor, as well as safely utilizing the looking glass was a sought after and well compensated position. The lenses used, why I could go on for an entire essay about the careful grinding of glass to refract light properly, but this is not the place. Suffice to say, such a watchman still had to have excellent vision on his own, often leading to the hiring of young men, who sometimes made impulsive decisions in the name of wariness.

    ¡°Why would you ring the alarm because a ship was spotted?¡± Lucius roared.

    This harbor watchman threw himself onto his railing and looked down, spotting his employer at once. The man cleared his throat and threw an arm out to the horizon. ¡°Sir, black sails!¡± the man said, before the clash of steel rang out from the lighthouse.

    <hr>

    <ol>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">While I might name off the various families and their relations to one another, it is not yet time in this narrative to go into such details. It will be years yet, in my pupil¡¯s life, before war can finally be brought to their wooded lands. Then and only then will I lay the field with nobility.</li>

    </ol>

 3-31 - Defending The Sea Passage

    At the same time as the alarm in Aliston, the ships of the Shipping Investment Guild were nearly arrived. They still didn¡¯t move very quickly, but they had expert seamen and a number of stigmata to portend and investigate the waves, to ward off the monsters or attract edible fish. Their gold trimmed vessels moved with the certainty of a cattle migration, or as a northerner might put it, with the numb determination of a warring troll tribe.

    At any moment, they expected to see the sparkle of Aliston¡¯s lighthouse shining on the horizon, within the slim band of black that separated the ocean from the sky with the shallow tops of island peaks. The night was clear and visibility good, but they had to cross open ocean to finally reach the Misty Isles. While the mountains that formed the volcanic archipelago did dot the sea all the way back to Rackvidd, the largest gap of sea was at the end, and rollers the size of hills could slide across unseen and unheard. It¡¯s a land dweller¡¯s folly to think of the ocean as flat if there¡¯s even a little breeze and the night loved to hide such danger.

    Thus, they had not seen the lighthouse and did not know whether it was because they were too far north or because water obstructed them. There was something else they could see however. The twinkling lanterns of a ship at sea.

    ¡°Black sails sir,¡± the first mate said to Captain Thorby as he stood at the prow of the Blue Breeze II. It was a good night, the moon could hardly have been brighter. All around him, white capped waves rolled like a web of silver against black. The wind would be a problem for the merchant vessels, those bloated whales wanted nothing more than a puff to push them along. A fighting ship nearly wanted a storm. In fact, he had fought in storms and done splendidly as far as the ship was concerned.

    It was the crew that got washed overboard by a storm.

    Strong wind was perfect for his needs, and also perfect for an Aillesterran pirate ship. A heavy anticipation lingered between the crew as everyone wondered whether Thornby would give the command to engage. They surely could run it down or chase it off, but not without leaving their mercantile friends undefended. The convoy had no choice but to continue sailing south, slowly approaching it at the speed of the largest vessels and wonder if the pirates would turn to attack, or turn to flee.

    In fact, it was so early in the night that Aisha was still awake and stood against the railing to watch it herself. She frowned at the little speck of darkness that cut shadows against the sea foam. ¡°I don¡¯t suppose you could just swim over there and kill them all yourself?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m a bit too old for such rashness,¡± Thornby said, his arms crossed over his chest.

    ¡°Summon a sea monster to eat them whole?¡±

    ¡°We¡¯ve only got deterrent to keep the serpents away I¡¯m afraid.¡±

    ¡°Some kind of miraculous stigmata that can launch fire at them?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ve got a deck swab that can make his eyes glow, is that close enough?¡±

    She sighed. ¡°No, I think it¡¯s not. You¡¯re not a very impressive crew, you know that? So very mundane.¡±

    Thornby laughed a good deal longer than he should have, nearly forcing it as he thought about what a man like Lucius would have to be for Aisha to be so hung up on him. ¡°I¡¯m sorry, Miss Canta, I am a mere mortal. The bards likely won¡¯t tell stories about me, not any that I¡¯d like at least. Hmm, come to think of it I think there¡¯s one about me going around Aillesterra. Pretty sure they have my name wrong though, so I¡¯m not sure if that counts. Sounded something like Captain To-ro-n-bi.¡±

    The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

    It was Aisha¡¯s turn to laugh. ¡°Is that because the first bard couldn¡¯t enunciate? Or did they put you to some pre-existing tune?¡±

    He stroked his mustache and arched an eyebrow. ¡°I think it was a bit of both, not that I could stick around long after I lost my ship. Had to shave my head to avoid detection. I dressed as a monk for three weeks and pretended to starve.¡±

    ¡°Pretended to?¡±

    ¡°The pilgrims live on charity, and no one gives charity to a man with fat in his cheeks. But they also don¡¯t go expecting him to know how to hunt. Thankfully, I don¡¯t feel bad about the monk I robbed, he had fallen out of his faith and became convinced that nothing mattered, that everything was preordained and there was no life after this. The simplest argument was to kill him, but I merely took his clothes. Shame I¡¯ll never know what became of him.(1)¡±

    ¡°Captain!¡± his crow¡¯s nest spotter called. ¡°They¡¯re turning!¡±

    The amused grin on Thornby¡¯s face vanished. He lunged forward and grabbed the railing to better squint at the distant vessel. ¡°Towards us?¡±

    ¡°Aye sir!¡±

    Aisha shook her head. ¡°A little bold, aren¡¯t they?¡±

    Thornby clicked his tongue. ¡°Means they probably have a stigmata user they¡¯re proud of, but they don¡¯t know who they¡¯re dealing with.¡±

    ¡°Didn¡¯t you just say that you had no one special on here?¡±

    ¡°Bah, the ship herself is special!¡± He slapped the nearest piece of wood for emphasis and signalled for the bell to be run.

    ¡°And if it comes to fighting?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m no stranger to a fight. Don¡¯t worry, Miss Canta.¡±

    Sera stuck her head out from below deck and spotted them. ¡°Did somebody say fighting?¡± she asked as she emerged in full battle dress. She grinned, drumming her fingers on the handle of her sword.

    Thornby shook his head and gave a bow. ¡°How thoughtless of me. I forgot what a fine guest we had aboard. Lady Lynnfield, would you be so kind as to be our away party?¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re not going to leave me away, are you?¡± she responded.

    ¡°Not at all, we¡¯ll simply be a bit delayed.¡±

    Sera laughed. ¡°Not a problem in the least then. They¡¯re just one ship, right?¡±

    ¡°So far,¡± he said.

    She thumped a fist to her steel chest. ¡°Leave them to me.¡±

    ¡°Right then,¡± the captain said, and excused himself from the ladies to start barking orders at his men. He rallied them in no time and soon rigging was being changed and boxes of weapons unloaded. Sails unfurled, billowing before snapping full with the entire might of the wind. The ship lurched forward, sliding high over the waves and slamming into them with enormous sheets of water.

    Aisha had to jump back towards the helm to avoid getting doused in salt water, but that meant having her skull rattled by a war drum. The youngest of the crew was barely fourteen and they had him standing at the back of the ship beating away on his instrument loud enough to wake the dead.

    ¡°There are no oars, what are you doing that for?¡± she demanded, plugging her ears.

    The kid didn¡¯t respond, but the helmsman shouted over to her. ¡°It¡¯s for the other ships, to let them know we¡¯re fighting,¡± the grey bearded man said with a grin.

    A mere moment later, trumpets were bugling in the night and other drums picked up the beat, but no change to the sails of the merchant barges was made. The Blue Breeze II was on its own as it sped forward to intercept the Aillesterran craft.

    Aisha straightened her back and slowed her breathing as memories of her voyage to Hearth Bay resurfaced. Her heart longed for the protection Lucius could give her, and she felt very foolish for having left Rackvidd against his orders. She could trust Sera, but Sera was best used at the front and she knew that. She was useless to the fight and knew that. The best thing she could do was to hide below deck and wait for it to be over.

    The fact that she was less useful than a baby-faced boy sank a thorn into her pride which would go on to fester for months more, but she had no choice but to accept the truth. One does not get very far in life by denying reality, only by changing it.

    <hr>

    <ol>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">I know what became of him, but the tale of Seshiro could fill an entire novel by itself. To put it shortly, he became one of the wealthiest men in all of Aillesterra before he died trying to have sex with an emissary of his goddess. Getting robbed callously by a foreigner in his own land made him completely reverse his philosophical rut and hold it just as dearly.</li>

    </ol>

 3-32 - Foreign Theives

    The timing baffled Lucius, that the harbor would come under attack seemingly unprovoked. If the raid had occurred while he was away, or at least most of his soldiers, that would make sense. It implied that something was about to happen which he wasn¡¯t privy to. An attack by the demon? Reinforcements from Rackvidd? Perhaps the prince was marching on Giordana or there had been a change of power back in Aillesterra.

    ¡°Secure the prisoner, would you?¡± Lucius ordered, sending Adam off to protect Shiro as he marched to the harbor himself. The first guard he passed was wavering with a lantern in one hand and a spear in the other. The man shot to attention when he saw Lucius. Before he could babble out a justification for why he wasn¡¯t moving, Lucius snatched the spear from him and proceeded to the ringing bell.

    There was no fire, no capsizing ships and no obvious stigmata use, but the noise came from the ley cannon emplacement. It served a minor function as a secondary lighthouse, but a bronze dome reflected the light entirely to sea, leaving only dancing oil lamps b between the battlements.

    When the alarm suddenly stopped, Lucius began sprinting. Half a dozen other soldiers had rallied around the base, but no one took charge to actually take the ladder up the tower. One of them saluted and grunted out a ¡°M¡¯lord,¡± when Lucius arrived.

    ¡°What¡¯s happening?¡±

    ¡°M¡¯lord,¡± the man grunted again, face grimacing in discomfort. The man¡¯s accent was so thick he didn¡¯t seem to actually speak Vassish.

    Lucius snarled. ¡°Ships? Pirates? Demons?¡±

    ¡°Men attacking,¡± the guard said, though he spoke it in the local tongue. Thankfully, Lucius had learned that much vocabulary. With that and the apparent sound of ax work, he jumped onto the ladder. With nearly two and a half stories to go up, there was no hiding his approach.

    Someone stepped over the top and he knew at once they were enemies; Aillesterrans almost certainly. No local would ever tuck pants into their boots, not in the wet heat of the isles. They hefted a curved blade over their head as they squatted down, a derivative of the khopesh as good at cutting mooring lines as removing limbs.

    The man never got to swing it. Lucius got the tip of his spear to the edge of the platform and used that as a guide to slam it upwards. Coming out of the darkness, the assailant failed to evade. The tip caught his dangling shirt and drove into him, gouging through his stomach and up through his diaphragm. He hit the floor spurting blood and unable to breathe.

    Lucius had to pause and blink to take in the sheer audacity of the men before him. They were competent to an extent, as they had killed the three men stationed in the tower. Cutting them down in close quarters¨Cas well as getting up the tower without detection in the first place¨Cwas no trivial feat to get out unscathed from. While they didn¡¯t bear wounds from it, they were trying to bear off with one of the ley cannons. The sound of ax strikes had apparently been them chopping off the mounting post to make the main weapon more portable, but it was still a burdensome log of a weapon.

    And the fools didn¡¯t realize that the real engineering was in the geometry of the ley rods! Mistakes like this are why I have never thought very highly of the Aillesterran people. Their culture may be fine but intellectually they get by only through imitation.

    The thieves regarded him for as long as it took him to put his hand to his sword, then the little parapet became a mincing board of steel and flesh. I was barely able to reverse engineer what precisely happened based on recovered corpses as my pupil¡¯s recollections. The primary difficulty arose because one of their crew had the stigmata [Cloak of Shadows] or a close cousin of it. He immediately threw up a field of darkness like a frightened squid inking before its retreat.

    The thieves did not run away with their prize however. Two of them jumped towards Lucius. We shall never know the first¡¯s plan; Lucius opened his throat with a drawing slash as he stepped in. He tried to connect it to his right, to cut that man down as well, but slashed only into the tough steel of a targe. His weapon recoiled with a clang as loud as the alarm bell, steel shrapnel flying in every direction.

    If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

    The shield glimmered with some vestige of stigmata magic. Lucius caught only a glimpse of it before the targe was pummeled into his chest and knocked him back. He hit the barrel of spent ley rods¨Cpractice munitions¨Cand had to dive into the darkness to avoid losing his head to the eastern khopesh.

    At once, he learned the darkness had no effect on the ability user. By the grace of instinct, he pulled his head back as another blade hacked at him and took off part of his nose as well as split his cheek. His retaliation was far more effective; a hack through the man¡¯s thigh which snapped his kneecap off. The Aillesterran collapsed, the pain knocking the sense out of him and ending the stigmata.

    In the light once more, he saw that the fight was not five against one. Half their number were climbing off the side of the tower with the weapon. When he rose and stabbed the [Cloak of Shadows] user through the throat, there was only a single warrior opposing him. Lucius tried to goad them, but found himself coughing up blood.

    From behind the shielder, one of the thieves stood upon the parapet and looked back at him with a sneer. ¡°Solhart I take it?¡± he asked in Vassish.

    ¡°You can speak a civilized tongue?¡±

    The thief laughed and gave a half-bow. ¡°Someone had to, how foolish would it be for us to come all the way to see you and not even greet you? The gambling lion! What a pleasure to see you in the flesh. Too bad that¨C¡±

    Lucius slammed his heel into the shielder¡¯s targe. The stigmata caused a vicious recoil through his leg, shattering the bone completely and making the skin split from a thousand lacerations. On the other hand, the Aillesterran went flying back, tumbling over the tower¡¯s edge. He screamed before he split his skull open on the sea rocks.

    My pupil was never one to talk in the middle of a fight.

    The one able to speak Vassish got the memo and threw himself into the dance of swords. Both of them hacked and swung, throwing their bodies in and out to lunge at one another while hardly able to move their feet. Lucius couldn¡¯t feel his right foot and the Aillesterran thief had his heels to the wall. He refused to budge, protecting the rope ladder his comrades were clambering down until Lucisu finally got the better of him.

    His blade caught the foreigner in the hand and removed all four of his fingers.

    The man howled and retreated at last. With a spectacular roll, he fell off the tower, only to grab onto the rope just before hitting the ground.

    ¡°Capture them!¡± Lucius howled. He watched with a snarl, unable to even imagine climbing down the ladder yet. To his great pleasure, he didn¡¯t need to.

    While climbing up into a melee took a certain grit that most men lacked, standing around the bottom of a tower with bows and arrows and spears, ready to turn an off-balanced enemy to minced meat, was something any man could do. Eight of them had assembled and laid into the men escaping with the ley cannon.

    As best as we have been able to figure, the Aillesterrans were operating off of poor information and viewed this raid as a sort of probing gesture. They wanted they ley cannon, but more importantly was the information they could glean from the attack. They weren¡¯t unskilled, but they weren¡¯t such experts that they could win against Lucius. Any of the local guard would have been trounced if they had the spirit to head up the ladder. In that sense, it was good they didn¡¯t. The poor luck of the thieves was that Lucius happened to be nearby.

    Still, it wasn¡¯t a complete loss for them.

    The thief had a stigmata of his own, and by the time anyone realized it, it was too late. Some form of swimming ability let him vanish beneath the dark surface and only reappear nearly a hundred yards from the shore. The guards hadn¡¯t been fools, they were all waiting in the area for the foreigner to expose himself, but only a very good archer could hit a man at sea a hundred yards away.

    Lucius scowled from atop the tower and wondered if any of the thieves could be brought to a doctor in time. His cuts had been rather too decisive; there was hardly a spot on the whole tower he could step without treading on blood and none of the men below seemed to be moving. Their corpses looked somewhat like trophy fish hauled out for inspection, or miniature whaling of a sort.

    Then he learned what the man was swimming towards, not the mere open ocean. If that had been the case, they could have dispatched a few vessels and caught up with him. The water ahead of him erupted like a volcano. White mist plumed up as if from a gargantuan whale¡¯s blowhole, and from the shower of water emerged a black-sailed ship. The new vessel turned, circling around the thief and throwing ropes to him. An instant later, he could be seen aboard the ship.

    Lucius saw someone else at the prow, nothing more than a smudge in the dark that barely registered as human in his eyes. The captain¨Cas he presumed¨Cwaved at him before the ship turned and sailed north.

    Lucius swore, finally understanding why it had been so impossible to track the pirates down. He had been dutifully searching the ocean like any sailor would; by looking at the top. His nemesis had been gleefully sailing beneath the surface like a sea monster and he had no way to pin them down whatsoever.

    He could, however, re-light the beacon for the harbor.

 3-33 - Shipping Fight

    Aisha¡¯s cabin had a small window which let in a bit of daylight in the morning, but nothing at all at night. With the almost reckless lurching of the Blue Breeze II, she had doused her lantern and sat huddled in her bed, braced against the frame to keep herself from being thrown against the walls. All she could do was pray to her goddess that the battle would go well.

    Those who could do something about her fate were all on the deck.

    Thornby took the helm and thrust his leather hat into the hands of the nearest swabbie. The man was new to the sea and gleefully ran below deck to stow it before the high winds could tear it away. Thornby¡¯s attention was on the pirate vessel. His gaze sharp and keep, completely independent of his body atop the bouncing vessel. The darkness shrouded the Aillesterrans, but he peeled it back with effort and experience.

    ¡°They¡¯re rowing! The fools!¡± he bellowed with a laugh, and his crew returned the laugh until he started barking new orders for the rigging. Boxes of spears were laid out for when the time was right. Grappling hooks and bows too, but the first foray would be swift and rough. The two captains contended for speed, shifting this way and that, curving their crafts between the waves and both leeching from the winds ever faster.

    ¡°BRACE!¡± Thornby roared, throwing the helm and turning the ship just so on their collision course that both prows met at once. The reinforced prow of the Blue Breeze II met the iron-clad snakehead of the pirate ship. Wood exploded into shrapnel, spraying both decks with pointed debris. The decks became laden with shards and hardly a man didn¡¯t feel something skewer his skin.

    But it was the Vassish ship that came out with speed. The pirates had pulled their oars in, but not enough. The prow flew on, catching half of them on the port side, snapping each like kindling wood. The two ships grinded against each other, pushing for space and ripping adornments off one another as the two sets of sailors ventured to glare at one another.

    In a moment, they sized up each other¡¯s crews. Thornby¡¯s emaciated twenty¨Ca ship his size should have had at least fifty, no matter how skilled¨Cto their forty. Partially, this was a lie. On the deck he only had the experienced seamen, those he could count on to pull rope and change sails no matter the danger. The rest of his crew were below deck fortifying themselves with brandy.

    The pirates were emboldened despite the damage. Both vessels curved back around, sweeping in for another collision. Thornby read their intentions at once. ¡°Shields!¡± he ordered, and the sailors scrambled to pick up plankards of wood and sheets of hide. ¡°Men, ten more, starboard!¡± he added with a stomp of his heel while finessing the rudder. Ten more sailors emerged from below, sliding over to the railings and snatching up spears as they piled behind the shields.

    Rather than an attempt to sink them with a blow to their side, the eastern captain put his faith in his crew. Half his prow was missing, the sheets of iron dangling useless, but he seemingly outnumbered the Vassish. Perfectly standard naval practice at such a time to soften the enemy with arrows and board them. They attempted to do so, landing a few dozen arrow shafts into the shields and scoring a few injuries.

    However, they were the ones to be boarded. While grappling ropes were still being wung, Sera Lynnfield took a sprinting leap off the railing with all the strength her stigmata could muster and landed amidst them. Her metal-clad boots hammered the deck as Thornby shouted, ¡°Give her a hand, boys!¡± and a return folly of arrows flew back at the Aillesterrans.

    The foreign pirates were not incapable in a fight, but there is always a certain edge to momentum. Sera landed mid ship, almost next to their main mast. Half the crew were still stowing their oars properly¨Cletting the more eager pirates loose arrows and sling hooks¨Cwhen she laid into them. From one throat, to another chest, and arms and legs and any bit of tawny flesh that she could split and turn red. She hacked and drove them back, trampling their benches and skewering archers from behind before their more competent fighters could reach her.

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    The first one that did, had a [Berserker] stigmata of his own, somewhat rare for an Aillesterran. A true shame for him that at the time, Thornby had handed over the helm and marched to the prow of his ship. When he saw the pirate dancing with Sera, he snatched up a spear and launched it across the ships. While the pirates were hooking the two ships together, his return missile smashed into the berserker. Sera took the man¡¯s head off an instant later.

    As such, the pirates would have been slaughtered quite handily, but momentum is a fickle thing, tied at the hip to morale and plagued by confusion. Before the Vassish could seal the deal, before even they had done more than even the odds of an all-out brawl, an explosion rocked the sea to their south. Water shot high as though from the blow hole of an unspeakable monster¨Csome misbegotten child of Sapphira. From that pillar of white emerged a vessel that dwarfed their own.

    Black sailed and circling round.

    ¡°Four more ships, sir!¡± his spotter atop the main mast shouted, pointing to the south east, in the direction of the wastelands.

    At once, Thornby wished the man had said nothing at all. Nearly his entire crew hesitated and looked to the horizon, peering for smudges of darkness in the night. ¡°Arrows, you fools!¡± he bellowed, but it was too late. The momentum had shifted. The next volley came from teh Aillesterrans, pelting the whole of his deck. One of the rough-tipped shafts ripped through the sleeve of his coat and punctured his arm.

    With a curse of pain and frustration, he cut to his decision. Even as several pirates came clambering over and were met by spears and swords, almost more to get away from Sera than to kill the Vassish, he ordered, ¡°Break! Lynnfield, get back here while you can.¡±

    She froze nearly to the prow of the pirate ship. Spinning on her heels, she slashed the skin of the rowers and made her own leap for the Blue Breeze II.(1) The men were already hacking ropes off and changing their rigging. Some of the pirates were so bold as to jam their oars out like docking poles and push the two ships apart. Even with superhuman strength, she nearly missed the railing. Her sword went flying across the deck as she grabbed the railing and Thornby had to help haul her up before the anchor was tossed out the back.

    With a lurch of cracked wood, the Blue Breeze II pulled back from her foe and let the pirates spur on towards the merchants.

    ¡°Rally! Get some bandages. There¡¯s more coming. Those damned stingy lords, I outta throttle those engineers,¡± he shouted, working his rage up to a froth inside until he had the grit to rip the arrow shaft out of his arm.

    Sera had to grab onto the railing for support as the backlash of her stigmata began to take its toll. Exhaustion several orders more than regular exertion was the price she paid as soon as the fighting stopped, but it was always better to be tired than injured. ¡°What are you doing? We have to stop them. We¡¯re the defenders of the fleet, aren¡¯t we?¡±

    Thornby growled, squeezing his arm and feeling warm blood drip through his sleeve. His arm burned enough to make him grind his teeth. ¡°Not the only defenders,¡± he said. ¡°Just the first.¡± He jerked his chin towards the aft of the Aillesterran ship.

    It swam past them, riding wave after wave and closing in on the main transport. The gold leaf adornments suckered them in like moths to flames. While the merchant leviathan couldn¡¯t maneuver in the least, it didn¡¯t need to. As far as the pirates ever knew, there was the sound of a metal hammer striking stone followed by a crash of stone. Then there was a hole through their hull, in one side and out the other beneath the water.

    It was only moments later that the sea devoured the ship and a few dozen killers were left to feed the sharks and anything else that might come to find them.

    The rest of the Aillesterran fleet regrouped and kept their distance. They lurked on the horizon, letting the Vassish pass south to the now-visible light of Aliston¡¯s port. Perhaps they fished some of their comrades out of the water, I was never able to confirm that detail. The curious thing was Sera¡¯s intuition as she watched the Aillesterran flagship. ¡°Someone¡¯s watching us. That must be the Cyclops.¡±

    ¡°Wouldn¡¯t surprise me,¡± Thornby said as he slumped against the mast and watched his crew patch their own wounds. ¡°Oh, that¡¯s not good,¡± he said as he held up the shaft of the arrow which had pierced him.

    The metal tip was missing from it; lodged inside his arm and tight against the bone.

    <hr>

    <ol>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">As a brief aside, when Leomund Tolzi heard the tale of this fight, I almost immediately had to conspire to keep the two of them apart. I was afraid he would try for some kind of duel with poor Sammy. Her fighting him off would have only made him want her more.</li>

    </ol>

 3-34 - The Return of the Ladies

    Lucius learned of the docking fleet when they brought Captain Thornby in to be treated. He had been debating the merits of strangulation with Sammy¨Cas a means of activating his stigmata to fix his lame leg¨Cwhen the boy had to be pulled away from the emergency. While most of the crew of the Blue Breeze II had taken care of themselves or simply died, the captain needed surgery. In a fully stocked, proper hospital, the removal of the arrowhead would have been trivial, but the half-developed hospital of the Misty Isles, even after Sammy¡¯s improvements to it over the months, barely qualified as a field hospital. For as much as the boy wanted a deep pair of pliers to reach in, grip it tight, and rip it free, he had nothing of such precision.

    ¡°You should have pushed the arrow through the other side,¡± he said as he waited for the captain to drown himself in liquor and bite down on a bit of leather.

    The Vassish captain snarled. ¡°Pirates don¡¯t use broadheads(1),¡± he said, and bit down on the gag.

    Sammy didn¡¯t have time to argue with his patient, the man was losing blood and every moment made it more likely that he would succumb to infection. Compared to other hospitals, the risk had been much mitigated. Help from Kajsa had provided them with purified ethyl alcohol, which they kept in mis-labeled jars so the locals wouldn¡¯t blind themselves drinking it, but within the alcohol were many of his most important instruments. I believe at this time he only somewhat understood the basics of germ theory, he had taken to heart my advice to cleanse and purify his tools, perhaps out of mere deference to my knowledge.

    The lingering alcohol made the cut burn a little extra as he slit the puncture wound open. With firm pressure around the upper arm, only a little blood escaped as he reached inside with a pair of wooden sticks and pinched the piece of iron so he could tug it out.

    Captain Thornby contained most of his screams to the leather gag.

    Lucius did not stick around for the procedure. As soon as he was informed who had arrived in the middle of the night and of their violent circumstances, he grabbed a crutch to hobble out at full speed. The last person he expected to see waited out before the merchant vessel. Not Golden, though he was quick enough to identify the Divine Beast despite his human form. Familiarity with their presence can do that. Aisha stood in the light of a lamppost, twisting some hair around her finger over and over again. She had lost some of her stature and confidence, and only met his gaze for a moment of recognition.

    Golden clasped his hands together, singing praises. ¡°Ah, lord governor Solhart! Hero of Giordana and the savior of¨C¡±

    Lucius shoved the walking theatrics aside and took Aisha by the shoulder. ¡°What are you doing back here?¡±

    ¡°What happened to your foot?¡± she asked.

    ¡°I killed a man with it. What¡¯s wrong?¡±

    ¡°I did something foolish is what,¡± she said and shook her head. ¡°Look, it¡¯s what you needed. You will have all the manpower, funding and distribution you could need once the islands are secure.¡±

    Still, she seemed hollow and insubstantial. ¡°Then what¡¯s wrong? That sounds like good news.¡±

    ¡°Me,¡± she said, and pulled out of his grasp. ¡°I need to sleep,¡± she said and waved Sera over.

    The lady knight had stripped much of her armor off, letting her move more easily as she followed behind. ¡°You heard her,¡± Sera said, and she whispered, ¡°I¡¯ll fill you in, come after.¡±

    For nearly an hour, Lucius was stuck at the dock performing pleasantries and formalities. He met men and shook hands, verbally confirmed reports and contracts, and the whole time struggled to take his mind off of Aisha. When he at last had gotten the full report of the pirate attack, and the subsequent escape of most of their fleet, he ran back to the manor.

    Aisha had already gone to bed, while Sera had fallen asleep in one of the drawing rooms. When he nudged her awake, she mumbled for Sammy as she rubbed her eyes open. A half grin vanished when she saw Lucius¡¯ worried scowl. ¡°Ah, Lucius¡­ so I get trouble before fun.¡±

    He sat down across from her. ¡°Think of it as fun without trouble later. What are you doing back here?¡±

    ¡°Normally a man would be happy that his lover came sailing back to him, especially with a fleet, money, and a powerful friend.¡±

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    ¡°You saw how she looked.¡±

    Sera let out her breath and planted her chin in her hand to prop herself up. ¡°She did just weather a naval battle that she was totally completely super useless for.¡±

    ¡°She¡¯s not a fighter. That shouldn¡¯t bother her.¡±

    Sera sighed but she knew that Sammy would be a good deal longer. The boy would be busy double checking stitches and bandages and cleaning injuries and helping train his replacements. ¡°How would you feel if the only things you ever accomplished were because other people helped you?¡± she asked, and then she told Lucius what had transpired at Rackvidd pertaining to the Shipping Investments Guild, as well as the danger with Raymi and his sister trying to track him down. Sera at this time had no idea why the Solhart girl would be a problem to meet, but accepted it as such without question.

    Lucius listened quietly, seeing through the direct events to figure out what I was up to on the mainland, though he could only guess at the broader strokes. While it might seem that I was up to a great deal making sure that the war festered and fostered with the central kingdoms, I must stress that it took utterly no action in the moment. Everything that skewed the flow of civilizations had already been done before ever my pupil donned the name Lucius. Of course, the war could have been averted, if men overcame their propensity to sin and fight, but that has never occurred in all of history so you can hardly blame me for arranging certain low-interest rate loans and various technological advancements. Those involved, who wagered their lives and those of their bannermen took full responsibility for their fates themselves.

    After a great deal of deliberation, he demonstrated a fraction of the wisdom I tried to cultivate in him. ¡°I need to give her a proper job.¡± I did say a fraction. At this time, he wasn¡¯t even nineteen years old, with only a few years of experience to draw on and she was the first true woman of his life, at least that he had known as one. I for one give him a passing grade.

    Sera agreed, but had no particular suggestion on what that would be. They speculated a bit about financial management, but came to no conclusion before Sammy arrived and collapsed upon one of the sofas.

    Ever polite in this regard, Lucius went to excuse himself but had to make one last request. He only remembered it when he tried to step away and put weight onto his shattered ankle. ¡°Miss Lynnfield,¡± he said, putting his hands together like he was pleading his case to the king. ¡°I need to request your services once more tonight.¡±

    ¡°My services?¡± she responded. ¡°You pay me. You don¡¯t need to request of me.¡±

    Lucius glanced at his friend and asked, ¡°I need you to choke me to death.¡±

    Sammy, despite hours of medical intervention, sprang back to his feet to shout, ¡°You are not having my girl choke you to death!¡±

    ¡°I can¡¯t be hobbled for the next week. I have to heal this with my stigmata, and no offense, but I don¡¯t believe you are strong enough to do the job, Sammy.¡±

    ¡°Then hang yourself!¡±

    ¡°I¡¯d still have be taken down if I did that.¡±

    Sera laughed. ¡°Sammy, it¡¯s fine. I don¡¯t mind.¡±

    ¡°No, it¡¯s weird!¡± the doctor protested.

    Lucius groaned. ¡°It¡¯s only weird if you make it weird. I was choked out every day for a year to learn how to use my stigmata.¡±

    Sera arched an eyebrow. ¡°You were choked out three hundred times and it didn¡¯t become weird for you?¡±

    My pupil caught himself before naming Ezra, and instead said, ¡°Nothing routine is special. Look, Sammy, why don¡¯t you give it your best shot? I don¡¯t care one way or the other.¡±

    And so, The young doctor growled and climbed behind Lucius. He made plenty of claims about medical knowledge and how little force it actually takes to block blood flow to the brain. Locking one arm around Lucius¡¯ throat, he did succeed in making my pupil black out, but habit made him let go as soon as he went limp. Naturally, this didn¡¯t actually kill him.

    Sera shook her head as soon as Lucius sucked in breath. ¡°For the love of Sapphira,¡± she grumbled and wasted no more time. She wrapped her fingers around his throat and crushed his windpipe. A few minutes later, the three of them split a bottle of wine and went their ways.

    The next morning, while the pew frogs were croaking and Lucius sparred with some of his most well behaved prisoners turned soldiers, a report came in that the guards for the cave system had been all killed. Worse than cut down, they had been strung up like puppets in the woods, their mouths cut into harlequin grins and their entrails spilled on the ground as fertilizer for the ancient trees. The demon Umbra had at last decided that the time for waiting and biding their time was up. A final confrontation was at hand, it was too bad for the demon that Lucius¡¯ saviors of information had arrived at the penultimate hour. They would soon wipe out any doubt he had about what to do to track down and corner the creature.

    All this would have led to a moment of held breath, like the dawn before a great storm. For a great many people that¡¯s what it was. Their minds did not reach beyond the tug of battle between Solhart and the demon, between the Vassish colonization and the parasitic malaise of the isles. In the usual history texts, that¡¯s exactly what the battle was. The tides of civilizations often forget the simple moments of character that can twist everything about them.

    That was the first morning that Aisha Canta, the lover of Lucius von Solhart, rolled out of bed and gripped her chamberpot to retch as soon as she woke up. The drumming cries of pew frogs were nothing more than backdrop to the moment she realized that she was not fevered, nor hungover and yet she had a sickness of the morning.

    <hr>

    <ol>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">He has a bit of a point. A simple arrowhead is a cone of metal sharpened to a point and nearly flush with the shaft. There¡¯s rather little to snag on when it¡¯s pulled back out. Little is not nothing however, and I suspect his decision in the heat of the moment was driven by a desire to protect his coat.</li>

    </ol>

 3-35 - The Wine of Life

    ¡°Behold, after many months have passed, your savior has arrived. I¡¯ve traveled halfway around the world, fought dastardly villains, learned many a vile secret, and come back changed in body and mind. Behold, no longer a crow I stand as a proper man before you at long last,¡± Golden crowed as he danced across the practice field to Lucius.

    ¡°Who the hell poisoned you? Do not touch me like that,¡± he commanded, grabbing the Divine Beast by the hair and holding him at arms length.

    Golden laughed. ¡°¡®Twas our mutual friend who did so. But truthfully, I have come at your hour of need, have I not?¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re drunk,¡± Lucius said, and he did not mean on alcohol, though the guards around him assumed as much.

    ¡°What can I say,¡± Golden said, spinning away from Lucius to sweep his arm across the city. ¡°After so long in the central kingdoms, I may have picked up a thing or two from them. They do so love to pretend that wine is blood, to commune through transmogrification. A most degenerate practice which barely resembles the proper process. But all the same, I have had so very, very much¡­ wine last night.¡±

    Lucius narrowed his eyes and ordered, ¡°Show me.¡±

    The building that Golden brought him to was unassuming, of course it was. Skulks in the night always choose unassuming buildings. The patrols would have overlooked it because, simply put, the entire city was unassuming. For years and years prior, there was hardly a need to put up an advertisement for whatever establishment existed there. Signs and labels barely permeated out two streets from the docks. Most buildings got by with the mere tools of their trade. Coopers had barrels, cobblers had shoes, and popinas had smells. Many places of trinkets and cloth, of liquor or forgotten moth, opened their doors only to those that already knew what was inside. The Misty Isles¡¯ slow economy had no need to rush about or hunt for bargain deals. There were barely even any creditors trying to scoop up property.

    Thus, the building Golden went to seemed to have no purpose whatsoever. There were bags of dried foodstuffs and mismatched furniture, but the first room had a layer of sand and dust. The bodies were in the cellar, where the guttering flames of candles would not entice unwanted attention. As I mentioned, the only people who were supposed to know what went on inside this builder already did. The very first unwanted person to discover them was Golden, and that did not turn out well for them.

    ¡°I had to come in naked, I would have destroyed my clothes otherwise. So much harder to clean than feathers,¡± Golden said from the doorway.

    ¡°I can see that,¡± Lucius muttered, taking in the gore.

    More than a dozen men, he couldn¡¯t be sure of the exact body count because they were simply in too many pieces. He couldn¡¯t even count by skulls, because several had been smashed apart, their brains missing. Rib cages had been turned into viscera platters. Legs were piled next to a firepit as if to dry out for burning. Those were the stringy bits, as far as Golden was concerned. Of all the corpses, not one liver remained, and only a few hearts. Intestines had been wrung out and used to hang the bodies for butchering.

    ¡°You had fun, didn¡¯t you?¡± Lucius said.

    Golden clapped his hands together. ¡°That I did! I never quite appreciated how useful two hands could be. There¡¯s so much more I can do, so much fun.¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t you think that if you look like a man, you should behave like one?¡±

    ¡°Why, that¡¯s exactly what I did,¡± Golden said. ¡°Do you have any idea what these men would have done to you? I saw it. When I pressed their brains to mash and drank off their minds, I saw so many things.¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t want to hear it,¡± Lucius said, trying to keep his attention on thing things of the room. Not the body parts, not the blood and gore. He looked for papers, for bags of kuku buds.

    ¡°Umbra doesn¡¯t know how to kill you. They¡¯ve seen you stabbed, punctured, murdered, and strangled, but always you come back. Umbra isn¡¯t a very smart creature, not like me at all. Their imagination is as limited as the hole they live in, barely able to see out of the conceptual world and to reality. But they are determined and patient. Dealing with your stigmata doesn¡¯t require a great wealth of wisdom, now does it?¡±

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    Lucius closed his eyes. ¡°Do you know where they are?¡±

    Golden went on. ¡°You do a wonderful job of masking the pain, of acting like you don¡¯t feel it. Your master nurtured that well in you, but you don¡¯t hide your emotional pain. You¡¯re so obviously attached to the people around you and they can be killed.¡±

    Lucius glared at the monster beside him. ¡°Just tell me where they are. You know, don¡¯t you?¡±

    ¡°They were going to poison you first, to tie you down. Then they would dissect the girls in front of you. The redhead preferably, but the little alchemist would have sufficed. It would have been like an appetizer before they cut you apart and carried you away. Bury you piece by piece on a hundred different isles and let your mind break in the time it would take to heal. The whole time, your last memory would be of screaming.¡±

    Lucius drew his sword and put the point to Golden¡¯s throat. He pressed it and forced the Divine Beast to stagger back. When Golden¡¯s back hit the wall, he pushed until just before blood was drawn. ¡°If you keep talking, I will cut your tongue out. I will hobble you and send you blind to a temple of death to live as a beggar.¡¯

    Golden smiled. ¡°Your threats are getting creative.¡±

    ¡°Because I know how to threaten a thing like you.¡±

    ¡°Threaten perhaps, but do you know how to kill me? Do you think running that steel through my body and spilling my blood will really be the end of me? I am a daemon, life without breath.¡±

    ¡°I know.¡±

    Golden clicked tutted and shook his head. ¡°Then don¡¯t you see the issue? The lord of this land is also a daemon. How do you plan to kill them? Going to stab them until they don¡¯t move? You need more tricks up your sleeves than that, boy.¡±

    ¡°I will stab them until their magic is spent and their force of will is exhausted.¡±

    Golden rolled his eyes. ¡°This isn¡¯t some mere parasite in a cave, even if their relative magic is comparable. This daemon has no physical form. It is a force and a force cannot be cut by steel alone. You need my help. That¡¯s why I said I was your savior.¡±

    At last, he took his sword from Golden¡¯s throat and sheathed it once more. ¡°Name your price.¡±

    ¡°Your first born¨C¡±

    ¡°I should kill you for even joking like that.¡±

    Golden smirked. ¡°Sorry, it¡¯s a classic. That would be asking too much however, and I recognize that. I will settle for the heart of a beautiful woman and I¡¯ll even accept that I will have to wait to get my payment. I have dined on the locals and found them wanting. When you are recalled from this wretched colony, then I will take my payment. Unless you¡¯re willing to give me a visitor, but that would tarnish your reputation somewhat.¡±

    Lucius scowled and turned back to the corpses, if they could even be called that. To the playthings of the Divine Beast. Much of them was nothing more than meat, but he could still see the fingers that would have ripped him apart. He saw the eyes that had surely watched him day after day, biding their time on the bidding of the daemon of the Misty Isles. He owed Golden already, he could feel that in his gut. ¡°Fine,¡± he said, meaning to wait for a proper prisoner that would need to be executed.

    Golden clapped his hands together. ¡°Wonderful. Well then, are you ready?¡±

    ¡°For?¡±

    ¡°To go kill it. These lovely sacks of meat were so kind as to tell me exactly where Umbra¡¯s core is, a phylactery of sorts. We can set off at once and be done by dinner, not that I¡¯ll have much of an appetite of course. I think I¡¯ll be quite glutted by the time we¡¯re done.¡±

    At this time, Lucius still had not spoken properly with Aisha. All he definitively knew was that he had been told to give her space and as yet, that had not been rescinded. There were a number of small things he could productively do with the day, treating with the merchants for instance, but making people wait to see you is a classic power play for a reason. Furthermore, Golden had just offered to help him remove the biggest threat to his future.

    He agreed brusquely and marched back out, leaving orders to burn the house the next morning without going in. The town guard had to be assembled, not that they would be useful against the daemon. He needed the bodies as a perimeter, a full mustering of soldiers to march the streets and wait. He assigned some to the manor and delegated them beneath Sera Lynnfield for further instruction.

    All of the men were called up, even the half-trained and the half-loyal. Squad leaders divided them up between those that could be trusted. It was a tenuous kind of strength, but the impression mattered more than the effectiveness. All that Lucius needed was that his enemies would not concentrate their forces and pierce through them. He wanted them split up and outnumbered; afraid to attack without support. The army would do exactly that, he hoped; keep them in check long enough for he and Golden to descend through the caves, through the cursed temple and down to the sanctuary of that which lived and did not breathe.

    He declared that on that day, the murders would be coming to an end. The Misty Isles would be free of the violence, the tyranny. A very bold and almost silly declaration, but lies give strength to such a narrative, and he needed them to watch his back.

    And so, he and Golden departed to put an end to this saga of violence.

 3-36 - Slay The Demon Of Sloth

    The assault began at dusk. While the Aillesterrans weren¡¯t stopped by darkness, their mobility was reduced and it was hoped that they would not dare to take another raid so soon after a failure. There was a boldness to the idea of trying again immediately, a way of calling the bluff, but just the same Lucius had to deal with Umbra as well. When he could pull troops away, he marched them to the south of the island and encircled the temple.

    Taking only a handful, he entered the den first. The other soldiers were not there to help him in the fight, but to escape with any orders he might need to send out. Should they fall, in all likelihood they would be eaten by Golden. The men didn¡¯t understand just what this northerner was, but their instinctual distrust served them well.

    The Divine Beast was tickled that the locals didn¡¯t even understand what he was. While I had put a great deal of effort into making him his fleshy home, the thing still radiated magic. However, the prisoners from the north were not the soldiers Lucius brought to the temple. While some had earned the right to guard the city¨Cout of necessity for troops¨Che still trusted the locals the most. It was the people of the Misty Isles that were to prosper from the elimination of the demon and thus would fight most fiercely. However, many had never seen a man as pale as Golden. Their conception of Vassish was polluted by the southern nature of most visiting Vassish, practically Giordanans or at least tanned to look like them. Golden nearly hailed from Skaldheim. His skin resisted the burn of the sun and left him the color of milk; something else nearly foreign to the islanders.

    His nature was not lost on the demon.

    The moment they passed the threshold from cave to temple, that they set foot upon the basalt slabs mortared by moss, Umbra knew. Starlight patterns through the slitted windows faded as though tendrils wrapped around the forsaken fortress. The spirit grabbed hold of her domain and squeezed, knocking dirt from beams and sills before she toppled a tree across the entrance. It was a sodden, vine covered thing that laughed at the strikes of axes. The soldiers outside attacked it, finding only rot and wet mass that refused to be hauled off and yet blocked the gateway.

    ¡°Relax,¡± Lucius ordered, and drew his sword.

    ¡°Honestly, you¡¯re safer in here,¡± Golden said with a shrug. ¡°For now,¡± he added with a grin.

    Among the men at arms behind Lucius was at least one who thought to know the island governor well enough to speak up, for he was one of the first to greet him so many months ago. The warehouse guard, now promoted somewhat, Clyde gripped his spear and asked, ¡°Can you tell us the plan yet?¡±

    Lucius glanced over his shoulder and arched his eyebrow. ¡°Plan? I¡¯m going to stab it to death.¡±

    The men rattled like the windy jungle outside. ¡°But, it is not a thing of flesh!¡±

    Golden laughed. ¡°It will be.¡±

    Then the demon spoke. ¡°You have made a mistake.¡± It sent vapors through the ground to suffuse the air with cooled smoke. The temple was buried well, but not abandoned. Umbra had workers carefully tending braziers below, feeding the holy fruit, the kuku bud, to the blaze to intoxicate the air.

    ¡°Take your medicine,¡± Lucius ordered, and he along with the soldiers began to chew on fermented amphos root. Sammy had been tasked for weeks with finding an antidote to the poison, but the best he could do was suppress the symptoms by supplying an overwhelming stimulant. The bitter tuber burned their mouths but burned the kuku bud slothfulness more. ¡°Now then, keep your eyes open and you might learn something!¡±

    Golden clapped his hands together and commanded, ¡°Come out, dear cousin. Or I will make you.¡±

    The demon jeered back, ¡°You lost your feathers, biped.¡±

    Golden cocked his head to one side, snarling. ¡°What did you say?¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re a slave to your gluttony, cousin.¡±

    From a ring upon his thumb, Golden produced a blade no larger than a bird¡¯s claw. He ripped it across the pads of his fingers and splattered his blood upon the floor, infused with his will. The droplets formed words, forcing magic into the room and consecrating it not as a temple to Titania but to his own progenitor, Shepherd. He layered it upon the walls and ceiling first and then wrote upon the floor, each rune a stake at the heart of the demon.

    The stones rumbled. They cracked and rippled, collapsing in on themselves as though serpents swam through the walls. It rumbled the forgotten temple but the structure only pulled in tighter to each other. It was not something pushing through the masonry, but roots being ripped out.

    Until, the floor before the altar, that horrid brazier wherein islanders would leave sacrifice of food, wine, and blood, the ground erupted. It peeled back like the hatching of an egg and the twisted carcass of plant flesh that housed the seed of Umbra emerged.(1) It wore detritus like robes and gazed upon the world with a lantern light from within its cowl. To speak of its size would be to miss the question, for it treated itself like a puppet¨Cthe strings its own flesh and barbed with thorns.

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    Lucius stepped forward, clad in steel and mail and his neck girded in a rough gorget. ¡°The first of you, go! The demon is here, its sight is here!¡±

    To protect its flesh phylactery, the price was her sight of the islands. It could no longer speak to its adherents, could not whisper information from one to another and permit them to evade patrols and investigations while stabbing the defenseless to death. This was the moment the guards of Aliston had to strike, even if Lucius failed to slaughter the demon.

    ¡°Clyde!¡± Lucius barked as he strode to meet the monster. ¡°The cultists are your problem. Drive them out or cut them down. Axel will be remiss if he doesn¡¯t get any fun though.¡±

    The guardsman straightened his back and stuck out his chin before barking, ¡°Aye sir!¡± He spotted the stairs down, or at least what he presumed them to be, and led the remaining guards in a charge.

    At this point, there may have been some quips, some pithy one-liners of boast and antagonization. The memory record certainly implies as such, but those are so often conflated with after-the-fact desire that I have omitted them as crass. The only thing certain is that Lucius charged the demon while the demon lashed out at every human. Vines swung like whips, a living cat-of-nine-tails studded with poisonous thorns.(2)

    Lucius laid into the monster before it could take more than some passing swings at his subordinates. While so many of the plant tendrils were trying to coil around hard leather, he began pruning. The body of the demon was far inferior to its ability, but he knew that it would be loathe to invest all of its soul to the material preemptively. It wanted to remain ethereal as much as possible, but he could not hope for it to be suicidal. Thus he sliced at every vine, every root and tuber and thorn and mass of demonic flesh. He hacked them off and cut them away. He ripped into the demon and forced it to heal. He forced it to invest more into the body and strengthen itself.

    Lucius worked through sword form after sword form, swinging as fast as he could. He took any slash he could connect with, even if Umbra could swing through and lash him across the face, the arms, any scrap of exposed skin between the plates of his armor. The poison burned into his body, soon fighting against his stigmata in an attempt to exhaust him.

    This was only to buy enough time for his subordinates to descend to the haze of intoxicating fire. Umbra realized this as soon as they left and Golden hadn¡¯t bothered to move. ¡°You can¡¯t move, can you?¡± the demon asked, turning its gaze on the Divine Beast.

    ¡°Oh, I can. But why would I need to when I have a monster between us? And this monster is on my side,¡± Golden said with a shrug.

    The poison burned in his blood, making his skin itch and his chest tighten. The throbbing of his heart made his vision shake, but the fight was only beginning. The rush of battle nearly made him careless, but I had long ago beaten that out of him. His sword had become heavy, the blows dull. For every cut through the vines of Umbra, a bit of sap had stuck to the steel. While most had been kept off by the oil of his sheathe, that had quickly worn off. Just one little spot of grime stuck to it became a blight upon his blade. Like algae clinging to each other upon a sea rock, wafting strands of weed across shipwrecks, his sword had nearly become useless.

    Golden sighed. ¡°You can deal with that, can¡¯t you?¡±

    Lucius needed it burned off, but clearly didn¡¯t have the time for that. ¡°I¡¯m fine,¡± he said, and drew his arming sword with his off hand.(3)

    To write of what came next, what can words offer? Must I say that he fought, that he slashed well and true and traded wound for wound? That at times, Umbra grappled with him? Pitting the strength of roots against the strength of man? What a folly that would be. I¡¯ve met so many so-called monks and alleged thinkers that talk about how the roots of a tiny plant can find their way into a mighty boulder, that year over year their persistence can work the crack open and split stone like a nut.

    Rubbish.

    There is no sense in thinking of a rock, an inert object, as mighty. All it takes to protect such a stone is the lowliest tending of an inept child¨Cto pluck the weed from the crack. A rock does not have this capability, so it cannot be said to be mighty. That title is reserved for a monster of will that can be smashed against stone again and again, until his clothes are red and his armor dripping. A creature who can become filled with more poison than blood and still force himself upright out of spite and determination. When his fingers dig into the flesh of that plant and tear it apart, bathing in sap and terror as he at last forces the demon to manifest in truth, that is a being I will agree is mighty.

    A pity for the demon who underestimated him.

    <hr>

    <ol>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">While the demon of Aliston was almost entirely of a spiritual nature, to become wholly so was a step too far; a leap of faith it could not make. For the same reason parasitic godlings take on bodies of flesh to contain themselves, the emissaries of the gods always kept a nucleus of self somewhere they could rebuild from if need be. There are several things which could swallow a mere emissary without a body, particularly if they are pulled from the protection of Helios. The nature of those I will not be detailing.</li>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">A very common misconception is that poison is a fast process. No, acid is a fast process. So too can be said of base counterparts such as lye. There are very, very few chemicals which can cause immediate damage to a human and Umbra did not know of them. Not to say the poison did nothing. Even bad, that is to say ineffective, poison can cause rash, nausea, fatigue, sweats, imbalance, all manner of horrible effects for a warrior. However, there is good reason that fighters don¡¯t bother to poison their weapons: it takes longer to debilitate than stabbing them a second time. Even in a siege, they don¡¯t use poison. They use feces, because they have the time for disease to manifest. Very durable creatures humans are.</li>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">An arming sword is hardly longer than a dagger and rarely worth noting. It¡¯s practically a part of public fashion and only drawn if the warrior has lost his primary weapon.</li>

    </ol>

 3-37 - Victory In The Isles

    Kajsa threw herself back into work, having grown tired of sloth and eating Lucius¡¯ cooking. She told herself that it was to earn her keep, that the smelters weren¡¯t going to teach themselves how to work the factory. Her other excuses about construction taking too long and insufficient chemicals had withered over time, but still gave her enough justification in her mind to explain why that was the day she went back to the factory in earnest.

    She knew deep down that it was because Aisha had returned. The redhead hadn¡¯t said anything unkind to her, in fact it seemed like Aisha was positively avoiding her and everyone else in the manor. The thought of being in the same room as Lucius¡¯ lover made her skin prickle and her stomach twist in ways she didn¡¯t understand. She no longer knew what her relationship was with the young governor, and what it meant that he wasn¡¯t the man he claimed to be. At this time, she didn¡¯t know that anyone else knew of his lies and kept her mouth shut accordingly, but that itself was part of the problem. It made her a conspirator, privy to something no one should have known and a great deal of childhood history too.

    Being slightly older than Lucius, she had never much considered him as a man. Of course, this had to do with him leaving before reaching puberty and to call a boy a man has a certain foolishness to it. Confronted with him as he was then however, she found herself forced to realize that she had partly ignored him because of his injury. She had discriminated against him for missing his arm and assumed that he would end up as something like a groundskeeper for a temple somewhere, if not part of some other minstrel group¡¯s attractions of the grotesque. That he would rise to be a nobleman of sorts was inconceivable.

    Of equal surprise was his arrival at the factory, half naked and barely able to stand. His body was a putrid mass of congealed blood, bruising, swelling, and so many lacerations that his stigmata could hardly be made out. Worst of all, his hair had been destroyed in a manner more gruesome than I care to detail here.(1) He looked like a corpse dug out of a shallow grave and forced to march.

    And then he dropped a severed head on the factory floor between them, not of a human but an aberrant serpent. The skull would have been too large to fit a bull, with a maw large enough to devour a human whole, mincing them along the way with rows of barbed teeth. It was no ordinary animal, despite the size; it was cyclopean. An orb like glass containing fire sat center in the skull, blinded by a broken sword thrust through the center of it until the hilt had jabbed into the orbital socket.

    And its tongue still lapped at the air. The flickers of muscle made blood ooze from the stump as ragged flesh writhed as though yearning for the rest of the body.

    Kajsa screamed, tripping over herself as she scrambled away from it.

    ¡°Relax,¡± Lucius said, his mauled face slurring his enunciation. He gestured at the head of the demon as he said, ¡°It¡¯s not going to¡­ Hmm¡­ yeah, you should stay away from it. It¡¯s pretty poisonous.¡±

    She turned from it to him, her brow furrowing as she tried to pull herself back to her feet. ¡°Are you alright? Do you need a doctor? You don¡¯t look alright. By the goddess, what happened?¡±

    He laughed and scratched at some of the scabs forming on his cheek. Ripping them off made discolored puss ooze down his jaw. ¡°It¡¯s not really over yet.¡±

    ¡°How is that thing still alive? What is it?¡±

    ¡°That,¡± he said before a laceration opened up inside his throat and blood gushed from his neck into his stomach. He at once began coughing and staggered into the wall as he spat the poisoned blood across the floor. One of the workers, Walter as it happened, offered him a waterskin, which he drained in entirety before explaining that it and the stain on the ground would have to be burned because of the poison. When he turned back to Kajsa, her fear was written plain across her face.

    She was an alchemist of faith, not one of war. The two of them were of different worlds entirely and by keeping her at his side he realized he would be dragging her into a depth of conflict that few would choose of their own accord. So, he kept the explanation brief. Sitting down on a workshop stool to catch is breath, he said, ¡°That is your fuel for the factory.¡±

    ¡°What?¡±

    ¡°Constantly harvesting wood from the jungle would be expensive, wouldn¡¯t it? Burn that instead.¡±

    She glanced again at it from the corner of her eye. ¡°Is that safe?¡±

    He shrugged. ¡°I wouldn¡¯t breathe the smoke but you shouldn¡¯t do that anyway. Keep the furnace hot enough and it will just be ash coming out, not the kuku drug. You pretty much won¡¯t run out either. I figure for the next few years that thing will just keep regrowing. Keep it burning and it won¡¯t ever do anything.¡±

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    She asked, ¡°Is that¡­ the demon? Is that what you fought? Lucius have you been out all night? How are you not dead on your feet?¡±

    He laughed. ¡°Amphos root will do that to you. I couldn¡¯t sleep right now if I wanted to, and trust me, I do.¡±

    ¡°Is your healing not enough?¡±

    ¡°It will be, eventually. Don¡¯t worry about me. Hey, you,¡± he said with a gesture towards Walter. He had put on some weight since returning to land, and stopped complaining about his use as a bellows. ¡°Use a shovel or something and put that in the furnace, will you?¡±

    Walter fetched a shovel but hesitated. ¡°Do you want the sword back?¡±

    Lucius laughed. ¡°Not enough to reforge it, actually¡­ sure. Will make a good trinket,¡± he said as he rose and walked back over to the head. He put a hand to the forehead, but his fingers weren¡¯t working well. He had to take a few tries to brace it properly with his foot before he had a strong enough grip to rip the weapon stump free. Fire sprayed out of the pierced eye, singing the ground as people jumped away. Lucius kicked it over with his boot as it healed and the fire stopped.

    The sword was blackened entirely, only as long as a hand given how it had fractured. Due to the tempering of the divine blaze, the end no longer held an edge. In fact, the metal looked almost like it had lost some of its form and become a crude impression of an object, like a recollection of the original.

    ¡°I bet I¡¯ll cause a stir if I use this as something like a passport, what do you think?¡± Lucius asked as he rolled Umbra¡¯s head onto the flat of the shovel.

    Kajsa wrinkled her nose and stepped out of the way as Walter lugged the body part over to the furnace and threw it in with the wood. Lucius was the one to slam the gate shut as the fire enveloped Umbra. Just as its miasma of sloth and impotence enveloped the Misty Isles, Lucius began the long process of burning it away to nothing but ash and memory. The furnace howled as it pumped smoke into the sea wind.

    For weeks after, people who had inhaled the kuku bud second hand, or long ago, experienced nightmares of fire. I could find little coherence between them, as though the will of the Divine Beast were thrashing about in agony and casting its emotions and impressions without a lick of Will. I suspect that my pupil was lucky the factory had been built so far from downtown out of necessity . There might have been a riot if the smoke directly sifted into the city. Instead, it diffused into the ocean and if any feeding frenzy occurred among the reefs and shoals, the children of Sapphira won.

    With the fight finally over, the strength began to drain out of Lucius. Even the burn of amphos root could only last so long. The coherency in his words faded, and Kajsa took it upon herself to guide him back to the manor. She didn¡¯t take him inside because he insisted that he didn¡¯t want to be seen until he had healed up some more. Instead, she guided him back to the training ground and helped him sit down against an old tree where he promptly fell asleep.

    Axel and Lexa took turns standing silent guard for him, permitting no one to reach him before he woke. With one exception however. Someone delivered him a warm loaf of bread and a kettle of tea. When he roused, he ate and drank without knowing who had brought them. Before he lapsed again, he quipped that a feast was in order.

    Naturally, a feast was being prepared. Most of his subordinates were busy cleaning up the city and tidying loose ends. The cultists who had sworn themselves to Umbra were wracked by mental agony as their link to the demon burned, making their arrests trivial but time intensive. The need to act swiftly made it a struggle to stop and cheer, which made it all the more important that Aisha was coordinating a pig roast in the manor¡¯s front lawn.

    A pit had been dug in the morning, the animal slaughtered and spitted. Hour after hour they fed wood to the blaze and basted the beast. Every patrol of soldiers was allowed a smell, but anyone who attempted to pilfer food was beaten over the head by Miss Lynnfield. The fat beast, a great expense, was slowly made ready just in time for Lucius to rouse and stagger over with a ravenous stomach.

    He never thanked me for not interrupting the feast. I very well could have. I had arrived that day at Aliston, based on correspondence with Golden, and was eager to see what my pupil had achieved without me. Instead, I let him have his night of fun.(2)

    While the death of Umbra brought the strife of the Misty Isles to a close, Aillesterra still marauded the southern sea. The pirates withdrew not out of fear of Vassish naval might, but because it became more important to concentrate their harassment along the Giordanan coast and prevent the recapture of Puerto Faro. Peace thus came to the Misty Isles for a time.

    And that time was precisely until the first shipment of tobacco and grain arrived in Hearth Bay. The nobility simply had to reward Lucius for his hard work, but I shall get to that soon enough.

    <hr>

    <ol>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">A pleasant side effect of his stigmata was the rapid regrowth of his hair. He also lost his scalp in the fight against the godling east of Rackvidd, but a night of feasting gave him all the fuel and time needed to bring back his blonde hair in full. I still don¡¯t understand why it didn¡¯t do the same for his beard until much later in life.</li>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">I spent that night fetching Golden from the temple. The poor creature had stayed behind in the re-sanctified chamber. He burned off every odor of Umbra, every vestige of Titania and pleaded with his goddess¨Chis own mother¨Cto show herself. Unfortunately for him, she had not spoken for some centuries and that was not the year she broke her silence. Out of consideration for his pride, I kept his distress private, but the dead need no such privacy.</li>

    </ol>

 3 - Designated Discussion Chapter

    So, I have no released about three and a half novels worth of content, spanning a little over a year of writing. In retrospect, I''m not exactly happy with Act 1 but there''s no real way to go in and fix it without just redoing it from the ground up, and there''s no way I''m doing that. Unfortunately, I think the quality difference from Act 0 (written halfway through 2022) to Act 1 causes a lot of readers to drop the series. Maybe that''s just speculation, but I don''t have much to go on. In the spirit of that investigation however, I wanted to use today''s "chapter" release in an attempt to engage with everyone reading the series ab it more.

    I suspect a lot of people are reading the series but for a variety of reasons have been keeping their thoughts to themselves. There''s probably a good number of people who have refrained from reviewing it because even if they enjoy it and think it quite above average, they don''t want to give it a 5 star rating, but know that anything less than 5 stars actually penalizes me because of the inflation of ratings that puts even IGN to shame. If I just described you, please consider sharing your thoughts as a comment on this chapter. I''m still very much trying to improve as a writer, and critical feedback is helpful.

    That said, I think that after a year of releases, Undying Emperor has stagnated. It''s arguably more successful than anything I''ve released on Amazon, but I think that with my current skills and knowledge, if I were to start a new series I could make a very strong bid for Rising Stars. I don''t plan to abandon UE, but in the future it might become a series I update at random through Amazon, not on here. Until then, I won''t quite be putting UE on hiatus, but I am going to step down to one chapter a week, to free up time in my writing schedule. A proper launch on this site requires a lot of material to release very quickly, so I need to build that up and also continue releasing stand alone novels.

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    With that said, please make use of comments on this chapter to let me know your thoughts. I never made a Patreon or a discord, so this is the best I''ve got for now.

    And if you''re curious about what else I''m up to, you can follow my twitter https://twitter.com/KrakeJames</a> or check out my website, jameskrake.com

    Act 4 - Fallen Crest Abbey will begin releases this monday. I took a different stylistic approach with it, which I really enjoyed but some might find too much of a departure. I think it will come out at 9 chapters in total before I  start the next arc of Lucius'' story.

 3.5-1 - Fallen Crest Abbey

    Foreword,

    I have included the following texts as a matter of historical record. As they do not pertain directly to my pupil, they lack the typical interpretations and embellishments that one might expect from my story thus far. They are nothing more than the primary documents themselves, edited down for brevity and translated to the more modern vernacular. I have not gone to the normal lengths of rigor and recreation precisely because they do not pertain to Lucius but some of the actions pertaining to his accomplices.

    Notably, there was a great deal of speculation about the events at Fallen Crest Abbey during Lucius¡¯ reign, and as the saying goes, a lie can fly around the world before the truth has finished putting his boots on. The deaths had an allure to the bardic mind, entrancing just about every songwriter in the land except for Aisha. Most muddied the story up with earlier tales, forcing it to match a tune with all the finesse of a sledge hammer. A few claim to have heard the story from Prince Gabriel himself, but he of course did not know the entire story himself.

    While the lies of the tap room caused some of the most widespread reputational harm to the one who benefited from the event, this is not to imply that the men of means believed the lies. Indeed, the high court of Skaldheim are responsible for preserving most of the below quoted papers as part of their own spy network. The war with Vassermark had not truly come to a head in the year 755, but the northerners were already preparing and intelligence gathering was one tool they did not neglect. Honing this ability nearly brought Lucius to his knees, but that is a story for the future.

    Suffice to say, I have selected the appropriate documents whose authenticity can be confirmed and arranged them here to tell the story of Fallen Crest Abbey, before the subjugation of Westshire.

    A brief tale.

    <hr>

    755 CC March 27th

    We sacrificed a yearling today. It was a pitiful ritual. I don¡¯t think Father Marcuese had it much in him, sick as he was. I feel like I let him down, but there was nothing I could do. He, like every week, wanted to sacrifice the healthiest of the herd but we would be ruined if I brought one of the sows down. We¡¯re likely to have issues as is, so I had no choice but to single out one of the babes. Male, of course. Felt like I had practically taken it off its mother¡¯s teat before dragging it down beneath the chapel. So immature that it didn¡¯t even recognize the stench. It didn¡¯t know to be afraid.

    These Vassish bastards are going to ruin us. They¡¯re taking advantage of our hospitality because Father Marcuese is sick. They¡¯re dead set on killing each and every one of the hogs. The wallows are already devoid of their trundling bodies. We¡¯ll be lucky if we can buy some breeders from Christopher¡¯s herd after they leave. If not, the stock will stagnate before we know it.

    The yearling¡¯s eyes were like amber. In color, yes, but I mean in the way they shone. There was such life as it nuzzled me for my apple core. I swear that dozens of the men this Prince Gabriel bought have less soul in them than my pig. But, as Father Marcuese sadly told me, ¡°That is why it is a good sacrifice.¡±

    My position as abbey swineherd gives me access to the ritual chamber, a privilege I do not deserve. Most of the brothers don¡¯t have any idea what it looks like beneath the hall. They must imagine it looks like a cellar, that it is directly below the floorboards of the temple. They would never guess that it takes one hundred and twenty-three steps to reach the chamber, that it is enclosed within arches, the walls smoothed with concrete like the shell of an egg. The abbey is to hide this room. It is the tombstone to an angel.

    Father Marcuese was sharpening the knife when I arrived. His fingers had lost their color, but still pressed the steel to the stone. He scraped and grinded and stropped until I could have fileted fish with it. Even he looked sad at the sight of the little pig. He got on his knees and daubed it with oil before kissing it on the head as I rolled up my sleeves. The Abbey Master sat down to collect himself, muttering the appropriate prayers as I straddled the pig. If anyone else could have performed the ritual, they should have, but as the bishop it was still his responsibility.

    Slitting the pig¡¯s throat was like any other, maybe a bit harder as the skin wanted to stretch more. The knife was sharp and I had an easier time than normal butchering. The moment blood sprayed across the ground, the life in the yearling vanished. It buckled beneath me, to knees and then to ground. It flopped into the pool of its own blood and I watched as those amber eyes dulled to black and a fat, purple tongue lolled from its mouth.

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    The rest of the ritual went quickly. There just wasn¡¯t much to it. The pig was so small when we piled all the organs and fat upon the altar, glistening eggs of waning life, Father Marcuese looked down on them and shook his head. I was still trying to peel the hide off of the meat when he turned to me and said, ¡°We¡¯ll have to burn the meat too.¡± So simple and yet it meant we would have almost nothing to eat that night. We normally burned the head. The blue flames that emerged from the brain were not new to me, but when the eyes burst and ran black down its cheeks, it boiled over against the immature ribs. The smoke that plumed up to the ceiling was like tar. the fume of the philter smeared across the concrete worse than the foulest concoctions of the water goddess. The smell stuck in my nose, clinging to the little hairs until I couldn¡¯t breathe. The taste assaulted my mouth as I had to pant the sulfurous haze.

    And for all that, but a single crack fused together upon the crest. One little crack stitched back together upon the crown of our angel. With the relic in such decay, it is no surprise that Father Marcuese has grown so ill, and these Vassish bastards would impoverish even further. They would eat us bare and pick our pockets if they thought they could get away with it and where would that leave us? If the princeps does nothing, the abbey will be destroyed.

    I hate that I am powerless. I hate that Father Marcuese just smiles and nods when I bring these things up to him. I hate these foreigners and lastly I hate that hatred is a cold companion for the night.

    <hr>

    755 CC March 28th

    Father Marcuese has passed away. I am in grief but the old crook punished me one more time, from beyond the grave no less. He has nominated me as the next Abbey Master.

    The madness!

    What does he possibly think I can do? What do I think I can do? It¡¯s madness, but I will have to think of something to do. This abbey is my home.

    755 CC, March 29th

    <hr>

    To the esteemed Princeps Helvetius, Lord of Westshire.

    I write with a sorrowful hand to inform you as is your due of the passing of Bishop Marcuese, Abbey Master of Fallen Crest Abbey. Following an injury in the planting of the fields, the elderly father took to bed rest upon apothecarial orders, from which he never rose. Pneumonia claimed the dear keeper of the faith at the wizened age of sixty-seven. By the time this letter reaches you, I expect he will have already been interred in the abbey mausoleum alongside his predecessors, and in time beside myself.

    My name is Peter Montoya, formerly a swine herd from the shores of Westshire. I had the pleasure of seeing you at the martial tournament of 747, and witnessing your skill with the spear. I was but a boy at the time. Afterward, I found my calling in the faith. As I grew into manhood, I grew my mind with the writings of the angels. Of course, the honest labor of the land was not easily shirked for such pursuits.

    In fact, it was your feasting requirement of the abbeys that led to my employment as a brother underneath Father Marcuese. The needs of traveling diplomacy stipulated certain materials always be on hand, among them a herd of swine which I was eminently qualified to tend to during my studies. It is this herd which I must now speak of, with much regret.

    Presently, the Fallen Crest Abbey will not be able to host any of your diplomats, or even yourself, to the expected level. It is understood that such a royal procession will need as many as fifty heads of pig to facilitate the meeting as well as further travel. There is no doubt about this, and we were much prepared to do so.

    Unfortunately, travelers from neighboring Vassermark have depleted our supplies. The head of these diplomatic pilgrims was none other than Prince Gabriel, second in line to the Vassish throne. He came in earnest pursuit of our library, and brought with him three hundred men as his personal guard. I must concede that Vassermark is a mighty kingdom indeed, and a great ally of ours against northern aggression. Indeed, the Princeps own sister, may her soul rest in peace, was the queen of Vassermark; thus making Prince Gabriel your eminence¡¯s nephew.

    Naturally, we agreed we had an obligation to feed these foreigners during the prince¡¯s stay. I have prepared below an accounting of his consumption during his first week¡¯s stay.

    117 heads of hog.

    32 barrels of ale

    44 bottles of wine

    215 candles

    17 gallons of cooking oil(1)

    39 wheels of hard cheese

    200 baskets of flour

    Additionally, they consumed an amount of apples from the orchard that cannot be estimated, but we no longer believe we can expect a harvest until the end of fall. We will therefore be unable to provide any amount of cider to any holiday events this year.

    We will soon be unable to adequately host the prince of our great ally, even as he continues to spend his days betting upon sparring matches and his nights re-reading the few texts we have on the sexual rituals of Titania. I fear that if the current affairs continue, it will soon reflect poorly on Westshire¡¯s abilities. I am humbly requesting relief from your eminence, in what way you see fit to deal with your nephew.

    Your civil servant, and son of the sun, Abbey Master Peter Montoya

 3.5-2 - A Pilgrims Duel

    755 CC, March 29th

    To the Blessed Daughter, Bishop Jean de Jeamauex,

    I regret to inform you that my predecessor, Father Marcuese has passed away from natural causes last night. I am now the representative of Fallen Crest Abbey, Westshire. My name is Peter Montoya, the foremost priest left at the abbey. Despite my lacking years, I must request your aid.

    Several of my more senior brothers have seen the way the winds blow and chosen other paths for their lives, throwing in to other abbeys, other monasteries, or returning to secular life entirely. If any one had done so, I would not mind. However, these events have conspired to catapult me from a junior position, to Abbey Master. What is worse, I have been forced to be host to a noble spawn who seems to be intentionally trying to provoke a war. Were he acting as he is now but in the Princeps¡¯ court, I am sure someone would have challenged him to a duel to the death.

    We of Fallen Crest Monastery of course have pledged our lives to Helios above, and cannot throw them away in the name of honor.

    There are other options available to us though. Enclosed with this letter is Father Marcuese¡¯s signet ring, duly fractured upon his death. I would have liked nothing more than to have accompanied the ring, in due pilgrimage and honor. I have hardly been part of the church for long enough to expect anything less. Circumstances conspire against such an act of faith however.

    I must request the ring be presented along with a sample of my blood (enclosed too) for annointment and reforging at once. I am Abbey Master in name only, and lack the rank to deal with the prince of Vassermark in a way that would respect our holy order. I must plead with you that you explain the circumstances to the emissary and receive his blessing for me.

    Until then, I will do what I can to preserve the abbey.

    Sincerely,

    Abbey Master Peter Montoya

    <hr>

    755 CC March 29th

    On nights like this I envy those of the vulgar faiths. They would be able to believe that such suffering as I have endured is a test of their faith. Their gods yet live, they have will and intrigue and guile and capricious punishments. I know that sailors in Vassermark hold as gospel that surviving a bad storm is proof that they will have good seas in the future.

    I find no such solace for myself. My god is dead. An ancestral idol who left behind teachings and virtue, not trials and tribulations. There is no explanation for why I am blighted by this noble brat than the horrid nature of mankind.

    It¡¯s war he wants. This is a provocation. Were he merely an idiot, I could have sent his retinue away, or taken him on some local journey. Perhaps I could have entreated him with drink and song. He has resisted all of these ideas because he is not stupid. He is malicious. He wants to bankrupt the abbey and force me to crawl on my knees before the lord, begging for compensation.

    By the light above, I do not know what to do. If I rebuke him, I may well be held as the cause of war, of thousands of innocent deaths. I cannot have that on my soul. To do nothing will be the destruction of the abbey, that which has taken me in and given meaning to the pursuits of my life. It has opened my mind to all that is good in the world, aside from leaving me bereft of wife. It is an ancient establishment that should, like an elder tree with befitting roots, bend to the great winds and weather any storm without moving its foundation.

    The abbey could do that under Father Marcuese. I pray that I have the strength within me to do so as well. Further, I pray that if I do not have the strength, Sapphira will intercede to stop her so-called faithful. Helios may be gone, but his sisters have no desire to desecrate his temples. Perhaps I can find some blasphemy charge to level against the prince.

    I think we have some of the old tomes of the sea goddess within the library. Tomorrow, I will search for them and try to find some charge to level against him that he would have to answer for. My Vassish is not as good as it could be, but perhaps the rigorous study will do me good. Something to think about aside from the destruction of my home while I wait for external aid.

    What a miracle it would be if someone else, beside Princeps Helvetius or Bishop Jeanne, were to arrive and liberate me from this curse!

    No, I will not make such vain hopes. I will not merely curse the darkness, I will light a candle even if I have to cast the wax myself. And then I will curse the darkness.

    <hr>

    755 CC, Apr 1st

    More unwanted visitors have arrived at the abbey, and as of yet no word of aid from either of my lifelines. This new arrival is at least not a bother like the prince¡¯s men are. He is a northman, but tanned like a Giordanan. He says that he came here following the trail of an escaped troll. Wounded and dangerous he says, and I well believe him. I have never seen a live troll myself, but many a night I could hear their distant bugling across the sea and I have seen many of their skulls brought down as trophies. If what he says is true, I cannot say.

    This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

    Sitting here and writing this, the sun has already set, revealing the twinkling stars of heaven. It is a beauty that I find polluted now. Whereas a normal reverie might have me questioning the beauty of the sun, gifted to us by Helios and revealing all the wonders of the material world to us, compared to the lavender jewel box of night. Now the sky is blighted by fires and the abbey rings with the sounds of drunk men. I find myself wishing more than ever to be able to sleep, and less capable of it than ever.

    I do not hear a troll¡¯s bugling however. Perhaps a lone beast does not cry out if it has no kin to sing with. I do not know and perhaps I should not question a northman¡¯s knowledge.

    As it turned out, however, troll or not, I do not care if he tells the truth. He has an honest nature to him, or at least a forthright one. Knowing now what he can do with words, perhaps I shouldn¡¯t say that he is honest. Like a young girl can twist her father with her tongue, this Leomund fellow can stoke ire and snuff it out as easily, entirely at his own whims. These Vassish men are easy to rouse, it is true, but the feat is no less impressive for it.

    Indeed, he came asking sanctuary and when we professed we had none less to give, he proclaimed that he would simply earn his keep then. None of us brothers of faith thought much of this, but anyone claiming to chop firewood and pump water was, at this dire time, welcome. To both of those tasks I can only say that he did enough to not burden us further, but I would not say he did so much that he earned his keep.

    Not until the evening supper began and I saw a twinkling smirk on his face. He had taken a seat far from the prince as befit his status at the abbey, and yet he was close enough that they could hear one another. I do not quite recall what the prince had been boasting about, but it made Leomund laugh. It was a bold, forceful boast of a laugh that silenced the entire dining hall and he didn¡¯t even seem to mind that all turned to look at him.

    The prince pressed him on why he laughed so, and he tried to wave it off. He claimed, ¡°I am still learning your Vassish tongue. I must have misheard and let myself drink too much.¡± Then he winked at the prince.

    Already deep in his cups, the young lord swaggered over, hand on the pommel of his sword and asked, ¡°What did you think you heard, northman?¡±

    ¡°Please, I am pilgrim. I cut the wood here. Is that not allowed to be pilgrim?¡± Leomund asked as he rose to face the prince, quickly revealing he was a head taller than the young lord. The broken nature of his words confused me at the time, because I had overheard him speaking with Brother Anthony while they cooked and I would have described him as poetic in his descriptions of foreign food.

    Of course, the prince responded, ¡°Tell me what you heard, pilgrim.¡± I hate men who spit when they talk, and he did so intentionally.

    Leomund brushed his chest off and leaned down. ¡°I thought I heard you boasting. But that could not be. You are but child. Princes are supposed to be educated on such things.¡±

    The prince floundered, attempting several ways to respond to the accusation that did not sound petulant and childish. His tongue failed him as Leomund sneered down at him. I do wonder if perhaps he could have turned the jab back eloquently if he had actually read some of the books he forced me to fetch out of storage. His retort was, ¡°I am a master swordsman and I should have you thrown out of here! Know your place, northman.¡±

    I see no need to reiterate the way men boast, the way they perform their monkey dance like circus animals. The rituals of quasi-consensual combat are hardly a fit study for a pious mind. Suffice to say, the prince did not take the fight himself. It was something lowly and therefore delegated. I believe it was the very soldier who set fire to the hog three days past who took it upon himself to put the northman in his place. I wonder if perhaps he had lost some degree of status for the way the hog died¨Cuneaten.

    The northman laughed and clapped his hands together, yelling at the Vassish to clear the tables away. He barely paid attention to his opponent and busied himself with riling up the onlookers. A most effective way of irritating one¡¯s opponent I suppose. The Vassish man had to bark at him to strip down, earning some jeers from his comrades. The sight of the [Berserker] stigmata upon the northman¡¯s broad chest changed the tone of the room like water to a fire.

    The Vassish man also had a [Berserker] stigmata, but of a different sort. I¡¯m not clear on the difference in their abilities, but Leomund cackled at the sight of it. He even apologized to me for the mess he was about to make. Perhaps I should study stigmata further. I might find more use for my own.

    ¡°Pankration? Boxing? Wrestling? Eastern grappling? Which will it be?¡± Leomund demanded as he tucked his pants into his boots and cinched them tight. I believe this was a sign that he had no hidden weapons. Perhaps it was so the Vassish soldier couldn¡¯t grab him by the cloth as easily.

    ¡°To submission,¡± the soldier said, and waved Leomund over.

    I have never seen a more satisfied, or more demonic, grin on a man in my life. I hope that is never pointed in my direction. The northman rose and cracked his knuckles. ¡°Tell me, do you know what a grendel is?¡±

    The Vassish responded with a jab. Maybe it was a hook. I¡¯ve heard these terms bandied about and seen so many drunks mime the actions that I still do not know what means what. The fight was no proper fight either. I have seen children do more to threaten an adult than what this flailing Vassish achieved. Leomund moved like a ghost, like his body was no more than vapor. Swerving and darting, he bobbed his head around every flying fist as though he were playing a game to see how close he could let the Vassish get.

    When the man resorted to grappling, he tried to grab Leomund around the neck. Perhaps it was the hair. It was so fast I cannot be sure. Before he had so much as closed his hand on Leomund, the northman did something to him. There was a twisting at the wrist, a wrinkling of the flesh that quickly turned red. Only later did I realize the man¡¯s hand had been twisted the wrong way around.

    To my shock, the absolute destruction of his dominant arm didn¡¯t even phase the man. There was no shout of pain. No wailing of agony. I have, now and then in the kitchens primarily, seen men injured and stare at the wound without reaction. I have seen fingers lost and jaws broken and that absurd delay between action and consequence but it was just that; a delay. No pain ever came to this Vassish soldier. In fact, I saw him fight with the shattered hand flopping on the end of his arm. He couldn¡¯t punch or grab, but he threw elbows like a man possessed.

    I think his stigmata removed his sense of pain. I suppose I can see how that would help a man win a fight in the battlefield and earn him the title of berserker, but whatever enhanced Leomund was entirely different.

    Leomund ended the fight by smashing the man¡¯s nose and making a fountain of blood cover the floor. The Vassish fell and Leomund sneered at the prince. ¡°By your leave. He said submission, but he is your man, is he not?¡± the northman asked, putting his boot on the soldier¡¯s short ribs.

    I think I will be able to sleep well tonight. Despite the disgust Leomund created in me, the Vassish are quiet. I eagerly await the comforts of my bed.

    I do wonder what a grendel is, however.

 3.5-3 - Legends of Monsters

    755 CC Apr 2nd

    A reading from the Book of Dusk.

    <blockquote>

    For the Sun is my shepherd, providing for my needs. He shines on me as he does the green pastures and as I lay beside the calm waters his warmth restores my soul. He is my guide on paths of righteousness. Though I may walk through the caves of shadow and death I will fear no darkness for thy light shines always on me. Thy glow comforts and embraces me.

    </blockquote>

    On this day, April second of the seven hundred and fifty-fifth year, we inter the bodies of twelve pilgrims. Death took them through violence and in the depths of night, fraught with terror and peril. They fought for themselves and others but paid the ultimate price. They have been buried in the southern cemetery of Fallen Crest Abbey, with all honors due to warriors of the light for they fought to protect the abbey against evil.

    Their names are as follows.

    ¨¦douard L¨¦v¨ºque

    Andrien Bret

    Absolon Roy

    Roch Coste

    Albert Chaput

    Michel Daniel

    Yves Coste

    Oda Perreault

    Antoine Savatier

    Philippe Faucheux

    Paschal Dufour

    Anatole Bret

    May the Shepherd guide their souls to everlasting bliss, to the comforts of home and family which they will never again know in this world. Their sacrifice will not be forgotten.

    <hr>

    755 CC, Apr 2nd

    To the esteemed Princeps Helvetius, Lord of Westshire.

    I must write to you with the utmost urgency. I hope my previous letter has reached you about the current visit of Prince Gabriel of Vassermark. A most tragic turn of events has plagued the abbey, and I plead for your intercession in force. The night before I pen this missive, the men camped outside the abbey were besieged by a force most foul.

    We came upon their bodies too late, already broken like kindling sticks and dashed upon the ground. Grown men, warriors of Vassermark, they were. Even as I write this, they are still digging graves and patrolling the woods in force for whatever foul creature killed them. Prince Gabriel¡¯s force is large and mighty, true, but I fear that they, who are strangers to this land, will not find the monster.

    Not only is it a mark against our hospitality, but I fear that if they do not find the monster they will protect themselves and retreat in the name of protecting the prince. He has no honor I can appeal to. Should that happen, the abbey will have no forces to turn against this unknown behemoth that slew twelve armed men.

    What can be said of the monster with honesty is very little. It came in the night, beneath the light of the waning moon. I wonder if the unusual quiet of the abbey drew it in, out of some sense of security. For over a week, the Vassish have terrorized the night with their noise and the first night they did not, this thing crept in among their ranks.

    It has the strength to crush a man¡¯s skull like a walnut. Whether it is impervious to blades, intangible, or superhuman, we do not know; but despite drawing their weapons, none of the Vassish were able to wound the creature. Or, if they did wound it, it did not bleed. Most disturbing, but perhaps the most actionable, is the footprints left behind. They were beyond any human frame and I fear they can only belong to a troll from the north.

    One of our guests, a northman who may know what he speaks of, called it a grendel. I hesitate to include such rumors in a message to you, my liege, but forewarned is fore-armed. He believes a lone troll has migrated down from the tundras and now makes lair somewhere in the marshy woods near the abbey. If this is true, then I fear the Vassish will not know how to fight such a creature.

    I must beg that you send a company of knights to investigate the matter and bring us peace.

    Yours faithfully,

    Abbey Master Peter Montoya

    <hr>

    755 CC Apr 2nd

    I do not understand this Prince Gabriel. Twelve of his men perish in an attack from a troll, at least we believe it to be a troll. Slaughtered like invalids, like slaves thrown into an arena against gladiators. Now he finds some spirit of righteous manhood inside himself. He spent the whole day pacing around the farm fields, hither and tither on his horse, as his men ranged afield with swords in hand looking for the beast.

    Swords!

    What rubbish. They need spears. Boar hunting spears. They might run into boars they¡¯d do better against a troll than a sword. These westerners don¡¯t know a thing. What is to be done if it kills more of them? He¡¯ll want to set fire to the forest. He¡¯d spit at the world and learn that a damp forest doesn¡¯t burn. Wouldn¡¯t that put a stick in his eye?

    I can¡¯t believe that just yesterday I would have done anything to be rid of him, eating through all the stores of food the abbey has collected. Now I fear that he may leave. Of course, if it is a man-eater, so many fat bodies heading south may take the troll with them, but what if it stays? Who would defend the abbey?

    This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

    The bodies we buried today, hastily and hardly annointed, linger in my mind. We had no coffins to put them in, and we barely had all of their parts to bundle up. By western tradition, they should have been buried at sea if possible, but they are in the central kingdoms and will have to be content with our traditions. The gods are siblings afterall. Still, those men hardly deserved to die. There was nothing unusual about them beyond normal soldierliness. I still don¡¯t believe they should have been here in the first place, but that doesn¡¯t mean they weren¡¯t victims. I suppose their reward is our tending to their graves for the coming years. I hope they do not rage at Shepherd when she greets them.

    The living are another matter.

    The northman is spreading rumors among the brothers. I do not know if he is doing it on purpose or if it is circumstantial. After seeing what he did at the dinner, I cannot trust his lying tongue. It was in the kitchen, while he peeled potatoes and sweated by the fire, he told Brother Anthony of grendels.

    I am certain that he is dramatizing. He is telling legends and enjoying the telling of them. While I can believe that a troll has made it this far south, he would have the brothers believe a bogeyman stalks the night hoping to crack their legs off and suck out the marrow.

    What I do believe is that such a creature would be drawn to our fires, or rather, to the fires of the Vassish outside. The northern beasts are more than animals and if one is by his lonesome, the sight of a fire would draw it near. Trolls worship fire the way Giordanans worship death. What would he have us do? Tell the men to spend the night in darkness and the cold? I think the northman simply wants to see the westerners afraid. He has nothing to fear sleeping within the walls of the abbey.

    More than the grendel¨Cthe troll. I should call it a troll. More than the troll, what haunts me as I write this nightly journal is the bird I saw. Black as ink and larger than any eagle I have ever laid eyes on.

    No, perhaps I should write this down before I go to bed. I found myself laying awake, staring at the ceiling and wondering if I could hear the crunch of a troll¡¯s footsteps. Let me put this to paper and expunge it from my mind. I will pin it down with words and trap it so that it can be a phantom no more.

    Leomund Tolzi, the northman, said that a grendel is more than a lone troll. A troll alone is the easiest to hunt and kill, the safest to duel for honor and glory. A lone troll is one that has survived being alone. Tautology of course. What it means is that the troll¡¯s family has been slain, sometimes by another herd but often by men. The grendel bears that grudge, smoldering inside him and warms himself with it. In dark nights, when a herd of trolls should be gathered with one another, surrounding a fire, a grendel is alone for he has no family and he has no one to sing with.

    Thus, his nights are quiet, and even seasoned hunters cannot find him. Thus, a grendel learns guile and cunning while he grows and matures in strength. Often, the first sign that a grendel is in the area is the massacre he creates. Often of cattle, sometimes of men.

    And it is a rare grendel indeed that has been marked by the gods. Too rare to exist I think.

    There. I feel silly for even having written this down. It is a Skaldish thing and I am of Westshire. What¡¯s more, the men are noisy and on guard tonight. The abbey is effectively surrounded by an army. I will sleep tonight.

    <hr>

    Legends of the North by Sean Cainwicks

    Excerpt from page 67

    I want to stress that I have never seen any credible source to certify that a mere troll, mighty as they may be, received a blessing from the gods. There are legends a plenty, notably about the Fire King which was so far in the past that the difference between apocryphal and reality is moot, but the best physical proof is nothing more than a stretched out bit of leather in the royal treasury of Skaldheim. There are several written sources from scholars of known history who claim to have inspected the troll hide and confirmed that the marking upon it was of a divine sigil and not some posthumous tattoo. However, not only do the reports differ on the recreation of the marking but Skaldish historians cannot be trusted. It is a well documented fact that the kings of the north change their records to suit their current needs. This goes for ancient treaties as well as grain harvests. Nothing is too petty for their meddling, but more can be read on that elsewhere.

    As this text concerns itself with the legends, let me begin with an explanation of troll behavior. They are family creatures simply put, but with a war like disposition. Unlike humans, their kings, if you¡¯ll forgive the analogy, take the lead. To speak more literally, the father of the herd is the first to fight for territory, for food, against humans or what have you. These war events become great brawls with chest thumping and bugling before they start smashing each others skulls apart with whatever is on hand. Curiously, they display a sort of honor. If the fight is consensual between the parties they will fight on even footing and approach empty handed. However, should circumstances lead to an attack on one herd¡¯s den things are much different. The defendants have a tendency to pull burning logs from their firepit and use them as scalding clubs. The thick sap of the pines in the north can make these very viscous weapons. The stench when such a log is quenched in the lifeblood of a troll lingers for weeks after. On the other hand, the attackers will try to announce themselves with a volley of rocks like a rudimentary siege bombardment. Chaos, of course, ensues.

    This behavior is held as common proof that most troll attacks on human settlements are not war behavior. When molesting a farmer, the trolls like to merely corner their four-legged quarry in a field and smash the animals¡¯ head with a rock. Humans find typical success in running away, though their homes will often be torn apart in their absence. When hunters attempt to cull trolls in the area, that is when problems arise.

    As I mentioned earlier, the eldest troll is the first to engage. Should he perish, his sons and daughters may attempt to flee. This creates groups of immature trolls not yet wise to survival. They don¡¯t know how to hunt their own game and they bear resentment. The easiest source of food just so happens to be the little creatures that took its family from it.

    They raid and maraud and kill most any human they set their sights on until they are finally put down. For this reason, the northmen must be very thorough when tracking down their quarry, to ensure that all of them are slain. In the worst case scenario, a single male will escape. Depending on the weather, he may become untraceable. Normally a herd is tracked by the sounds of their bugling at night, but a lone troll remains silent and more difficult measures must be taken to find it.

    This all brings me to the legend of the first grendel. Not to be confused with the generic term, they¡¯re all references to the original as contaminated by the passing of the years as it may be. Grendel, as best as I can place it, originates from the first century, a very barbaric time in the north. The modern reader might be forgiven for thinking that Skaldheim always had roads and walled cities and castles and the like. Those are in fact recent additions. In the first century, the northmen lived in villages. They elected chiefs during wartime votes and then only gave him the right to oversee assemblies. The only standing guard he kept were his friends and sons, and they were not guards so much as guests and family.

    According to the poem, a translation of which is available in the appendices of this book(1), the year previously the northmen had pillaged the south. Depending on the particular rendition of the poem, this either meant Westshire, Portacheval, or perhaps Drachenreach. Church records are incomplete due to more recent wars, raids, and fires, but what survives indicates that such marauding occurred every few years, so this historical fact does little to narrow the possible times. Regardless, the story goes that the king, King Haelfbear, declined to raid the south once more, having done so the year previous.

    One of his jarls took umbrage, claiming that the king had kept too much of the treasure himself and had been miserly with his rewards. After leaving the harvest festival in an uproar, the king sent to have the man brought back for a new assembly as was the king¡¯s right. The jarl was never seen alive again. The messenger found the bloody ruins of the jarl¡¯s longhouse. The men ripped apart and the women ravaged. The stench of troll polluted the air.

    King Haelfbear may have feuded with the jarl, but the jarl was his bannerman nonetheless. He declared it a fortune that they had not exhausted themselves in the south for mere gold. There was a price of blood to be paid in the north. The king rallied his bannermen and bid their wives safety. They marched north, following the troll¡¯s tracks and so began the winter of Grendel.

    <ol>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">No surviving copies have their appendices intact.</li>

    </ol>

 3.5-4 - Musings Among Manuscripts

    755 CC Apr 3rd

    Two dozen men buried today. The troll killed two dozen of them. I ran out of holy oil during the ceremony. I made a fool of myself in my disbelief. We had always used a simple vial to carry the oil for burial ceremony and I even refilled it that morning and I ran out. I wasn¡¯t wasteful with the tincture but on the twentieth corpse I realized I had run out. The whole thing. What a fool I was, but I have never seen so many die in one day.

    I ran back to the storeroom, learning the hard way that Brother Brenin had fled with a satchel of goods for the road. There, I refilled the holy oil but by the time I had returned the soldiers had already stitched up the bags. I watched them threading the needle through the last man¡¯s nose as I came upon the great grave. I drizzled some on and mumbled the prayer. I don¡¯t think any of them listened to me.

    A troll surprising them one night could be understood, but the second night they had been looking for it. The creature had slipped around them completely. They thought it would come from the marsh, the woods, the wilds of nature. The damnable monster waltzed right down the road, hard packed by wagon and hoof. By the light, you would think such a large creature would be noisy! When it walked at leisure it was like a phantasm. Feet like tree trunks glided across the ground and only made the noise of squelching mud here and there. One of the survivors said he didn¡¯t even realize it was there until the antlers reached across the night sky above him, like dark fingers. He only survived because it grabbed the man next to him.

    Of course, when it fought we heard it. The stamping and leaping like a battering ram beat against the earth. The screams torn from the lips of dying men. Panic and death, one after another. It was like the presence of the creature blotted out the light. Even when torches and lanterns were brought, all that could be seen was darkness. Like ink upon the night it danced between them as a shadow that left corpses in its wake.

    It was like the raven.

    I cannot fight. I had no business going there. I can¡¯t be blamed for watching from afar with all that I was armed with was a candle and my nightclothes. But it was because of that I saw the raven.

    Perched upon the branches of a barren oak, the bird of night watched. Still as a statue and fit for a gargoyle¡¯s fright. Without a touch of breath or a twitch of feather it watched the clash of steel and flesh-leather. More than a shadow, the gloss of wings gleamed with starlight, coating itself in heavenly radiance. Bereft of movement and yet brimming with the light of life¨Cmore than any animal had the right.

    I knew as soon as I saw it, that godly gift to the mortal realm. Awe struck me to my knees for an angel of death was before me. I choked back my wailing cry and buried my face as tears made my face less dry. I am nothing but a commoner thrust to priestly power, I keep vigil to a dead angel of a dead god whose protection has long since ended. I knew not what prayers I could offer the reaper of the final shepherd.

    The cries of death left it unmoved.

    ***

    I couldn¡¯t bring myself to speak beyond the burial process, and I was not alone in that. Many of the soldiers were too morose to part their lips for more than food and wine. They toiled with the soil, ripping out stone and stump to make the room to lay down their brothers to rest.

    Expecting them to ride out in force, to take the path of war back to the grendel¡¯s lair, I retired to the library. I didn¡¯t want to face anyone, not the Vassish nor even my brothers. The solace of papyrus was what I sought. At first, I thought it might do my mind good to toil through the process of duplication, to transfer some of the old texts to fresher stock. Before I had even picked out a proper manuscript from between the tomes of vellum, I happened upon a gap in the shelf, a void in the dust.

    I was not alone in the library.

    The prince was there and he was the one with my missing book. My missing book. Just listen to me. Father Marcuese was our self-appointed librarian for lack of a dedicated one and I suppose it has simply fallen to me. I¡¯m afraid more and more is going to fall to me. At least three of the acolytes have already left and I don¡¯t blame them.

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    My greatest surprise, more than him being in the library rather than marauding with his soldiers, was that he had an actual text before him. No pictures to excite the youth¡¯s mind. He had our copy of Legends of the North by Sean Cainwicks. The script was old, the spelling antiquated, and worst of all written in traditional calligraphy instead of simplified cursive. At the time, I could only guess what he was reading.

    ¡°The responsibilities of a king seem to transcend the realms. Funny, isn¡¯t that?¡± he asked, using the most eloquent pronunciation of the common tongue. The entire duration of his stay, he had been steadfastly using his native Vassish tongue such that it never even occurred to me that his mother hailed from Westshire. Of course he could speak her language.

    My shock aside, I responded as befit my station. The old adage that protected the abbey for centuries. ¡°I¡¯m afraid that my expertise ends with theology, good sir. I would never think to tell a king or prince how to behave.¡± I very much wanted to tell him to get lost of course.

    ¡°There¡¯s some kind of universal sense of dignity. The head of state is the embodiment of the state. I may not be the king yet, but I am not so different as the prince. I think it comes down to instinctual trust.¡± He trailed off at that and shoved the book across the desk so that he might stand up, fold his hands behind his back, and gaze out the warped glass window. ¡°It¡¯s a form of social contract I think. Are you familiar with the concept?¡±

    I said I was familiar with the concept, as a polite man would. The prince was evidently about to expound on it whether I had ever talked with one of those demagogues or not.

    ¡°In the heat of battle, much is stripped away from a man. He has to remind himself of duty and obligation which implies such things are not in his essence but forced upon him.¡±

    ¡°Some men accept duty. I would hardly say the gods forced us to be the way that we are.¡±

    ¡°I wonder about that. Sapphira appointed our royal line, and her angel Acheliah has given judgment through perhaps a dozen crises of succession. But the central kingdoms created themselves. Helios didn¡¯t single anyone out and put them in charge. He didn¡¯t tell you people to follow and yet you do. Your governments are hardly different from those created by the gods.¡±

    ¡°Imitation. We too have received guidance from the emissaries.¡±

    The prince shook his head. ¡°I think what happened is that Sapphira and the other gods told us to use governments that self-evidently worked. It¡¯s not that they work because of divine intervention. There is a back and forth between king and subject. Each has a role to fulfill and so long as the other holds up their end of the bargain they are satisfied. A social contract of sorts, don¡¯t you see? A man alone in the woods has no need for rules of behavior. Only a man among other men does. You put him in a nightmare, a frantic and bloody melee where his friends are being crushed by a monster¡­ Priest, I saw my men, who I thought loyal, turn their back and flee while others were killed; and I don¡¯t blame them.¡±

    ¡°That sounds reasonable to my judgment.¡±

    He spun on me, his eyes sharp as flint. ¡°But why? Why do we think such cowardice is permissible? Is it not because I, their prince whom they owe loyalty to, had nothing in my power to protect them with? Because I could not protect them that rendered their loyalty moot? It is a breakdown of the intangible network of concessions between men that creates the web we call society.¡±

    I confessed that I couldn¡¯t tell if he was appealing to history or siding with the reactionaries anymore. I was not the most equipped to grapple with such ideas and yet he went on. He treated me like one might speak to a cat when complaining about the issues of their day. Dutifully, I kept my mouth shut as much as I could and, like a duelist, waited for my opportunity to deliver a verbal coup de tat. If such a moment occurred, I sadly missed it.

    His speech went on, for my ears alone and now the eyes of any who reads this journal of mine. ¡°If I am to be a rightful prince of the land, and later the king should the gods will it, I must uphold the social contract as we have composed it, especially in a moment of crisis. As such, I must destroy this monster, permanently escape from it or resign my position.¡±

    For days now I have watched these Vassish soldiers tromp through the woods and do nothing more than get lost and confused. They lose the trail every time they reach the marsh. They have made fools of themselves by day and corpses by night. It showed some wisdom to look to the learnings of the past for how to deal with the troll, but when I studied the book myself it seemed there was very little to learn. Westshire was never much troubled by trolls.

    My clumsy tongue, bereft of the gift for diplomacy, proposed to the prince that if he thought so strongly about his duties and obligations, that he should do whatever he could to learn how to act rightly. I told him he should speak with the northman, Leomund Tolzi.

    Perhaps I shouldn''t have.

 3.5-5 - Waning Resources

    Dear Peter,

    I regret to inform you of my intentions this way. It¡¯s cold and callous and impersonal. It does not befit me as a man of faith. But, before the faith I am a man of flesh and blood and I must face certain realities.

    The abbey is doomed. There is no longer any hope for it. The protection from our founder is clearly lost if a monster like this troll can rampage on our doorstep. This was supposed to be a sanctuary but now it is nothing more than a feudal estate of the princeps. Our tax money matters more than any contribution to learning and the preservation of history. I hardly have any role in that on a good day and I believe our good days are behind us. The Prince has seen to that.

    No amount of toil or tithe will be enough to rebuild the abbey¡¯s wealth. You will be forced to beg the other churches for support, which they will have little to give, or to make concessions to the Princeps. Perhaps you will be forced to beg favor of the very people bankrupting you.

    This presupposes that any of us will even survive. I do not know why, but we have earned the ire of a monster. Oh how I wish he would be willing to content himself with the blood of the Vassish, those rabblerousing wastrels, those pond scum in human forms. The world would be better off with them buried and I know that¡¯s not a proper thing for a man of the cloth to say. I say it because from this day forward I will no longer be a man of the cloth.

    I wonder Peter, do you know how meager our larders are now? Now empty the cellars? Have you looked over the harvests and yields? I can¡¯t imagine you have, your current responsibility was only just thrust upon you so I imagine you don¡¯t know how nearly the abbey will come to starving before we can even begin to harvest from our fields. As the former swineherd, you must think this time of year plentiful, but we have almost no pigs left at all and they were supposed to carry us through to the spring harvest. The abbey is ruined. If all it meant was eating gruel for a year, I would gladly stick through it.

    But it is not merely poverty. It is the troll. The monster. The GRENDEL. It has the scent of something in the abbey. Maybe first it came because of the noise but no monster would continue attacking like this if there weren¡¯t something it craved. Either someone here or the relic itself.

    I shudder to think what will happen if a troll were to get the relic and I advise that you take it and flee if you can.

    As for myself, by the time you read this message I hope I will be on a ship sailing far away.

    Your former brother,

    Anthony

    <hr>

    755 CC Apr 4th

    Brother Anthony died last night. No, I shouldn¡¯t say it like that. He was killed last night, and his corpse thrown at the doorsteps of the abbey. Part of me says I should be thankful that there wasn¡¯t another massacre. The grendel did not waylay us this past night, nor did I see the raven. There was no mass grave to dig, no heap of broken bodies. There was just the one.

    The men who found it didn¡¯t even raise an alarm, not one that woke me. They told the prince and sallied forth with horses begging for rest. Ten good men, or so I¡¯m told, rode down the trail in the night lanterns at their saddles and bows in their hands. I do not know if it worked well, and I don¡¯t think the prince knows either. They chased it down and loosed arrows into its thick hide as they darted between the trees as best as their steeds would allow. The troll got the better of them eventually, killing two of their horses but not getting the men.

    I imagine it must be good eating for a troll to get so much horse meat. The prince was satisfied to let him have it. He told me that it was time for a change of tactics. Since their swords could do little to hack through the tough hide, he took inspiration from the siege of Blue Scale Temple. A one hundred to one siege that failed to crack the mountainous hold. The Dragon Khan threw his army against them and the defenders held fast. They loosed arrows dipped in feces, eventually spreading tetanus and other diseases through the filth. The Dragon Khan¡¯s army was brought to its knees by it, and the prince saw it as his duty to repeat the trick.

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    Disgusting and dishonorable, but a man-killing troll deserves no honor I suppose. Perhaps infection will weaken the beast in the coming days. That is his hope and mine too.

    Regardless, the fighting is his problem to deal with. Tending to the dead is mine. Brother Anthony tried to steal away in the night. He must have thought the troll would be busy attacking the Vassish, that he could sip out without being seen. He took nothing more than some bread and a lump of cheese the size of my thumb. It cost him his life and now I wonder if there will be any escape at all. I have received no word back from either the princeps nor the bishop. No courier birds at all have arrived and I find myself afraid that my messages out have not reached them either.

    How could a troll fell birds from the sky? There must be some explanation but I do not know.

    At least, I know one letter reached its recipients. Brother Anthony penned one for me. I have it beside me now. He had such hope mingled with despair. I don¡¯t even blame him for gambling upon his own feet and wit but his gamble came up short. Snake eyes. Twos and sevens. Perhaps a gambler never really knows when his next bet will be his last. It happens to us all eventually. No, I suppose there are some gambles where you might expect death, but I think Brother Anthony expected only hardship and shame.

    All the brothers of the abbey attended the service, of whom still remained. Upon counting heads, it looked like half a dozen acolytes were missing and could not be found. The northman was gone too, but he told Brother Mikael he was off to get a spear. I wonder if he has been biding his time like a merchant hiding stock. He wants his price to be as high as possible before saving the prince.

    I can only muse so much about it. Brother Anthony was right. I busied myself through the hours of the day inventorying all that we had left. We are going to be boiling leather just for something to chew soon. The Vassish aren¡¯t even plundering us further, but that I hesitate to call a silver lining. I must figure something out. It is our duty to protect the relic as well as our own lives.

    If only the crest could be used by a human.

    I think tomorrow we will have peace at least. I can sense a storm coming in. Normally such a downpour would be an omen of a miserable day sitting beneath a shack and covered in mud. There are so few pigs now that they can be kept in one of the old barns. If the grendel does attack it would be a fool. The mud tracks it would leave would guide us right to its lair in the light of the sun.

    <hr>

    Legends of the North by Sean Cainwicks

    Excerpt from page 70

    Grendel made his lair in ruins fitting his purpose. Monuments of erected basalt among the ice. Gargoyles from the previous age leered down upon King Haelfbear and his men. Satyrs and nymph made from frozen stone, their joy eroded to scowls and spite. ¡®Twas a city larger than any fief or hold in all of Skaldheim, but only long ago. What life they found was nothing more than lichen, snow mice, and raptors. Death was more than a forgotten thing in those ruins, for Grendel had spitted heads upon the ancient walls, the blood clotted and hoary with ice.

    Orthodoxy forbade them to enter the ruins. The emissaries of the wolf mother forbade it as heresy. King Haelfbear held the sin of heresy in one hand, and the lives of his bannermen in the other. He did not fault any of his men for stopping at the gates, but he welcomed those who would march with him. At this, many of his men wailed and cried, for they did not want him to go. Even if he defeated the troll, the price may well be his own life.

    That, he said, would be a death of honor.

    Wishing to do all that they could, the men of faith girded their king in armor and piled upon him as many weapons as he wished to carry. After a toast of wine, he entered the forgotten city with ten good men at his back, each carrying spear and bow. They swept through the icy ruins, following the beaten down tracks of snow made by the beast. Ancient walls and foundations stuck up from the permafrost at odd angles and spans, shimmering between ice reflections as a storm rolled in from the west. The light of the sun did not diminish, but their sight shrank nonetheless. It had the effect of making the exposed stones shift and squirm when out of sight, like the tombstones of old were following around them and closing them in but they were only ushers showing them the way to the profaned temple of old.

    ¡®Twas there that Grendel met them. As tall as three men and with hide as black as the night sky. His antlers had grown in thin and sharp, like a web of claws crowning his head. In his hand was a might weapon, a blade of stone sized for his giant frame like no human could ever heft. He had ripped a weapon from the grasp of a statue within the temple and given it true purpose. And so, he faced King Haelfbear with a marble edge.

    King Haelfbear was undaunted and ordered his men to fan out. They encircled the troll with bows after stabbing the tips of their spears into the ice. This was not for them, but for the king. To slay a troll the size of Grendel would take a great many weapons, not merely strength and bravery.

    Before the battle began, Grendel turned his head to the gray sky and trumped, deep and woeful. He screamed to the heavens about his wrath for having lost his herd, but the gods only heard the corruption nurtured inside him, fed by anger and hatred. The gods heard, and they judged.

 3.5-6 - Flight of the Prince

    755 CC April 5th

    We didn¡¯t bury the bodies deep enough. I should have overseen it better. Grey clouds reign over the land, steadily dripping water upon the hills and glades. Every tree bows down for the heavens, laden with the meager nectar of the sky.

    The stench of decay seeps through the fresh mud. Some men are valiantly at war with the slipping erosion. They fight with hand and shovel to fill carts which they dump atop their fallen comrades. The rain continually turns it to mud, making it dribble and slough around their boots, oozing and sucking against them. I¡¯ve watched them for an hour now try to cement the dead in place, to stop up the seeping gasses of decomposition.

    They won¡¯t find any success until tomorrow.

    Perhaps because of this, however, I have found myself thinking more about my stigmata. Such a mild gift from the gods it seemed. Part of why I joined the order was curiosity out of why I had been given this ability. I wanted to understand it and find a use for it. When I grew up, I first thought it was something like a compass. I didn¡¯t think much of it when my ability could be replicated by a lodestone needle. As I grew older, I came to understand that I had merely been sensing the Ice Sea, as it was the greatest mass of water. Right now in the abbey I can still sense the sea far to the north. Other, closer, bodies of water made themselves known to my senses too. First it was ponds and rivers, then I learned the touch of it in the kitchen. Again, I never saw a use for it. Anyone familiar with the land would know where the river or the pond was, and in a kitchen it merely took eyes to see the water.

    It was storms that changed everything for me. When I realized that I could, I suddenly gained an awareness of the future, or so it seemed at the time. I had a sense in my body that thunder would come in the next few hours, then days. I had a miracle of divination I thought.

    Sadly, that was not true. I could simply sense the water in the clouds before the turmoil of the storm squeezed the rain down to the ground. The storms did not come from nothing, they moved across the land. I could merely feel them as they approached. Misinformed as I was, I am not upset by my youthful folly, for it brought me to study.

    I do hate the rain however. After all my efforts to develop my stigmata I struggle to ignore it. To be surrounded by falling rain is something akin to standing in the middle of a raucous tavern when everyone but you is singing and stamping their feet. For a time it is tolerable, but it wears the senses thin.

    To escape it even slightly, I descended to the sanctum and prostrated myself before the relic for prayer. This of course is not necessary, especially with how it has waned, but perhaps my will might resonate with it somewhat. Perhaps that is mere justification for me to get away from the downpour and the lurking monster.

    Ather, the name of the angel long dead. The origin of our temple, our church, our home, it is nothing more than a mummy. Is it blasphemous to compare an angel to a heretic? I know little about the process of mummification. I think it has something to do with the way wastelanders will shrink heads and keep them as fetishes for demons. What I do know is that Shepherd disapproves of the process. It is an insult to the natural order to prevent decay. I think that rule only applies to humans. Surely nobody embalmed an angel. What would they have even used? What tincture, oil, or drug could preserve part of the heavenly host? I think just the opposite is what happened. Nothing of this world could cause it to rot away, so it withered instead. Flesh diminished and skin shrank tight until the fragile bones within shattered to dust.

    Ather still grimaces at the ritual bowl with yellow teeth and empty sockets. Only the crest has rebuked the ages. While it is cracked and damaged and perhaps lean of magic, our sacrifices have prolonged its life.

    Fool that I am, I had forgotten my duty as Abbey Master. I had to fetch one of the pigs. The soldiers grumbled at me when they saw me taking another meager yearling inside but they did not stop me. Father Marcuese left me notes on the prayers to say and I did my best to perform the ritual on my own. The corpse burned¨Cfat, skin, bone, and meat all¨Cbut nothing of the relic healed.

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    I am not fit for this duty.

    <hr>

    755 CC Apr 6th

    More deaths, but this time not from an attack on the abbey. For that, I am thankful. It was at range. The food is growing lean and even the Vassish are n0ot so callous as to empty our stores. Some of them went hunting. Perhaps they thougth they might spy the injured and infected troll or perhaps they thought they were safe. nAll we know is their bodies were found hung from the boughs of an oak like a gallows.

    Do trolls have that kind of thought? The dexterity? The malice? Where had it gotten the rope?

    I fear that Leomund¡¯s theory is the right one. He returned shortly before lunch carrying an enormous boar hunting spear, the kind of broadheaded, long toothed beast of steel that can be braced against a charging monster. In a normal man¡¯s grasp it would be too heavy to fight with but I have seen what he is capable of.

    He thinks discontents are taking advantage of the grendel. No troll would bother to disgrace a body according to him, though the legends I¡¯ve read would say otherwise. He thinks revolutionaries are lurking in the woods with their deep-set eyes gazing upon the Prince¡¯s host.

    Maybe he has a point. The abbey has lost so many monks, priests, and acolytes now that it can hardly be said to function. We couldn¡¯t host a prayer service if an emissary showed up for one. All those brothers¨Cno more of course, lest they come back¨Chave surely been spreading rumors and frustrations. Even the bare truth would be enough to stoke the ire of righteous men. If these are revolutionaries, I fear that I cannot say they are wrong in what they do.

    I wonder if it would have been worth my time to learn what these people had to say for themselves. I understand they do little to hide their presence when it seems safe to do so. They will get up on tables in taverns and scream about the rights of men. They lionize some Vassish writer like he¡¯s a prophet of the future. The only thing I¡¯m confident they do is use their own persecution as proof.

    The Princeps does what he can to peacefully subjugate them and I do not believe he wants to crush them. Their grievances are with the empire and only by association with the Princeps. Most of them would love nothing more than his refuting of the treaty and full independence.

    Regardless, they are like a pack of mongrel hounds who have noticed the prince of Vassermark, it doesn¡¯t matter that he is second in line to the throne, is vulnerable. They are vultures circling a starving man and waiting for him to become food.

    I don¡¯t know what the prince will do about that. Is this the sort of justification he¡¯s been hoping for? Is this why he has abused the abbey for so long?

    I think Leomund was hoping to provoke a fight this evening, another display of his strength now that he was equipped to fight the troll. That did not come to pass however. The prince didn¡¯t join us for dinner and did not have to suffer through a gruel of oat and winter apple. The hard fruit has little sweetness like its fall kin. It is hardly anything more than a berry to attract birds as the flowers come into bloom. Humans can hardly find it palatable.

    I was told the prince was traveling to the neighboring villages. I shudder to think what he did there.

    I expected most people at the table to complain about the poor state of the food, but it seemed that the Vassish understood themselves to be the cause of it. The northman characteristically endured the bad taste and of course my brothers accepted it. What surprised me was the other pilgrim, evidently an acquaintance of the northman for the dark skinned fellow had arrived with him.

    I watched as he produced a bottle of white wine from southern Vassermark, expensive by my reckoning, and poured it into his bowl along with a dash of honey he had pilfered from our storeroom. Combining them all together, he made a mash seemingly fit for an old and infirm man. At first, I confess, I thought it appropriate for him as he was an older man. Then one by one we all began to grow a bit curious about the zeal he consumed the meal with. When I asked to have a splash of his wine, the grin he gave me was fit for a troll, but he shared all the same.

    It did improve the meal a great deal, turning the bland food to a sweet delight.

    Then he asked if he could be allowed into the library as payment. I agreed as a reasonable enough price and afterward let him in. He promptly took a seat at the reading desk, lit the little stub the prince had abandoned, and opened up the two tomes left out. Legends of the North as well as the ritual book from Aillesterra. To my surprise, he started from the beginning, which is written in fae-tongue. I don¡¯t have the faintest idea if the translations were accurate, as I was not that much of a polyglot, but it seemed that he was.

    I suppose I should be thankful that somebody was able to make use of those ancient texts. Perhaps tomorrow I will speak with him further.

    As I sit here penning this journal, I think I can see the raven in the orchard. It isn¡¯t moving much, I can barely tell the glimmer from the stars above. Just something slightly wrong that may be nothing more than my sleep deprived imagination. If not for the grendel, I think I would bundle myself in cloaks and head out to see for myself, but I fear not.

 3.5-7 - Bounty For Grendel

    Bounty for the Grendel

    This notarized missive is posted here, on the 7th of April, in the year 755 of the Common Calendar, to denote the following bounty. For the past week, a lone troll measuring at least fifteen feet of height to the head and bearing a full rack of horns, has murdered men of the lay and of the cloth at Fallen Crest Abbey. Its whereabouts have loosely been traced to the wooded marsh south of the abbey, but to date no den has been found. For its crimes against humanity, the creature must be put down and safety restored to the people of Westshire.

    A bounty for the troll is hereby offered at nine hundred talons of silver for any who can deliver the troll¡¯s head to Prince Gabriel of Vassermark who may, for the spring, be found in the city of Jumeaux. An additional one hundred talons of silver will be included if the entire corpse is transported for full identification.

    To compensate the abbey for their damages, a tithe of one tenth will mandatorily be taken from the sum bounty and paid to the abbey

    Signed,

    Gabriel von Arandall, Second Prince of Vassermark

    <hr>

    To Abbey Master Peter Montoya, from Princeps Helvetius of Westshire,

    I mourn for the late Father Marcuese. He was a wise and honorable man. Learned in the faith and histories and as sharp as a skinning knife at trireme. I weep that I will not have the pleasure of another game with him, but by no means will I avoid Fallen Crest Abbey this year.

    Father Montoya, I can tell from the intensity of your writing that you are a man of strong passion. I would not miss visiting you to pay my respects to the late bishop even if it meant forgoing food entirely. I was and still am a soldier, hardship and stomach indignity are constant companions for me. But more than a soldier, I am the leader of Westshire and I can see that the abbey is performing an outsized duty to the land by putting my nephew up. I only hope that he is learning something from all your hospitality.

    Unfortunately, my present duties prevent me from visiting the abbey at this moment to help sort it out. Diplomatic matters cannot be neglected in these times but that does not mean I intend to leave the abbey to suffer when it is in my power to do otherwise. Transported along with this letter, by my trusted messenger, is a chest of funds to ameliorate the cost of feeding the prince¡¯s host. There is currently one thousand talons of silver.

    When he at last departs, please reply with a full tally of expenses and my steward will compensate you the fair market rate to restore the abbey to proper condition. Fallen Crest Abbey is one of our older houses of faith in all of Westshire and it is my duty to support you against the pains of diplomacy.

    Thank you for your service,

    Princeps Helvetius of Westshire

    <hr>

    755 CC Apr 7th

    The rotten thief! The gods should rip his soul to pieces and feed the scraps to their beasts. He should burn for his impudence! What he did should be labeled blasphemy! Dishonorable and criminal would be too weak. They¡¯d still contain an impression that he could be forgiven. To offer a tithe to us with our own money! I wish birds would rip the skin from his body without letting him die. I want his skin to continually scab over only for the birds to rip the scabs off and bring new bleeding¨Cnew pain!

    My letter did reach the princeps. Not only did he see fit to help but he sent money as compensation. A mere messenger traveling with the Princep¡¯s protection he was safe from all human harm but not from the grendel.  The poor man was attacked in the night and clubbed to death. A horrible sight I¡¯m told. Broken bones and blood, his purple capelet stained with his own blood.

    Luckily or not, it wasn¡¯t common thieves or highwaymen that found his corpse, but the prince¡¯s men who proved themselves to be thieves. They found the trunk of silver and took it for themselves and then the prince had the audacity to spend our coin to hire mercenaries and adventuring knights to kill the troll for him. He must have thought it an act of wise shame to solve the problem with money instead of the blood of his men.

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    The engineer tutted and shook his head at the news, he was with me when Leomund explained what happened. He believes that the prince is trying to solve two problems at once. He hopes the revolutionaries will jump at the chance for so much money and get themselves killed. Eventually someone will kill the troll and it will have cost the prince nothing. And then he has the gall to pay us one tenth of what the princeps sent us! He has robbed us through hospitality and then brazenly robbed us again. Cutthroats have more respect than him.

    I can¡¯t even scream at him like I¡¯d love to. The prince has left and taken most of his men with him. He rides south but not quite. I think he is going to dally between the villages and towns, making appearances and causing mayhem as he can, much like he did here. Only a few dozen soldiers are still packing up their camp and lingering on the chance that someone might kill the troll immediately.

    Leomund joked that perhaps he still should go kill it. The royal engineer said that infection wouldn¡¯t have set in yet, if the prince¡¯s shit covered arrows had worked. To my surprise, Leomund agreed he should wait a night.

    The old engineer tried to engage me with a game of trireme. I think he felt sorry for me. I¡¯m nearly the last keeper of the abbey left. My friends and brothers are nearly all gone and I lack the mood to be with others regardless.

    Now I stew with my paper and ink, dashing my anger across the page which I hope none but myself shall ever read. Perhaps years from now I will come here again. It will be like a simulacra of my mind to marvel at with the distance of time. I wonder if I will relive this moment? Or will I be someone else examining a stranger of the same name?

    Regardless, I pray that I can find rest tonight.

    <hr>

    Legends of the North by Sean Cainwicks

    Excerpt from page 73

    The troll demon grendel had stolen a gift from the gods by eating the raw flesh of the blessed and filling himself with their blood. He had stolen for himself the domain over ice and snow. He conjured storms and draped mist upon the land, ice upon the eyes. He wove white currents between the stones and twisted the light until all sight was confused. Thus he ensnared the men come to hunt him, for there was no fleeing from this bloody confrontation. While King Haelfbear had spear and steel, Grendel fought with ice and stone.

    Every swing of the statue blade struck strong enough to sunder bone and earth. Any retreat was met with summoned shards of hoary death. Arrow after arrow loosed into the monster but winds tumbled most and those that struck true couldn¡¯t pierce hide and fat both.

    But all was not lost, for King Haelfbear had the gifts of the gods as well, true born through is blood and passed from father to sun for generations. In his blood, upon his breast, emblazoned by his soul was the power of [Lordly Might]. While Grendel had easily the strength of twenty men, his was the strength of every sworn bannerman. The great King Haelfbear danced around the monster, slashing and stabbing and carving through the troll¡¯s lichen hide. He cleaved sheets of hide from the blood-mad beast until his blows snapped his own weapon apart.

    But this was the reason his ten men had brought their spears as well. There was a second for him to fight with. A third to put a chip in the statue blade. A fourth to rip free one of the demonic crowns. A fifth to half-blind the beast. A sixth to snap half the length from Grendel¡¯s blade. A seventh to rupture the trolls'' stomping foot. An eighth to pierce Grendel¡¯s lung. A ninth to sever his blackened tongue.

    And then a tenth to hold the old king up as he and foe alike stood broken and bleeding without the strength to fight but with too much guts to fall. Grendel had been maimed but his heart still beat, and King Haelfbear had not survived unscathed. His shield arm hung useless and hardly a spot of flesh upon him lacked a laceration from ice.

    The troll had not killed the bannermen however. He understood that perhaps he could yet kill the king but he would not survive the night no matter what. Rather than fall with honor, he chose the path of spite. Bugling through his twisted snout he laid a curse upon the land. He forced all the strength that could be forced through his stolen stigmata and clad himself in layers of unbreakable ice.

    King Haelfbear was carried back to his home a hero, living long enough to see his wife and children to tell them that the demon grendel¡¯s heart still beat and forever so long as it should, the strength of a wronged and lonely troll should never be thought small.

    <hr>

    755 CC Apr 8th

    To Prince Gabriel von Arandall of Vassermark,

    I beg of you your swift return to Fallen Crest Abbey. Turn back from your journey south and bring the justice of the gods to the chapel. No sooner did you leave, taking your men with you, than the troll returned and did not leave. He beat down the doors of the chapel with his fists and crushed Brother Marcus between the pews. Your men have been killed but we know where it is. It has not left! It has made the chapel into a den.

    Even now, it sits upon hallowed ground. I can smell it even above the stench of pigs. He is profaning the chapel with his presence, his blood, his sweat, his molting flesh.

    I cannot put to paper just the consequences that may come from this, for I do not know if it will reach only your eyes. Return to the abbey and I will explain, please! I urge you. Surround it. Burn the chapel to the ground if you have to, but destroy this monster before it is too late. If any action you take could ever prove your right to rule, that you can uphold the social contract you feel beholden to, this is it. Bring steel and fire to bear on this enemy of humanity before it is too late.

    Westshire cannot survive a crusade. Return and I will explain, please! With the utmost haste!

    Peter

 3.5-8 - Troll Blood

    755 CC Apr 9th

    I feel like a hermit or prophet of old. My desert is the fallow fields and pasture hills where no sheep, pig, or cattle roams. All around me are trees barren save for unpopped buds. Even the apple orchard is like bare kindling raised to the sky, branches like a troll¡¯s antlers staked to the ground one after another. The rain has left the ground muddy and spotted with seeping pools.

    Requests for help have flown in every direction but no one has answered the call save some children daring each other to steal a look at the darkened chapel hall. They did not even speak with me, scurrying from my sight like scolded school children.

    I am alone in the abbey save for perhaps a dozen pigs. Even they seem ready to bolt and flee the comfort of their home. Perhaps they will turn feral, will grow in size and hair and tusk and hoof. Perhaps they will gorge on roots then turn their minds to carcasses and farmer fields. It would be the way of a grendel and just such a cursed fate as the abbey is doomed under.

    The engineer doesn¡¯t even have pity for me. He has watched these past few days with a sly grin. He treats it like he¡¯s watching a circus and that at some point all the corpses will stand up and take a bow. That their blood will be revealed as nothing more than stripes of red silk strewn about the stage. Never a word from his lips would break this fake illusion. He plays his part but he grins while he does so.

    He promised to bring Leomund back. The northman has gone missing, I think when he heard that the prince stole money for the bounty. I pray that he returns and fells the beast but what right do I have to impose on a foreigner like that? He is not even of my faith. He never claimed to be a pilgrim or a student of letters. He always took his food after laboring for his keep and not a word of complaint. Money has drawn him away and I cannot find it in myself to blame him. Even King Haelfbear did not fight the troll of legends by himself.

    At least now, in the privacy of my journal, I can say that I am glad that engineer has gone. How did a man with skin nearly the color of dirt become a royal engineer of Vassermark? It is preposterous. He belongs in Giordana. And given his age, he practically belongs to the reign of the yellow king. A disgusting butchery of innocents! Even his eyes are black. It is hard to see, as he never brings his face close. Even when he smiles it is a sneer that draws his lids close together but I have seen it. He has the eyes of a demon.

    ¡­

    What a fleeting hatred that was. It flared within my chest and died as quickly. My heart is but cinders and ash, cold and forgotten. He is old, but the yellow king was very long ago. He is smart too, enough to trounce me in every variation of trireme both of us knew. Of course nothing could make him flourish in Giordana. A city like Hearths Bay would be necessary for him to nurture his gifts.

    He is gone from the abbey now and I shan''t see him again. The least I can do is meditate on myself. Soon I will meet the final shepherd and she will take me into her fleeting embrace. I will have to answer to myself and I don¡¯t have much time before then. I will want a proper answer from myself so I should see to getting it.

    Maybe some hero will arrive and free the abbey from the troll, but such a miracle may be beyond hope. I will stand vigil this night and the next, alone with myself and awaiting the birth of a demon.

    Should I die and this journal be found, I suppose I should write what I know of the relic. Father Marcuese called it the Crown of Ather and said it contained the potential of protection. It clashes with the mind of any who wishes harm upon the wearer and can force back fatal blows. It has warded the abbey for centuries and grown weak in power but not in shape. That is the purpose of the sacrifices, to restore its magic. Should a man wear it upon his brow, it would be nearly impossible to slay him in combat, but one would have to break it off the corpse of an angel and such blasphemy would never be permitted. I am afraid a troll would have no such hesitation, but I think a troll will struggle to wear the crown. That is where the only weakness might lay.

    How Ather perished with it upon his head I do not know.

    ***

    My hand trembles as I write this further. Perhaps I have waded through the veil of the world and into the dream lands where idea manifests and the soul burns. This paper is real. These words are truth. If nothing else in the world can be held certain, I must focus on what I know.

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    Cogito, ergo sum.

    The words exist. They are thought given body and they persist upon the page in my hand, not shifting and squirming but along rigid lines. They continue to match my memory with neither changing. There is no disease, madness, or demon twisting them unless it is so dextrous that I have no hope of ever finding the light again.

    Tonight, amid my vigil, I drank with an angel.

    Delirious with sorrow and yet standing upon my feet in the mud so that I could not sleep, the black bird of death perched upon the flagstone fence across from me. More than a shadow upon the walls of the world, I felt the wind of his wings. I heard the scrape of stone beneath claw. When his head twitched and twisted, I heard the sliding of his silken feathers.

    He asked of me why I stayed.

    Why did I stay outside an empty set of buildings? When everyone else had died or fled and given up hope. No, I shouldn¡¯t say they all gave up hope. Perhaps some have gone to find help and plan to return. In the presence of the divine beast, I held my tongue until I knew I could speak the truth, and I told him, ¡°Because it is my duty.¡±

    The angel complimented me on my faith, but asked why I gave it to a dead god.

    I had to remember that he was born of Shepherd, of the goddess of death and he an usher, a winged psychopomp from living to new life. Perhaps my choice to serve in the name of Helios was merely one of circumstance. It was the simple solution. It was his teachings that gave shape to the many central kingdoms, the people therein, the place I was born to and call home. It is my preference. But there is also a truth to the teachings and his death to give salvation to mankind is manifest proof of the truth.

    These teachings I swore myself to are not good because Helios spoke them, Helios spoke them because they are good. All that the abbey does, to give structure to life, to preserve knowledge and pass on gifts to the future is itself an act of worship. I among many others have chosen to sacrifice our labor to that which is good and it would be a miserly thing indeed to shrink back at the last moment. I gave myself to the faith and the faith gave me responsibility, purpose, and duty. These are gifts passed on, not given back.

    Only, I have no one to pass them on to, and soon there will be an abbey no more.

    The angel looked me over and commanded that I pass them over to him.

    I refused the angel, for they are the duties of man.

    So he said to pass on the teachings, and that I could do.

    For a moment, I gave the vigil over to the great bird and I moved my numb feet through the mud. I shuffled back to the dormitory and to the library where the only remaining candles stood. I lit one and took it, along with my personal copy of the good book and a bottle of holy wine.

    Never would I have imagined performing the ritual of transmogrification for an angel, but this night I did just that. The prayers, the cup pouring, the invocations, all of it. Normally, the ritual takes only a sip of wine, but what I splashed into a bowl fit for the bird¡¯s beak was much more than a sip. I found my voice hoarse afterward and my will weak. Sitting upon the opposite fence, I drank not for the ritual but for myself. The holy wine seemed stronger than any distillation. It burned through my blood and opened my mind.

    The angel made a chuckling remark about irgot before we began a back and forth questioning. He pushed me on my faith, on my duties and actions and he told me of the past. Centuries of life at the head of a temple far to the south, now destroyed, but he did not despair. He spoke of the temple, the sculptures, mosaics, murals, and feasts. Through his words the memory blossomed within me as though I could dream another¡¯s dream, could walk where he had walked. I heard the bardic tunes of deathly remorse and I tasted the fiery meals given to children as they became adults¨Ca burst of pain to delight the tongue with all the fierceness life had to offer.

    When the bottle of wine ran dry, the southern dream came to an end. Dawn warmed the sky to the east and yet my body did not yet need rest. The battle of fatigue I had expected did not occur and I was able to look around at the empty abbey and see that no knights were marching to my rescue nor had the troll left the chapel.

    I must have made some certain remark about it, for the angel asked how I knew.

    ¡°The blood. I can sense the blood still in there. Last night there were too many puddles. It confused my senses, but time has whisked the water away. The mud is drying. It is as thought someone had stabbed the earth the abbey sat upon and it was bleeding out around me. In time, it was all to clear to my stigmata the hand that dealt the blow.¡±

    My ability intrigued the angel. ¡°A unique power indeed,¡± he said, but he did not go so far as to think it divine providence. I was, afterall, a priest of a dead god. Happenstance brought me here, not the hand of fate.

    There was something very strange that I could not quite put into words, not before the angel took flight and vanished through the twilight. I wonder what he would have said but he is gone now. I can only put the thought to paper and hold it dear. It is a sense that births a question. I might ask the heavens but I am the one who will have to divine the answer.

    Why does the grendel, a beast thrice as tall as myself, have no more blood than a man?

 3.5-9 - The Fallen Angel

    755 CC Apr 10th

    There is a lock within the sanctum. Carved upon the inward door and unknown to all¨Cthey could not have foreseen it. Even knowing it to be there, I nearly did not find the latch I had to pull in time. The metal, ancient sheets and beams of long-corroded copper, have been painted over and hidden by flaking white. The grinding screech between bolt and socket spewed dust across the stairs and myself but they have been trapped out and I in.

    I am in the dark now. I can see the candle light flickering through the cracks. It dances across the walls and down the stairs. They are demons of light waiting to devour me, me who grovels in the dying protection of an angel!

    Of course, of course! The northman and the engineer are accomplices. The one summoned the other. I should have known. Why didn¡¯t I question Leomund¡¯s hesitation? I excused it all as prudence! I should have gotten on my knees and screamed, should have begged that he slay the troll. If I had, while the Vassish were still here, perhaps they could have been stopped.

    Thieves. Plunderers. Blasphemers! They are here for the relic. This whole ordeal has been a murderous game and I their victim. Even now the door is but a puzzle, an obstacle, a way to delay them. I can hear the tapping. The knocking against the door. This is no announcement, not asking to be let in. The engineer is listening. His question is not for me but of the mechanism! He listens to the metal, to the shifting of dust and linkages and gears and what else. He is sussing out the lock and in time will have it open I am sure. No lock can hold for eternity.

    The fact that I managed to shut it tight is a miracle. The old man faltered at the portal. The protection of the crest must still exist, retracted as it is. He could not step his foot onto the steps as though a great force pushed him back. I, of course, felt nothing. I glided from the broken chapel and into the tunnel only to turn about and see my opportunity. They were here to destroy the abbey and I seized the moment to lock it shut!

    But how long?

    I have not slept in two days. I feel my eyelids fluttering and my head aches. I waver even as I scratch these thoughts down on hand and knee. I may collapse very soon. I feel a fever may be taking hold of me. Perhaps my sanity is already fraying. I can no longer tell the dreams from reality.

    I should never have let them force me into the chapel. But I was weak in body and in mind. Even now I fear that I will collapse and awaken toa spear sliding through my chest. My blood will spill upon the altar but it will do no good. I thought they were taking me to my death. I let the force of their persistence make me move one foot after the next and move from the muddy road back to the abbey, to the stolen chapel and there I found no troll, no grendel, no corpses!

    At first I thought it had run off, or perhaps they had already slain it. But they attacked my mind. They muddied my thoughts. They insisted that the troll was beneath the chapel and that I had to show them the way before it was too late. They said the troll would seize the crest! Perhaps at some point my tongue slipped and gave them the weapons they needed to fool me. But they were not prepared! I locked the door on them. The sanctum is a vault and soon it will be my tomb.

    They will not get in so easily, the plundering, grave-robbing fiends!

    Of course, it is becoming clear to me. The lies and half-truths are unravelling as I lay here in the darkness. How silly it was to believe Leomund! How he wrapped his lies with truths, like stones dipped in honey. Yes, there was a troll, a grendel, a monster from the north without family or kin and a great hatred for all things of men. A monster that wants to tear down temples and slash open throats.

    But the monster is no troll, the monster is Leomund himself!

    The attack came only after he had provoked the Vassish. Always in the night, barely understood. No one thought to accuse him when they knew his stigmata was merely one of strength, but what strength! The strength of a troll! The engineer is his accomplice, some weaver of light perhaps. A caster of illusions. A magician of fear. Through this ally of shadows, Leomund draped himself in the guise and impression of a troll to slaughtered the Vassish and drive them out. Not just the foreigners but all who would stand between him and the relic.

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    Oh what folly, to think that the very conjurer of death would sleep in the abbey he attacked. No wonder the knights could not find him by day, he was here! And he even brought the trickster in with him, lest the old man be found in the marsh and killed. I gave sanctuary to the very killer of men that plagued us.

    I should have known when I sat upon the stone, when I reached out through the dismal twilight and felt the heat of frustrated blood stomping about the chapel. That was no troll, I knew it then but I did not comprehend what it meant! It was Leomund smashing up the doors to find the sanctum and now I have shown them both where it is.

    They will break down the door. They will kill me. I will die in the dark and be forgotten. I will have failed my duty. They will seize the relic and blaspheme it, steal it away from malice and evil.

    I can hear them knocking against the door still. Firmer, not the rap of a feeble knuckle but the smash of stone to stone. They are trying to chip inside, to break down the old concrete and get at the locking mechanism. The ancient stone is strong but not impervious. It is not Ather¡¯s crown that they attack.

    If only I had a blade, I could at least die like a man. I was never a knight but I have the spirit in me, do I not? What a way to die that would be. I could face Shepherd happy, with my chin high and chest full.

    But if I were to die, they would still have the relic. Could I say I did my duty if that is the outcome? To allow them to blaspheme with it?

    Just now I heard the stone crack. They are scraping against the metal. I have had nightmares of being buried alive. That my brothers would mistakenly think me dead when I did not rise one day and they would box me up and bury me. That I would awaken in my funeral gown, barely a thumb between my nose and the lid. That I would scream and claw until my fingernails bled.

    At least I face a fighting death, don¡¯t I?

    But I do feel a certain temptation. A whispering in my mind that perhaps it would be permissible¡­ if the relic is to be misused either way¡­

    Does the act, my actions in this world, matter more than my good intentions? I wonder what Father Marcuese would say to that.

    He made me Abbey Master, didn¡¯t he? Isn¡¯t that him vouching for my judgment?

    Ah, they¡¯ve done it.

    They¡¯ve opened the door.

    So, I shall

    <hr>

    Regarding Fallen Crest Abbey

    My Lord Helvetius, I write to report that the abbey has, in effect, been destroyed. The buildings stand but they are as empty as graves. On my way to the abbey, I took hold of some runaway monks. I harangued them for cowardice and marched them back to the abbey. They are cleaning it up now, but I suspect that these buildings will essentially be empty until a great deal of effort is expended by the church.

    There is no sign of troll, but I did confirm the corpses. Approximately forty people have met their deaths recently, most buried. I fear that this Peter Montoya you sent me to find met a most grisly end. Hidden within the chapel was a false wall through which a buried sanctum could be found. I believe this was the namesake of the abbey, for within I found two corpses. One ancient, mummified, and decapitated. The other could hardly be said to be a man. No skin remained, nor bones. Such mutilation and desecration I thought would be beyond thought even for the most vile of criminals.

    I must caution that my divinations are not perfect and even the intuition of a stigmata can be wrong. Prince Gabriel of Vassermark arrived with a small army, both of Vassish make and of local mercenaries (to use the term generously). They are scouring the marsh for the troll they encountered but after half a day have turned up no den. Most curiously, he claims he met Peter Montoya headed south along with two pilgrims that were at the abbey during the attack. He described the abbey master as a drunk, slurring his words to the point of nonsense.

    Viewed from the eyes of a common man, this is a believable story, but it conflicts with what my stigmata tells me. When I traced the man¡¯s trail, it led to the grisly pile described above, and not back out from the sanctum.

    Whatever happened here involved a great deal of magic that I do not understand. Some expert must be consulted, perhaps the angel of Jumeaux? I dread to think of what form of necrotheurgy may have transpired to profane this sanctum and rob it of an angel¡¯s boon.

    Prince Gabriel says two pilgrims were a northman named Leomund and an unknown Giordanan. I believe they have the relic, not the Vassish. We may not have to fear its use in war.

    I will continue to investigate.

    Your faithful bloodhound,

    Jerich

    P.S. You may wish to confiscate the library for safe keeping. There is a wealth of knowledge that will soon fall prey to thieves.

 Act 4 - The Sunless Desert

    Foreword,

    It would not take a very astute reader to surmise that the months governing the Misty Isles after the eradication of the daemon were akin to paradise for my pupil. The weather was fanciful, the wine plentiful, and stress but little. Peace reigned, gold flowed, and the life within Aisha¡¯s belly grew.

    Across the sea, Prince Gabriel issued an arrest warrant for a finance minister of Portacheval. His ineptitude at encircling the city led to the fellow, innocent or guilty, escaping first to Skaldheim than to a hermitage in Drachenreach. This made it quite impossible to service the warrant and the locals would have none of his demands. This marked the beginning of the War of Friends, between Vassermark and the central kingdoms. The first conflicts were legal in nature, and the king sought ways to split up the city-states from forming a unified resistance. One measure was flat out lying to his brother-in-law, the Princeps of Westshire, which only lasted so long. I shall touch on those war matters another time.

    What concerns this tale is the other primary action, the rescue of Bishop Jean de Jeamaeux. She had gone on excursion to the wastelands in scholarly pursuit and missionary goodwill to the sunless desert of the south. Despite bringing a whole host of men and laborers, deserters and escaped revolutionaries, she had not been successfully recalled even by the word of the angels.

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    Thus, to reward Lucius for his good work in restoring the production of the Misty Isles to levels not even dreamed of, the lands were taken away from him so that he might be given the glory of marching into an inhospitable desert where no rain falls, no sun shines, and no man is a friend. In the due fashion of a youth suddenly terrified of his own aging, my pupil welcomed the letter wholeheartedly.

    He saw the command as a return to course, a way back to the adventures of his youth that he thought was already slipping through his hands. Such is the frightening alchemy of parentage. I imagine any relevant parental figure in his life would have laughed at him and called him a fool. In hindsight, I see it as a failing on my part that I took his fear as an insult upon myself. I was the one who had taught him everything of importance he knew and to imply that he was not ready for the banal act of having a child was to imply that I had failed on such a basic level of moral cultivating. What¡¯s more, the actual rearing duties would surely fall, and did so, on Aisha¡¯s hands. The temples had taught her well. She wasn¡¯t terrified of the prospects at the time, which only redoubled my pupil¡¯s anxiety.

    Through the lens of personal alloying, his time in the desert came at such a fortuitous time for him that one would think I planned it. I of course foresaw certain likelihoods and needs, but only in the realm of politics. His personal journey was his to take and I can only be thankful that I trained such a robust boy.

    As much as I would like to begin the story with his arrival at Ley Port, certain niggling ends require I begin still in the Misty Isles. Fret not however, his journey will be swift before it mires down within a land no good man should ever choose to tread.

 4-1 - The Problem of Kajsa

    Through the fields of clouds above, summer warmed the shallows of the Misty Isles. A score of islands had been sheared of their jungle, the trees uprooted and the soil tilled. Men from Vassermark and from Giordana, even a few distant travelers from Skaldheim, squabbled about land contracts and crop prices. They shoved bales of tobacco against sacks of grain. Wet markets chopped down the huts and homes at their borders so the warehouses of agricultural industry could spring up like the edible caps of fungi.

    For a time, there had been a fear among the intelligentsia of the land that prices would spiral out of control, that the glut of gold would lead to the stripping bare of the locals by merchants. Careful minting and diluting of so-called electrum allowed the secret stockpiling of personal gold in a scheme I shant document lest someone repeat it. Suffice to say, it required my personal attention to turn money into more money. As a warning to any who might take inspiration from my actions, a proper investigation would have turned up the ruse and had the crown¡¯s best interrogators beating our doors down. The only reason I could safely do it was because the crown had more pressing matters at the time and soon enough the records would be burned.

    Under such considerations, it was practically my duty as a member of the government¨Cde facto¨Cto strip the merchant class of their ill-gotten wealth and put it to proper use. Everything was going splendidly.

    Due to this utter lack of problem, Lucius saw fit to invent problems for himself. To conjure them up in his mind because he had the devil of boredom in him. Miss Lynnfield enjoyed sparring with him, but such exercise couldn''t even occupy the space of time between dawn and luncheon. Governance had been setup to function even after the king inevitably removed him, no matter how incompetent a replacement, so his time before dinner could scarcely be filled with patrolling town to inspect the new projects, the coming and going of the guards and ships, and meeting with the various applicants and supplicants.

    To speak of his evenings would almost be a disgrace. One would think that he would be in the honeymoon lust of besottment with Aisha, or perhaps showing his virility by claiming Kajsa as his own too. The women would have been open to his advances. Instead, he wasted his days and nights in the company of a handful of oddities he plucked out of the various caravans.

    One of them I do not fault in the slightest, for the man¨Chis overwrought tattoos aside¨Chad a stigmata which allowed him to harden clay as though in a kiln¡¯s furnace but only at his touch. It came out with a spectacular gloss finish whenever he finished sculpting something, and many of his works are available to this day. Perhaps you¡¯ve seen his works in the Mars University? Some chapels may still hide his figures but modern sensibilities find them rather lewd.

    I would have liked to stab the tune-deaf bard he kept around the way one trains a sea gull with bread crumbs. Oh, I can still remember that dull verse he kept repeating and looping. He had the most absurd rhymes and repetitions as he tried to work in random events. As I stomped through their grotto abode to find my pupil, I believe he rhymed ¡°Harsh man of the robe,¡± with ¡°go home, he crowed.¡± Off and feminine if I ever heard a rhyme. To this day, I prefer the meter of my own people. At least Aisha¡¯s voice was pleasant.

    ¡°This is no way for a nobleman to look,¡± I told my pupil, who had barely lifted his head to squint at me from the sandy shoal he had turned to an aquatic park thanks to his sculptor friend. We were on the south side of the island, where the locals still refused to tread for that was near Umbra¡¯s lair. Seclusion gave safety, and thus I found him lounging in shaded water, as naked as a babe.

    ¡°Should I be dressed right now?¡± He gestured at the water, a warping blanket of azure that made his paleness dance.

    I told him, ¡°I¡¯ve seen you naked more than enough. What I¡¯m offended by is your laziness.¡±

    ¡°There¡¯s nothing to do,¡± he complained, settling deeper into the soft sands of the beach, and his sycophant bard echoed in verse. ¡°Just let me enjoy some rest, will you? There will be trouble soon enough.¡±

    ¡°That there is trouble to come is why you should do what needs be done!¡± It galls me that the bard applauded me for that line. ¡°Come now, the prince has started his war in the middle. They¡¯ll come for you as soon as a ship can get here.¡±

    He tried to wave me off, salt water flicking from his fingers. ¡°I will respond appropriately when they get here. You tell me there¡¯s someone to fight, a demon to kill, or a city to capture, and I¡¯m there. Just don¡¯t ask me to do more paperwork.¡±

    I felt quite the school master as I planted my withered old fingers on my hips and glared down at the boy. ¡°Is this how you¡¯ll behave when you have a city you mean to keep?¡±

    ¡°No, of course not. But why should I make my enemy¡¯s lives easier?¡±

    The sculptor scrolled out from the rest abode, a stone hovel of shade he constructed, to say, ¡°He¡¯s just getting around to the fact that he has something for you to do.¡±

    I glared at him, but he was too drunk to care. Lucius rolled over on his side to face me as I said, ¡°Indeed, we won¡¯t be on the Isles much longer, so I figure we have given Golden more than enough time to digest. It¡¯s time to put him to work again. We¡¯ve certainly paid him enough.¡±

    I think he had been suppressing a fear that I meant to kill his friend to keep her shut and quiet. I have myself to blame on this front. It was the obvious solution in a simple sense, and I had been known to opt for elegance. This monumental fear had occluded from him what a simple matter it was to put a binding oath on someone. We had done it to the doctor, hadn¡¯t we? It was just a matter of magic, so long as the parties entered into the contract in good faith. Shackling someone with an oath is a much harder to do and there¡¯s a quite wonderful tale of a Green Knight breaking such an oath through sheer manly fortitude,, but I invite the reader to find that on their own time. It is a matter of myth, not of historical fact, so I must omit it here.

    His realization so gripped him that he rose straight out of the grotto in the nude and I fear would have gone running back to the manor without even putting a tunic on. The sight at least confirmed for me that his excess drinking had done no harm to his physical fitness, but one scowl from me had his head down. He fetched his clothes and for a moment, we stood beneath a pergola of vines that looked somewhat like grape but were entirely inedible. One of the artistic troubadours he had picked up thought they looked like acanthus, but was mistaken. It gave us a middling of shade and a muffle around our voices. With my shoulder against one of the faux-marble pillars, I asked, ¡°You do understand the political future of your love life, don¡¯t you?¡±

    He stared at his belt buckle, fastening and refastening it. ¡°Of course. You were never shy about encouraging me to sow my seed far and wide as soon as I became a man.¡±

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    ¡°But that doesn¡¯t mean to disregard where you put it.¡±

    ¡°You saying I should have pulled out better?¡±

    ¡°I would rather you embrace the fact that you didn¡¯t. With luck, your progeny will have the same gift as you. Just think of the royal line. Now that¡¯s what I call divine right.¡±

    He sat down upon a wooden bench, dusting the sand off his feet before lacing sandals back on. He glared at me. ¡°You know as well as I¨C¡± Indeed, I knew better. ¡°That stigmata aren¡¯t hereditary. If they were, nobles would snatch up people like me and adopt them left and right.¡±

    I stroked my beard and nodded. ¡°There are things your master knows that he has not told you, boy. The blessing of the gods is about as close as one can get to measuring destiny and your destiny will surely entangle with that of your children. The winds may blow, but you are the mainsail upon the ship. How you face, the rest will bend.¡±

    ¡°A ship can only have one mainsail, and if all your rigging is afoul of one another¡­ you¡¯ll have some very confused sailors.¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t examine an analogy too deeply. You¡¯ll ruin it without fail. Would you like the more tedious explanation?¡±

    ¡°No.¡±

    ¡°Then allow me my analogies.¡±

    ¡°We should get the bird.¡±

    I huffed and crossed my arms. ¡°We shall have to find him. He has made a home of that temple.¡±

    Lucius laughed. ¡°He¡¯s made a home of this garden. Well, the cellar at least.¡±

    My pupil guided me over to the carved out storage room. It was too crude to be called a complex. They had dug precisely enough for the barrels to be chilled and no more. Why they bothered, I¡¯m not sure. There was no wine left in them. Most of which, I surmised, had gone down the throat of what had been a respectable emissary of the gods.

    Once the respected speaker of the Shepherd, the plumage in the crown of the temples, a being of age and wisdom and decadence for whom muses doted upon. I found him curled up in his own filth, reeking of wine. His white shirt had nearly been blackened by stains and he did not budge at our approach.

    ¡°Throw him in the water.¡±

    And so, Lucius got the help of his bard friend, and the two of them tossed an even more pathetic pile of flesh and failure into the sea. He burst back out from the sapphire waves, whipping his hair out of his face and spitting the salt from his mouth. He spun about, eyes shut from the stinging brine. Before he said something, he realized I was the one standing near him. He planted his hands on his hips, spat some hair from his lips, and addressed me, ¡°What do you want, wizard?¡±

    ¡°An oath,¡± I said.

    ¡°The girl¡¯s?¡±

    And so, I marched two wet fools back to the manor. They were accosted by flies almost the entire way back and I was accosted by their musing about burning the jungles away to get rid of the flies. The three of us were greeted by the mundane, the guards and the busy scribes, the little people who were that much more productive for a smidge of attention. The business of life didn¡¯t stop just because there was an event afoot; particularly an event we didn¡¯t advertise.

    I had already summoned Kajsa under false pretenses and we met her in the basement of the Aliston governor¡¯s manor. The stone walls were cool, and the oil lamp warm upon her skin. I watched as her smile lit up at the sight of Lucius, then waver at the sight of me. ¡°What¡¯s going on?¡± the young alchemist asked.

    Lucius glanced back at Golden and myself. I said, ¡°We¡¯re all in the know.¡±

    She straightened her back. ¡°About?¡±

    ¡°Where I was born,¡± Lucius said, and sat down upon the table before the couch. The basement made for a rather intimate foyer, well insulated for privacy of multiple sorts. As he gave Kajsa the short explanation of who I was and why that mattered¨Cshe already knew I was the wizard from Jarnmark so many years ago¨CGolden filched the last of her dinner to staunch his growing hangover.

    When he grew bored of the two almost-lovers, he clapped his dirty hands together and said, ¡°Well then, what kind of oath will it be?¡±

    She tilted her head and bit her lip. ¡°What do you mean?¡±

    The angel stood between them and shrugged. ¡°Well, I could marry you two. Would be rather more binding than most vows.¡±

    Lucius cleared his throat. ¡°I don¡¯t think that would be appropriate.¡±

    ¡°Indeed,¡± I added. ¡°No marriage.¡±

    Golden was unfazed. ¡°There are other skills. I actually quite fancy this bit of magic I picked up from Umbra. I can weave a masterful¨Cand permanent¨Cenamoring. Eternal lust sounds pleasant for you, doesn¡¯t it? You¡¯d be wholly unable to betray him.¡±

    The girl¡¯s face went red. ¡°Excuse me.¡±

    Lucius shook his head. ¡°That¡¯s a terrible idea.¡±

    The girl jumped to her feet, still not even to Golden¡¯s shoulders. ¡°I¡¯ll have you know I¡¯m the only person on this entire island who can operate the refinement factory!¡± I did not correct her on the matter, as I would be leaving soon enough.

    I cleared my throat. ¡°Stop trying to play with your toys. The only oath she needs to take is one to never speak of her past with Lucius. Never to utter his birth name or any other fact of their childhood.¡±

    Lucius caught a hint of what that would entail. ¡°That¡¯s different from what Sammy and Aisha swore.¡±

    ¡°And look where that got us,¡± I said. ¡°Or do you mean to take her as your second wife? Wouldn¡¯t that violate her vows to Sapphira?¡±

    Kajsa shook her head. ¡°I¡¯m fine with the oath of silence.¡±

    Lucius took her by the hand and bid her sit back down. ¡°Are you sure?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s fine. You shouldn¡¯t have told me anyway. I don¡¯t want to be your downfall by mistake. We are friends after all, right?¡±

    ¡°I should have sent you back home with a purse of gold and never spoken to you again. This is my mistake.¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t be silly. You¡¯ve given me freedom like I could never have dreamed of here. I couldn¡¯t be happier and I would hate myself if my loose tongue ruined everything.¡±

    Golden yawned, more for the noise than for breath. ¡°Right then, where do you want the mark? The oath will imprint itself on you. I suppose technically, you will be able to break the oath if you lose that body part so¡­ I could put it around your throat but I believe that¡¯s a marriage custom?¡± Amulets were a fashionable choice, not collars.

    ¡°It will be a ring?¡± Kajsa asked, hesitation apparent on her face.

    The angel nodded. ¡°Want it on a finger? The magic might require more than one in that case.¡±

    Lucius shook his head. ¡°Put it out of sight, would you?¡±

    Kajsa said, ¡°If it must be a ring upon me, put it around my wrist.¡±

    ¡°Sure, why not,¡± Golden said and clasped his hands around her proffered wrist. ¡°Do you hereby consent to the sealing of your knowledge? That you may never betray the man across from you?¡±

    Lucius furrowed his brow, but before he could open his mouth to question the angel, Kajsa said, ¡°Certainly.¡±

    ¡°Hold on,¡± he said, grabbing the angel¡¯s wrist and prying it off but the mark had been made. ¡°What was that phrasing?¡±

    Golden shrugged and walked off. ¡°I kept it simple,¡± he said, and made to leave the basement.

    Lucius jumped to his feet then spun back to face Kajsa. ¡°Has it already happened?¡± A foolish question to be sure.

    ¡°Allow me,¡± I said. ¡°You there, alchemist. What is the name of the man across from you?¡±

    She had settled back into her seat and I could see the confused blinking of someone whose memories were muddled. It was a dream like apparition of confusion. ¡°He is my employer, Lucius von Solhart.¡±

    ¡°Does he have any other name?¡±

    She frowned. ¡°What, like a nickname?¡±

    That was the first time my pupil considered killing me.

 4-2 - Obsidian Memory

    Perhaps the day before word arrived from the capital, Lucius sat in the corner of a vacated bar surrounded by paper, ink, obsidian, and a chisel. A look at my pupil¡¯s track record might lead one to believe he excelled at most everything he ever tried but that is merely a combination of good teaching mixed with his pursuit of things he generally excelled at. Of course, the mindset to learn is something that can¡¯t truly be taught and he had more than I could have hoped in that department. However, magic was not something he ever quite grasped.

    Magic and stigmata have the same route, but humans tend to not understand the complexity of the gifts the gods have given them. His own ability, were I to transcribe it completely in a font that could be read by the unaided eye, would take more room than this history text thus far; but the effect is simple. Simple in the same way that a flower blooming is a simple thing. Were you to examine every pore and chemical within the specimen, you would hardly think it simple.

    I had taught him the basics, and by the basics I mean a method through which the essence of a thing can be transcribed. It is a tedious but intriguing trick which requires a well-used quill. It must be a thoroughly abused feather, such that the slick of ink has blotted out the memory of flight and repurposed it. Then, with a bit of blood and a touch, it will leap into the air and transcribe the essence of the thing that touched it; in this case a shard of obsidian.

    There is a slight bit more to the invocation, but words cannot teach how to activate one¡¯s will. What¡¯s more, the quill will write in the common vernacular, or the poet¡¯s verse. Not the true syntax. One must then take the words and reverse engineer what the meaning must be. It of course helps the fledgling mage when the item is young and has but one purpose. Obsidian makes for a wonderful teaching sample. Fresh made from the fires of the firmament, it knows only what it is.

    It is sharp.

    By the time Aisha tracked him down to ask why her favorite quill had been stolen, she had the far more pressing question of why he had covered the table in blood and wine.

    ¡°The wine is to replace the blood,¡± he mumbled, slumped against the wall in his chair, eyes still scanning over transcriptions.

    His redheaded lover sat down across from him, eyes locked on his. She didn¡¯t see the magic, but the bruising beneath his brows. ¡°Do you know how hard it was to find you?¡±

    He shrugged and checked one goblet after the next for more wine. ¡°I made it hard on purpose, you know.¡±

    ¡°You told the guards anyone who squealed on you would have their tongue cut off.¡±

    He gave a wistful look to the door of the bar. ¡°I suppose I did. I guess I¡¯ll have to cut somebody¡¯s tongue off, won¡¯t I?¡±

    Aisha held up a hand. ¡°No. I figured it out on my own. This is the only quiet bar in the city. It was fairly obvious.¡±

    He clicked his tongue and sunk lower in his seat. ¡°What do you want, Aisha?¡±

    ¡°You, Lu.¡±

    ¡°Lu?¡±

    Her lips imitated a cat¡¯s. ¡°Am I not allowed to use a pet name?¡±

    He shook his head. ¡°You¡¯re trying to cheer me up.¡±

    ¡°Shouldn¡¯t I?¡±

    ¡°You don¡¯t need to. I¡¯m not sad.¡±

    She arched an eyebrow. ¡°You¡¯re not sad. You¡¯re just¡­?¡±

    He picked up the largest piece of obsidian he had, a glassy shaft of roguish intent. Etched upon the surface were runes upon runes that glowed in the firelight. ¡°Do you remember the bishop? Jean?¡±

    ¡°The living angel, yes.¡±

    ¡°Ever wonder how they determined that?¡±

    Aisha frowned and put her elbow on the table. ¡°Because she can work magic, right? Like the angels.¡±

    ¡°But, what¡¯s the difference between magic and stigmata? One is defined and the other isn¡¯t. Angels¡­ like Golden¡­ can do anything they can imagine. It¡¯s just that their concept of imagination is a bit different. Same reason they don¡¯t dream. What if you needed to kill one, however?¡±

    Aisha frowned. ¡°I don¡¯t think that has stopped you before¡­¡±

    ¡°Yes, exhausting their magic by forcing regeneration will put them into a stupor akin to death. But Umbra? The demon of the isles? Still not dead. It¡¯s been in the furnace for how many weeks? And you can still hear the screams in the smoke. It may eventually work, but it¡¯s not fast. It¡¯s not decisive.¡± He stabbed the obsidian blade into the table, wedging the tip between the grains of the wood without a single chip forming.

    ¡°Are you going to say what the answer is?¡±

    He scratched his chin and shrugged. ¡°Sorry, I must have made it seem too important. It¡¯s really not that complicated. If you want to kill an angel you need a magic blade. One that can cut through illusions and barriers and strike the heart of the matter.¡± He flicked his finger against the obsidian. It rang out like a tuning fork for an instant before the end snapped off and it toppled over. He swore and snatched up another goblet of wine.

    Aisha picked it up and waved it at him. ¡°Hate to break it to you, Lu, but you¡¯re not the living angel. You¡¯re just immortal and for some reason are acting like that isn¡¯t good enough.¡±

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    ¡°It¡¯s not,¡± he said, squeezing the tin cup until it crumpled in his grasp. ¡°There are things I can¡¯t change, no matter how much I¡¯d like to.¡±

    ¡°What? Like bringing someone back from the dead?¡±

    ¡°Close. But, I do know some invocations. I might be able to make someone wish they were dead.¡±

    At last, Aisha picked up some of the pages, not that her quill had produced but that Lucius had. She gave them a double take and held them up to the light. After a moment of scanning them over, she set them back down and folded her hands together.

    ¡°Seen that before?¡±

    ¡°Once,¡± she said. ¡°In a temple in Tavina, there was a leather bond codex they kept chained to the wall in the basement. I referenced it once working on an old translation. Just a snippet of a song no one know how to pronounce; the script was too old. This is the language the angels use, isn¡¯t it?¡±

    ¡°El-dea, yeah. Though, they use it because it¡¯s the language of magic, not because the gods made it.¡±

    ¡°So, what does it mean? What did you write?¡±

    ¡°Nothing,¡± he said, brushing some of the chunks of obsidian aside, knocking them to the ground like gaming dice. ¡°I haven¡¯t gotten it to work. Until I find the mistake, it means nothing at all.¡±

    ¡°Couldn¡¯t you ask Golden for help then?¡±

    He laughed. ¡°You came here to drag me back, didn¡¯t you? I¡¯ll come. I was just thinking that perhaps I should make an excursion to Rackvidd, meet with this Shipping Investments Guild who have been buying up all the property here. To do that, I¡¯ll need more coin and some fresh clothes. You¡¯ll come with me, won¡¯t you?¡±

    Aisha sighed. ¡°When you ask people to come with you, there seems to be an equal chance of it being a horrific nightmare of danger as it is to be the latest restaurant.¡±

    He grimaced. ¡°Unfortunately, I don¡¯t know which this will be. Going north seems as likely to cut my time here short as not. It brings me closer to my summons, to being told I¡¯ve done too good a job. But, there are certain luxuries to be had and you never know; I might not get another chance to spend all this gold I¡¯ve saved up.¡±

    ¡°Weren¡¯t we just discussing how you¡¯re unkillable? I think you¡¯ll have plenty of chances. You, sir, have a long, long road ahead of you and it had better be with me, you know that?¡±

    He paused a moment longer than he should have. The words flowed slow from his tongue. ¡°Yeah. I hope you realized that was what you¡¯d be in for when you met me.¡±

    ¡°When I met you, you were a kid on an adventure, not a nobleman with aspirations above every conceivable station.¡±

    He laughed and leaned across the table, almost bringing their heads together. ¡°I suppose that is how we met, isn¡¯t it? Giordanan heat, bad beer, that awful pepper-leaf. I forgot how much I missed gambling. There¡¯s no good games here. The locals just don¡¯t have the culture. Their excuses for gambling dens are nothing but holes to soak one¡¯s gut with liquor and scream. Not at all like the fine games of strategy Giordana has.¡±

    ¡°You could always play with me, you know.¡±

    ¡°But what would we bet?¡±

    ¡°Oh, I¡¯m sure we could think of something. Favors, secrets, something.¡±

    ¡°Or, we make a team of it. There are four player games that you need a partner for. The best come from Aillesterra.¡±

    ¡°Tile Lords?¡±

    ¡°The northerners call it that, not the southerners, but yeah. We¡¯d have to get a set imported I think, that might take a while and it assumes we don¡¯t go to full war with them in the mean time.¡±

    ¡°Well you can¡¯t do that,¡± Aisha said. ¡°You won¡¯t have an address soon enough. Maybe we can find some in the Rackvidd markets? Seems a little unlikely given the piracy.¡±

    ¡°State-sanctioned piracy.¡±

    ¡°Doesn¡¯t that count as war?¡±

    ¡°Not quite. But yeah, a shipping address. That¡¯s a problem, isn¡¯t it? Maybe it will take until I get another plot of land shuffled around to me.¡±

    ¡°If you can¡¯t find something in the markets, couldn¡¯t you use your family¡¯s address?¡±

    Lucius¡¯ brow furrowed as he drew back. ¡°The Solharts? I suppose that is a privilege of nobility, isn¡¯t it?¡±

    ¡°Who else would I mean?¡± She smiled to let him know that she knew and she knew he knew. ¡°So you¡¯ve been drinking plenty. Surely that¡¯s loosened your tongue. You¡¯ll talk about just anything it seems so are you going to talk about what happened?¡±

    ¡°No,¡± he said, and at once pulled into himself like a turtle to shell.

    ¡°Lu, talk to me.¡±

    ¡°Is that why you started calling me Lu?¡±

    ¡°Had to try something. Come on, tell me what happened.¡±

    He shook his head. ¡°Nothing I shouldn¡¯t have seen coming. You might have been surprised, but I had no right to be. I¡¯ve known Amurabi for years and I should have known that he would opt for the safe option. The fact that he didn¡¯t kill her outright should be seen as a polite gesture.¡±

    She took his hand in hers and squeezed. ¡°What happened?¡±

    After a moment, he pressed her hand with his thumb. ¡°You know how you took an oath to be my ally? Do you remember the exact words?¡±

    ¡°Not particularly.¡±

    ¡°Golden is stronger now than he was then. Right now, I think, if you really tried to be creative, you could spill the secret and we¡¯d be in a lot of trouble. Same with Sammy. Kajsa couldn¡¯t even conceive of the idea of betraying me now because she no longer knows who I used to be.¡±

    After a moment of collecting herself, she asked, ¡°That can¡¯t be right.¡±

    ¡°The way the oath was made, she can no longer remember anything about me before I was Lu. I¡¯m a stranger to her now. Well, not a stranger, I¡¯m her employer that puts her up at his manor. She¡­ she still is who she is. He didn¡¯t rip that out of her and kill her. Didn¡¯t form her anew. She just can¡¯t remember and may never again.¡± He picked up the obsidian once more, rubbing his thumb across the etchings.

    ¡°That¡¯s horrible.¡±

    He stabbed it back into the wood and rose. ¡°It¡¯s for the best, objectively speaking. Or would you rather I bedded her? Made her love me?¡±

    Aisha pouted. ¡°That¡¯s not fair. Beside, you have already threatened me with that in the past. Talking about all the other wives you¡¯ll have to take.¡±

    Lucius laughed and swept his arms around the empty bar. ¡°Yeah, I¡¯m going to have to get on that. Many wives, many children. It will have to be a proper mess of heirs to divy up the world between. Set up a hundred different succession crises to spawn eternal war and bickering when I¡¯m gone.¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t be crazy.¡±

    He dropped his arms and turned back to her. ¡°Wouldn¡¯t one line of kings scare you more?¡±

    ¡°Or queens, maybe. And you never know. Our children might actually like each other unlike every other royal family in history,¡± she said, rising. He didn¡¯t correct her that mostly they would be his, not theirs. With her hand on her belly and his around her shoulders, the two of them emerged to the starlit streets of Aliston.

    Word from the king arrived as they were preparing to board a ship for Rackvidd, ripping their travel plans to shreds.

 4-3 - Politics and Gambling

    To my esteemed subordinate, Lucius von Solhart,

    I, Cassius von Arandall, King of Vassermark, send you my warmest congratulations on the remarkable performance you have shown in governing the Misty Isles. It is with great pleasure that I have received reports of your successful efforts to turn this once-ailing colony into a thriving agricultural powerhouse.

    Your service to the kingdom has not gone unnoticed. You have proven yourself to be a loyal and dedicated servant of Vassermark. However, I must also inform you that your service is not yet complete. As part of your duties to the kingdom, you are hereby summoned to report for military duty in the neighboring city of Rackvidd. Your experience and expertise will be invaluable to our forces as we continue to protect our kingdom from external threats.

    Lord Raymi has been instructed to furnish you with a force of soldiers and funds. You are to take them to the southern continent and rendezvous with Bishop Jean di Jeameaux and provide whatever service is necessary to bring her back to the north to assist in matters diplomatic. As you have already fought a war in Giordana, I trust that you have all necessary skills to execute this task.

    As for the management of the Misty Isles, appoint a suitable steward for your absence until such time as a proper replacement can arrive.

    Waste no time and you shall be in Hearth¡¯s Bay for the harvest festival.

    I trust that you will continue to serve Vassermark with the same level of dedication and commitment that you have shown in your governance of the Misty Isles. May the blessings of the gods be upon you as you embark on this new mission.

    Signed,

    Cassius von Arandall

    King of Vassermark

    <hr>

    For three days tacking between islands on his way north, Lucius read that letter over and over again. He had little else to do, crammed under a tent with barely a hammock to himself at the aft of the courier ship. Aisha and the rest of us had to be left behind, to take our time putting affairs in order while he reported to Lord Raymi. The captain was droll and knew nothing of land affairs, nor intellectual aspirations. The only thing that could amuse my pupil was picking up a bit more sea cant.

    When the ship put in, the sun had set and many promises of a swift carriage to the palace were made to Lucius, but he turned them down with the last weary smile he could muster. After getting through what passed as a port inspection there, and asserting his identity to keep his sword, he did not go to the palace. He headed straight off the main road and into the first den of fire and drink he could spot. He went to where men slumped against walls, laughter was raucous, and women¡¯s clothes nearly fell off of them.

    His purse was fat with genuine coin, the kind he had been swindling merchants over for a month, and while that was supposed to cover his military expenses he¨Crightfully¨Cbelieved that there was no reason to not double his money, or more. His time gaming in Puerta Vida had been no fluke and let us not forget his adopted reputation as a hopeless gambler.

    Sadly, I cannot say with certainty the name of the gambling hall he found, it surely did not exist for long. A shame, as the game he later described to me was remarkable and beyond anything that could have been safe for the house. They were operating the most absurd form of gambling, based on an enormous scale. They choked up the lever arm and slowly added random objects to either end¡¯s platform. All the while, betters placed wagers on which way it would fall. The great racket of the gambling den occurred just before they freed the scale to tip; when they auctioned off weights. The gamblers were allowed to pay money to have a weight put on their side, that money going directly to the employees.

    How they rigged it, for these things are always rigged, I can only speculate. Of course, they were taking in money from drink, food, carnal entertainment, and from the purchased weights but how could an enterprising gambling den leave money on the table? They surely had somebody in the crowd placing consistent bets to skim money from the back and forth slosh of gold occurring amidst the gamblers. I can think of several stigmata that would safely allow betting, and I must assume they had such a stigmata user. Why else would they have constructed such a strange game?

    Curiosity aside, this game was but a mere backdrop. It took hardly any time at all before Lucius had been set up beside the display platform. They gave him a table and waitresses who kept his wine full and a rotating cast of men of means across from him. There was a slew of would-be sycophants, in faux jewelry and gaudy silks, too eager to challenge him in one board game or another. They surely saw their losses as a business expense, but it only paid off for one man and that man already had business ties with Lucius.

    You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

    Mateo Mendez, son of Faezel Mendez of the Shipping Investments Guild, found Lucius while the moon was high and string players were making farce of the pit boss as he loaded mugs of ale on one side and goblets of wine on the other. He sat with a flourish and produced a bowl of honeyed dates from within the billowing sleeves of his thobe. ¡°How wonderful to meet my benefactor here.¡± Introductions were made as he grinned golden teeth.

    By this time Lucius had fattened his purse, but spent nearly as much as he had pocketed. He lived like a bear preparing for winter, packing himself with life before his journey to the desert. ¡°No longer, I¡¯m afraid. Someone else will be picking up my end of the contracts.¡±

    Mateo kept his smile but planted his arms upon his knees. ¡°Yes, it seems that Duke Feugard has gotten his eldest son the job. Apparently, he thinks a court flower can pick up where you left off.¡±

    Lucius mirrored the man¡¯s posture, bringing their heads almost together as both began picking at the candy fruit. ¡°Can¡¯t blame a man for setting up his son. The Misty Isles were never mine in the first place.¡±

    Mateo chuckled. ¡°They weren¡¯t even Vassermarks, but you¡¯ve now mixed our labor in with them. You¡¯ve made those islands ours. We¡¯re invested.¡±

    ¡°There is little that one man, no matter his titles, can do to rip up fields of crop. He¡¯d have to be beyond stupid to try.¡±

    ¡°Armies do march on their stomachs, don¡¯t they? But I have my hesitations about whether the young Feugard will give us the same consideration. It¡¯s his family that is being dragged first into this bloodfest.¡±

    ¡°Portacheval is rather far from Feugard¡¯s domain.¡±

    ¡°But they will be expected to furnish the most troops. It¡¯s Prince Gabriel that is trying to expand Vassermark¡¯s influence.¡±

    Lucius smirked. ¡°To put it charitably. So you think that the little Feugard will filch on the deal? Will snap up the shipments as a wartime measure?¡±

    ¡°With all due respect, I¡¯m not sure you will be around to do anything about it.¡±

    ¡°Oh, I¡¯ll be back. I¡¯m very hard to kill,¡± Lucius said, jabbing his thumb to his chest.

    ¡°All the same, I must ask for some actions as guarantee. You understand, don¡¯t you? In your absence, we¡¯ll first go to your family to insure our contracts are respected.¡±

    Lucius held up his hand to stop the merchant. ¡°No, I have a better proposal for you. The Solhart family can¡¯t stand up to the Feugards.¡± The merchant had been intended to demand certain lands as compensation for the seized plantations.

    For a moment, Mateo¡¯s glib smile changed to a narrowed glare. ¡°I¡¯m listening.¡±

    Lucius fished out two of the dates with his fingers and popped them into his mouth. After crushing them and washing them down, he said, ¡°Business should be done in the daylight. Set up an audience with me at the palace tomorrow why don¡¯t you? And I¡¯ll explain how to go about selling what you haven¡¯t yet grown to the only people in the whole nation that can push back against the Feugards.¡± When he gestured, the ladies of the establishment understood his cue well enough. Theys warmed the two men.

    The vixens wrapped them up with arms like asps and bottoms like pillows. Wine was refreshed amid a gambling spree. One of the weights had been a porcelain vase and it smashed upon the floor. Out came clubs and blood. Mateo shook his head. ¡°You know, you¡¯re a very brave man to come to a place like this without a guard.¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t need any,¡± Lucius said, not taking his eyes off the disciplinary action across the room from them.

    ¡°And that¡¯s what makes you special. You¡¯re larger than life.¡±

    Lucius fished out a stack of silver talons and slapped them on the table. ¡°My treat,¡± he said, with a gesture to the black haired woman in Mateo¡¯s lap.

    The merchant laughed. ¡°A slight problem my friend. I prefer to not risk my blood.¡±

    The girl in Lucius¡¯ lap laughed and reached out to pat his knee. ¡°That¡¯s not a problem,¡± she said, gesturing for the other girl to leave. A moment later, a lad in the same attire as the women was sent to him.

    Lucius stayed only long enough to see the base grin unhidden upon Mateo¡¯s face. The merchant should have known better than to expose his desires to a business partner like that, but Mateo was still young and learning. Lucius would have been a fool to not profit from the cultural differences between Vassermark and Giordana. Such treatment could scarcely be found in the north at this time.

    By this time in the night, the sun had almost risen anew, alcohol was transmogrifying to a hangover within him, and he had yet to present himself to Lord Raymi. Naturally, he tarried further, and used some of his earned coin to freshen up at a public bathhouse. I suspect that if he had a friend he could have trusted, he would have drowned himself there to purge the headache before it began.

    Alas, he stood at the steps of the Rackvidd palace with dawn warming his shoulders. The servants took his name and showed him into one of the drawing rooms for as long as it took to carry word up the chain. He made no fuss about the wait, every moment was more time to recover.

    In his mind, he fought the demons of sleep and rehearsed what he might say to the one noble lord who probably knew he was a fraud and yet that we could not touch. He had alluded as much when Aisha and Sera visited, but also insinuated that he didn¡¯t mind. A delicate path to tread.

    It was not Lord Raymi who greeted him.

    A black haired beauty strode into the room across from him. Her hair was held back by a glittering net of pearls, accenting the sash of white silk cinched round her tapered waist. Her dress, black save for a royal hue revealed by the sun, draped her body, building upon her curves as she smiled at him. Felicia vi Raymi greeted him, ¡°So wonderful to see you again, my champion.¡±

    Lucius could sense the expectations she brought with her and the prospect of hopeless military duty instantly became preferable.

 4-4 - Obligations to a Beauty

    Felicia had delayed several suitors and tricked them into all attending to her on the same day. Naturally, this drove their passions to a boil as they were kept with one another in the central courtyard like too many roosters for a coup. Manly spirits thus riled, Lucius was marched out in front of them to take on their ire.

    While a few may never be uncovered in history¨CLucius himself was too hungover to remember the less interesting people and why he had to best them in duels¨Csome remain. There was one boy demanding that he be given a job as her personal guard because his stigmata turned blades blunt against his skin. Lucius didn¡¯t draw his sword and knocked the lad¡¯s front teeth out. I believe he was later referred to the proper channels for applying and ended up transferred to Prince Gabriel¡¯s army where he perished.

    One upjumped merchant¡¯s son who fancied himself an unlanded noble, no such thing existed, wanted to settle a point of honor regarding his sister who had been denied an invitation to some feast. He brought with him a pair of dueling sabers, so thin they were nearly whips. He must have thought that an unfamiliar warrior would be easy pickings in a duel to first blood. Lucius ignored his prattling as he felt the flexibility of the metal foil and after the duel commenced Lucius struck out with the flat of the blade as hard as he could. The merchant parried perfectly, arm locked out at the fencer¡¯s side. The two blades struck with a clang fit for a bell and blood splattered across the flagstones. Lucius¡¯ blade had bent nearly at a right angle, whipping around the guard to rip the man¡¯s wrist open. He ruined the blades too.

    A knight from some disgraced order sought a duel of honor with the champion of the Raymi¡¯s because of some land dispute. He wished to prove that the martial order had been revitalized despite a volcanic landslide devouring their training grounds. As this was no dispute but an earnest plea, but fought to prove a point, they bound their respective weapons in cloth. Normally, a rather accurate way to fight without harm, but the knight used a spear. I mean no disrespect to the humble weapon, it has killed more people than any other in history. But this was quite a mistake. The shape of the blade flange let Lucius bind the cloth of his sword against it, catching on snares that should not have existed. He nearly ripped the weapon from the man¡¯s hand before slamming his fist into his unarmored gut¨Canother aspect of unreality.

    He, on his honor as a warrior, had to proceed to argue on the spearman¡¯s behalf to Felicia. The exchange had been informative, even if Lucius had come out the stronger and that hardly mattered when it came to judging the man¡¯s skill. Felicia listened, all the while stifling a yawn. When he finished the explanation, she saw an opportunity¨Cnamely that she hardly cared about offending anyone remaining¨Cand proposed that the case be made to the drill master of their defense corps. Naturally, Lucius was required to attend to her as she left to fetch him.

    Drenched in sweat and dirt and with his insides fighting the opposing forces of exhaustion and adrenaline, he trailed behind the noblewoman up three flights of steps. He kept swallowing his complaints about the long route, the presumptive use of his body, and the lack of gratitude, all the way until she showed him to a dainty indoor garden with a breakfast set laid out for the two of them.

    ¡°You worked hard, Lucius,¡± she said, sitting down at the table.

    He sat down across from her, the skinny legs of the chair creaking. ¡°Did you learn that at the capital?¡±

    Felicia plucked a fruit tart for herself. ¡°I sure did,¡± she said before ringing a bell for a fresh kettle to be brought.

    ¡°That spearman does genuinely deserve the work. He will be an asset,¡± Lucius said, taking one of the treats for himself.

    She shrugged and ate. After washing it down with a sip of cool tea, she said, ¡°I believe you. I¡¯ll have father do whatever is proper. Can¡¯t you let me thank you, first?¡±

    ¡°Thanking me would be taking me to a bed,¡± he grumbled. When she cleared her throat and blushed, he caught himself. ¡°Giving me some rest. I arrived late in the night and have scarcely slept. I was actually dozing between duels as you let some of those men monologue.¡±

    Felicia laughed, and airy and cute tinkling of her voice. ¡°And here I was wondering why you weren¡¯t courting me.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m sorry?¡±

    ¡°It would be rather natural, would it not? Our families are allied, but thanks to the conquests of my father, we stand in slightly higher position. You are the eldest son, I am the eldest daughter, of our respective families. We got along as little children and you¡¯ve shocked a great deal of people with your maturity. What¡¯s more, you got me kicked out of the court.¡±

    ¡°I did what?¡±

    Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators!

    She sighed and mixed in a dollop more of honey to her tea cup and the maid freshened the kettle. She rattled a spoon roughly and shook her head. ¡°After you humiliated the prince, the angel grew rather sullen. She¡¯s been dealing with theological schism lately, being the head of the temples. The sun worshippers make for wonderful lawyers, did you know that? They¡¯ve been digging up Sapphira¡¯s own texts and using them against the temples. If that alone were enough, Acheliah could simple abrogate the rulings, but Helios left behind a number of compacts among the gods to befuddle her with. Which is all to say that as soon as I stopped being fun for her, I was a nuisance to be gotten rid of. She likes Kassie quite a bit, you know.¡±

    Lucius drank his tea without tasting it. ¡°Just as well. The capital will be starving soon,¡± he said. Felicia froze. ¡°Gabriel is forcing a war and Westshire will side with the central kingdoms. The ties run thicker among them than with us. If the king is smart, he may order the crops be harvested early¨Cbefore they can be burned. This is why I went to such efforts to get the Misty Isles growing. Sadly, I think the merchants largely planted tobacco. I wonder if the poor can smoke their hunger away.¡±

    ¡°There won¡¯t be war. The armies are needed for Skaldheim. The king is treating with the council as we speak to negotiate trading routes in the ice sea.¡±

    ¡°What¡¯s happening in the ice sea?¡±

    She shrugged. ¡°Something to do with a copper mine(1). They were able to drag the equipment over by sled during the winter, now there¡¯s practically a fortress in land claimed by Jarnmark.¡±

    Lucius took his time picking over the bakery treats, trying to discern which were fresh and which had turned to briquettes. ¡°I hate to break it to you, Felicia, but that makes it all the more likely. If we look stretched thin, that¡¯s weakness and weakness is a provocation.¡±

    She nodded. ¡°I suppose that¡¯s why you¡¯re being sent off on a gamble.¡±

    Picking a crumbling mass of sugar and pistachio, Lucius said, ¡°If I¡¯m to be the game piece, the question becomes who is throwing the dice.¡±

    ¡°Duke Ashe.¡±

    He nearly choked, and then nearly burned his throat washing it down. ¡°I wasn¡¯t expecting good news.¡±

    She demurely shrugged. ¡°Who else would be trying to smooth over the conflict in the east? He¡¯s the one that has to fend off Skaldheim, not Feugard.¡±

    ¡°This is better than expected. I have a friend who will be paying a visit to the palace today. Mateo Mendez, son of one of my investors. They¡¯re looking for security guarantees on their land.¡±

    Felicia¡¯s grace drooped. She even put her elbow on the table. ¡°You¡¯re not going to ask me, are you?¡±

    He flashed a gambler¡¯s smile back at her, broad, toothy, and ready for a fight. ¡°Only to assist as an intermediary. If Ashe is sending me off to win a war for him, then surely he will be happy to buy our crops before the harvest, no?¡±

    Felicia arched an eyebrow and watched him steep another cup of tea. ¡°Are you going to answer my other question? Why aren¡¯t you courting me, Lucius von Solhart?¡±

    ¡°I already have a woman.¡±

    ¡°The bard? She¡¯s nobody.¡±

    ¡°She¡¯s pregnant.¡±

    ¡°Oh.¡± Her ears burned. ¡°Does your mother know?¡±

    ¡°She will soon enough, I¡¯m sure. Aisha is on her way now. Miss Felicia, if you want me to court you, I¡¯m afraid that it will have to last at least until I return from Duke Ashe¡¯s expedition, and for her safety I plan to leave Aisha here in Rackvidd. She¡¯s perfectly trained in court etiquette of course, and I¡¯ve secured more than enough to cover her expenses. If you can still stomach the thought of me after such time with the mother of my bastard then it would be a disgrace of me to not court you.¡± He heard approaching footsteps at this time, a warrior¡¯s senses to pick out the clink of metal.

    ¡°Isn¡¯t she the sister of that rebel? I thought you had to keep her with you.¡±

    ¡°If someone says I should bring her into the desert with me instead of leaving her in safety, tell them I will personally kill them in a duel.¡± He paused, letting the fury melt away. ¡°War will make the world a dangerous place. I know you must be upset that the angel kicked you out, but I think you should stay here in Rackvidd. Don¡¯t go back to the capital, and don¡¯t let my sister go either.¡±

    She tried to ask why that was, but he had timed his statement well. The door swung open and in marched the man clad in steel. Not an assassin but perhaps a threat, Lord Felix von Raymi greeted his daughter and guest. ¡°Better with a sword than ever, Lucius,¡± the grey-haired soldier said. His warm smile was reserved only for his daughter. ¡°Sweetie, did you enjoy making the men dance for you?¡±

    She swept out of her chair and gave him a hug. ¡°Better this than leaving them be.¡±

    Lucius greeted him properly, fists to his sides as he stood and bowed. ¡°I was happy to help her.¡±

    Lord Raymi kept his hand on Felicia¡¯s shoulder, as a sailor might keep his finger to the wind. ¡°Then I suppose you will be happy to help me. I have to meet with a bunch of scholars begging me for help with the university.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m not sure how I can be of help, Sir¡­¡±

    ¡°I need you to divide their attentions¨Ckeep them from ganging up on me. Especially if that syphilitic oaf is dragged out of his cretinous dungeon.¡±

    <hr>

    <ol>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">At the time, the Skaldish merely called it the Western Copper Mine. The untranslated name seeped through the Vassish rumor mill primarily among people who didn¡¯t know the meaning of the words. This bit of trivia is rather moot except as a point of modern translation. In the years that followed, that highly contested mine came to be known as the Blood Mine, and the name has stuck ever since. To not cause confusion, I will be using the term ahistorically just as I preferentially call my pupil Lucius.</li>

    </ol>

 4-5 - A Meeting With Incompetency

    In all kingdoms, nations, realms and times, there has been a not-quite servile group of men who pretend to be smarter than they truly are. They tend to be affluent, more from the happenstance of their birth than from their own merit. AS such, they desperately grab hold of true geniuses and haul them around like exotic pets. They hold private parties where they discuss politics and art more high mindedly than they¡¯re truly capable of. The genius in question¨Cbe they a writer, artist, scientist of philosopher¨Cmust amuse these fellows because it is through their patronage they are prevented from needing a job of their own. Thus, they make themselves into a clown.

    The pretenders of Rackvidd had but one such clown, a sickly man of former great mind. To this day, many people think rather highly of this writer, Voltez, but I find that his presence has more to do with his influences than his actual writings. He himself was a mere refinement of the dialectics. This is not the place to debate the great schisms of society however, for by this year Voltez no longer had his mind.

    After many years of calling upon his favored prostitute, of lavishing her with gifts and money and the off cast treasures of his noble friends, her infidelity to him¨Cif such a compact could be said to exist at all¨Cled to her contracting the illness and passing it onto him. The infection reached his brain and devoured his wisdom year by year until he was the equivalent of a three year old babe. He had a maid who ushered him about, wiped his chin, fed him food, and struggled to keep his incoherent outbursts under control. Of course, the analogy is not quite correct. He could still recite some of his works from perfect, crystal memory. As such, his patrons kept him around somewhat like a performing monkey.

    I find such behavior to be insulting and degrading, so henceforth I will be exercising my authorial power to purge him from the scene. I have explained the historical condition, but I will not tarnish his name by immortalizing his prolonged death.

    Lord Raymi, after giving but a few hours to restore himself, took Lucius to the private affair aforementioned. A chorus of strings had begun to pluck and thrum but no singer commanded attention. They did not even play to a crescendo of any sort, but took turns filling the air with pleasant noise so the men of the city could speak. They were in gold-threaded tunics and trim military-styled jackets. They kept their socks tight and their pants wide. There are certainly locales where such a look would be stylish, but overwhelmingly these men were too old for such things. They pretended at the fashion and thought themselves avant garde as they walked about the pavilion with mugs of wine; mere goblets would not be enough of course.

    And so, after learning nothing at all of the military duty for which Lucius would be assigned, he found himself entertaining two so-called scholars(1) who thought they had come upon something scientifically revolutionary by the rejection of ¡®flogistan¡¯.

    ¡°Can you believe it?¡± one of the codgers was saying. ¡°For centuries people believed that fire was of a material escaping to the air but it isn¡¯t at all! The air is sucked into the burned substrate.¡±

    ¡°Except for the ash,¡± Lucius said. The wine had long ago sapped his ability to pretend to be interested.

    ¡°Well, yes. Of course. Except for the ash. But if you trap the ash and weigh it once more, the weight has in fact increased! What¡¯s more, if you burn in a sealed environment, the weight changes not at all.¡±

    ¡°I once heard of a troll in the north,¡± Lucius said. ¡°The Skalds trapped it in a cave with no exit, but were too fearful to go in and face it themselves. They were poor men, presumably. So what they did was toss in a barrel of oil and set it ablaze. After it guttered out, they found the troll dead but not burned. The fire sucked the air of its life.¡±

    THe other man screwed up his face and scratched his chin before asking, ¡°If they were poor how did they afford a barrel of oil?¡±

    For a moment, Lucius was stunned. ¡°I don¡¯t know. Perhaps they weren¡¯t and were merely cowards?¡±

    ¡°Very curious. I should try to replicate this,¡± the old man said. ¡°Perhaps with a mouse? It is known that they will suffocate if jarred up, but perhaps a fire will do it quicker?¡±

    ¡°I suspect,¡± the younger of the two men said, ¡°that the temples already know the answer. The nature of fire is a very fundamental part of our reality, don¡¯t you agree? Of which they profess to study. And if they haven¡¯t discovered this then they are useless.¡±

    The older and more reticent speaker shook his head. ¡°It would explain why they share so little; they know nothing themselves.¡±

    The first expression to truly cross my pupil¡¯s face in some time pulled his brow together. ¡°Even the lowest chemist of the temples knows at least as much as you do. They are responsible for more of our industry than you would imagine.¡±

    ¡°Bah, you mean knowledge is responsible for our industry! Knowledge which they hoard to keep their status. They pretend to be caretakers of it, but they just do as the angels command and they are imminently fallible.¡±

    A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

    ¡°The angels are only one step removed from human,¡± Lucius quoted, straight from the texts.

    ¡°The angels are a bunch of misandrists,¡± the younger fool said.

    Lucius shook his head and emptied his mug. ¡°I wasn¡¯t expecting to hear blasphemy.¡±

    The older one scoffed. ¡°It¡¯s only blasphemy because it¡¯s true. It gets under their glowing skin. You know, the central kingdoms don¡¯t treat men the way we Vassish do.¡±

    ¡°The central kingdoms think it¡¯s healthy to raise a child with only two parents. There¡¯s a reason you all know what I mean when I talk about bedding a church girl with no father. A proper Vassish estate is much better.¡±

    The older man sipped his wine and frowned. ¡°Why don¡¯t you tell us what you think of inheritance then? You¡¯re the eldest son of your family and you keep proving how competent you are, but the family estates will go to your sister and whoever marries her.¡±

    ¡°And I will take the land of my wife. What of it?¡±

    ¡°In Skaldheim, farm land is passed from father to son, as they are the ones who work it most. Second sons reclaim land from the winter and make it their own. They mix their labor with it to later pass on to their children. But here, every estate and business is tossed from hand to hand by the whims of women. It¡¯s inefficient and wasteful is what it is. Neither sex should have such an advantage over the other. The gods split the roles of parentage between us but that should have nothing to do with business!¡±

    Lucius said, ¡°Men can buy the legal ownership of businesses from one another. The only thing tied up like you¡¯re talking about are the noble estates. Frankly, I don¡¯t believe you men have any business debating how nobles should exchange their property amongst themselves.¡±

    The older one frowned, making the wrinkles of his face resemble a bulldog. ¡°Why shouldn¡¯t we? Part of the problem is that we are forbidden from marrying into the blue bloods, no matter how successful we are.¡±

    Lucius was too drunk to not laugh. Clearly they had never imagined the scheme he and I had implemented. ¡°Gentlemen, if only you realized how ignorant you just exposed yourselves to be.¡±

    The younger one puffed up and prickled, glaring down his nose. ¡°What¡¯s that supposed to mean?¡±

    Lucius waved his mug for a refill and went on to explain to them. ¡°Sure, if you compare yourself to the Ducal families or the royal family you will never compare, but several low borns are far more powerful and influential than someone like Lord Raymi. The people who most impact our kingdom have the most unassuming of roles. Port masters. Tax collectors. Judges. I propose that the largest influence on our prosperity has been driven by the land dispute judiciary. Most people don¡¯t even know there are specifically appointed men¨Cand women¨Cwho are experts in historical law and ownership rights. Some of them get bribed too, and they bring in their own judgment at times. Their influence on the ownership of land drives the effectiveness or not of our farmers and from food comes all surplus. There¡¯s nothing noble about the role at all.¡±

    ¡°My good sir,¡± the bulldog man said as Lucius¡¯ cup was filled. ¡°I think you have completely disregarded the rights of men, of enterprise and franchise. Are we supposed to content ourselves with petty powers? The kind of private tyranny a robber baron might aspire to? I think it is you who is ignorant. Why, you¡¯ve probably never even heard of Jacque Mordare, let alone read his treatises.¡±

    ¡°Jacque Mordare? You mean that drunk from Jarnmark?¡±

    ¡°All men drink,¡± the younger sycophant said.

    ¡°What does he have to do with anything?¡± Lucius asked, recalling the fellow that had deluded him about savage nature so many years ago.

    The bulldog man chortled. ¡°Shows what you know, m¡¯lord. He is the¡­ was the genius behind the social contract. He finally put to words what everyone had implicitly understood. It is thanks to him that we can explain the needs for the rights of man to be respected! By the very standards of nobility, the freedoms of the lowborn must be upheld. Jacque proved this beyond a shadow of a doubt. He was a genius.¡±

    ¡°He was an idiot trying to impress Lady Ashe so he could sleep with her.¡±

    The younger sycophant¡¯s face flushed. ¡°Do not repeat those lies! You disgrace us all by giving credence to that slander.¡±

    ¡°Why do you think Lady AShe never married? Jacque got himself killed as I hear it.¡±

    Raymi thrust his hand into the fray and clapped it upon Lucius¡¯ shoulder. ¡°And here is the hero of the hour,¡± he declared, dragging a small cadre of listeners into the conversation with him.

    A pious imp of a man stepped forward, barely any taller than a goblin and with spectacles upon his dried out face. ¡°My good sir¨Cgentlemen, I apologize to interrupt¨Cyour work my boy, no, I¡¯m sorry, my lord is of the utmost importance.¡±

    The prompting of Lucius¡¯ upraised brow caused Lord Raymi to say, ¡°This is Father Ambress. An inquisitor of the Church of Helios.¡±

    The little man laughed. ¡°Please, you make it sound so severe, Lord Raymi. My job is to inquire. I investigate things. My time with knife and brand is long past. Just look at me now. I have been traveling to bring our beloved angel back to us and the most I can do is plead with a child no more than a third my age to do the work for me!¡±

    Lucius adjusted his stance, turning his shoulder to the earlier men. They backed off, dragging the incompetent Voltez with them. ¡°Perhaps, Father Ambress, it is time for me to learn what my job will be? That forced my recall.¡±

    ¡°Of course,¡± the inquisitor said. ¡°You are needed to trek down through the wastelands along the path of Jean de Jeamaeux and bring her back before war conflagrates the whole of the central kingdom like Prince Gabriel wants it to. When I heard about your duel against the prince I just knew that you were the man for the job. And to think you were also the hero of Rackvidd! Please, my lord, save our angel.¡±

    <hr>

    <ol>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">Voltez was with them, but as mentioned I omit his presence.</li>

    </ol>

 4-6 - Fate of the Raymi Family

    The stars looked down upon the two noblemen, those distant eyes of the gods. Night had sapped the heat from the day and cold winds blew up from the sea to ravage their wine sodden bodies for their heat. Both Lucius and Raymi were of no mind to care about physical discomfort. Alcohol was a numb blanket, thicker than any tunic. At the older man¡¯s direction, they both trekked up the walls of Rackvidd, to the site of collapse that Erdro Karakale had caused so many months prior.

    A great network of scaffolding and on-site masonry had grown about the damage, delayed as it was by the need to dig out the rubble. I had given them some advice on reinforcing the structure before we departed for Hearth¡¯s Bay, but without a suitable stigmata user the work could only progress slowly.

    After a few signals from Raymi, the men on watch adjusted themselves to give privacy. Suitably alone, the old man leaned against one of the crenulations. ¡°My daughter seems quite taken with you.¡±

    Lucius kept his eyes on the mountains. ¡°I would have thought she would be irritated with me. When I met her she had the ear of the princess and now she¡¯s almost at the edge of the map.¡±

    ¡°You stood up for her, for your own reasons but just the same. My daughter isn¡¯t stupid. If you talk with her too much, she¡¯ll realize you aren¡¯t the real Lucius. What should I call you anyway?¡±

    Half a year of suspicion was confirmed, and all my pupil could do was grip the stone. ¡°You should call me Lucius.¡±

    ¡°Yes, I suppose I should. But it¡¯s not your name.¡±

    He smirked. ¡°What is a name if not what everyone calls you?¡±(1)

    ¡°Do you think you can fool the Solharts?¡±

    ¡°I have no intention of ever seeing the Solharts in my life. Getting sent to the desert is but one way of avoiding familial duties.¡±

    The old lord scoffed. ¡°I thought you¡¯d like the assignment.¡±

    ¡°Oh, I do. I love the idea of burning heat, sleepless nights, and praying that insects will bite me in my sleep just so that I might know water is nearby. Let¡¯s not forget the cannibals that live there. The demon worshippers. Soon enough I¡¯ll be running for the bishop¡¯s protection as the one good thing in the whole world. Do you know how many years it¡¯s been since I¡¯ve had blisters on my hands? I can already imagine the burns I¡¯ll have from fighting.¡±

    ¡°A soldier¡¯s primary duty is to suffer. Suffer the elements, the hunger, and the boredom of war. The actual stabbing is therefore rendered into a festival. It invigorates calloused nerves. Even better, if the man has someone waiting for his triumphant return.¡±

    Lucius asked, ¡°And you¡¯d have that be your daughter?¡±

    Raymi turned his gaze to the horizon and crossed his arms. ¡°No, I suppose I wouldn¡¯t want to see my daughter marry a liar and killer. I¡¯m worried about the kingdom however. Vassermark was built on seven hundred years of faith to the water goddess. Our royalty was divinely ordained, from mother to daughter straight through the centuries until King Cassius was the only heir in the royal line. He certainly tried to spread his seed, but to make peace he married a foreigner. We all loved her of course, but she was only a single woman and brought no sisters with her. Perhaps for the best, but she died giving us her only daughter.¡±

    ¡°Kassandra will make a fine queen.¡±

    ¡°If her brothers don¡¯t destroy it all, yes. But look at all the counts and barons. Families have been disintegrating ever since the sun worshippers were allowed to espouse their thoughts on monogamy. Entire lines of succession are being thrown into doubt. And then there are these lowborn vultures trying to find any noble son with a taste of envy to whisper in their ears about human rights and democracy.¡±

    Lucius nodded. ¡°So that¡¯s why you brought me there.¡±

    ¡°Those men would kill my daughter and celebrate it, given half a chance.¡±

    ¡°So you come to me? How am I so different from them?¡±

    ¡°Aisha,¡± he said, his solemn gaze fixed upon Lucius. ¡°You¡¯re also trying to work within the system. You don¡¯t insult the churches. You work for the people and think about the future. Of course, helping my daughter inclines me to like you, but it was when you stuck your neck out for the Canta girl that I saw you as more than an ambitious war hero. A man who¡¯s good in a fight is no good for anything more than battle. Now I hear she¡¯s with child and you¡¯re making arrangements for her to be taken care. The idea of being sent to war doesn¡¯t even phase you, but the idea that she might be in danger has you. Which is why I want an oath from you.¡±

    This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

    ¡°An oath?¡±

    ¡°I won¡¯t ask you to marry her. My daughter can make her own decisions on that front, but if something should happen to me then I want your word that you will protect her. I¡¯ll keep your secret and continue shielding you from the Solharts if you¡¯ll give your word that you will protect her.¡±

    It wasn¡¯t nearly as good as a binding oath from Golden, but Lucius stuck out his hand and grasped Raymi¡¯s forearm. ¡°I¡¯ll keep the vultures off of her.¡±

    The old lord smiled. ¡°Then you can go to the desert with an easy mind. I¡¯ll take care of your woman.¡±

    ¡°When do I depart?¡±

    ¡°First thing in the morning. Your army has already set sail from Puerto Vida. You¡¯ll have to link up with them on the continent. I¡¯d let you rest a day, but your sister is most likely marching south as we speak. If you mean to avoid her, you¡¯d best leave at once.¡±

    Lucius grimaced. ¡°You¡¯re not giving me a very large ship, are you?¡±

    Raymi laughed.

    The next morning, Lucius walked down the harbor to the largest available ship in all of Rackvidd fit to transport someone across contested waters. He stared at the port official that had shown him over and the pudgy man said, ¡°Every warship fit to be spared has sailed north in anticipation of the king¡¯s meeting with Skaldheim.¡±

    ¡°So you expect me to take this?¡±

    ¡°Only until you¡¯re picked up by the Blazen Arrow.¡±

    ¡°This is a fishing boat.¡±

    ¡°This will be ignored by pirates.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯d sooner kill the pirates and take their ship.¡±

    ¡°Perhaps you could, but this is the best we can hire for you. Perhaps you should pretend to be in distress? They might try to ransom you.¡±

    He shook his head. ¡°If they aren¡¯t sailing beneath the waves, maybe.¡±

    Captain Ayaz of the Sandskipper laughed and waved him aboard the vessel, hardly bigger than a dingy. ¡°Don¡¯t worry, I¡¯ll get you there plenty quick. Fresh sails and fast winds. On my honor. Just, you don¡¯t have many supplies to bring with you, do you?¡±

    ¡°Just myself.¡±

    ¡°And one more!¡± Golden shouted as he marched down the harbor, silken arms waving.

    Lucius spun. While I was leading the good doctor and his lover to the heart of the city, intent on good lodgings and freedom for the night rather than repeating goodbyes, Aisha accompanied the bird to see Lucius. ¡°So there is another ship.¡±

    The redhead frowned, stopping a few paces off from him. ¡°That¡¯s what you have to say?¡±

    ¡°I missed you already. I should have made sure to remember our last night together,¡± Lucius said, sweeping her into his embrace and twirling her about. Promptly, he set her down and gestured to the fishing boat. ¡°But this is not an appropriate way to travel.¡±

    She stared, open mouthed, at Captain Ayaz and his boy Hamza. The old sea dog chortled. ¡°So this is the kind of trade negotiations you had to do, Missy.¡±

    ¡°What a small world,¡± she whispered.

    Golden pointed at the ship and faced the port official. ¡°What is the meaning of this? There¡¯s no cabin. No mess. No place to drink or dine!¡±

    Captain Ayaz shrugged. ¡°You can drink by the stern if it pleases you.¡±

    That momentary distraction was seized upon by the official, scurrying into the crowds so he might not be seen and pressed further. He had delivered Lucius to the ship. Suffering a stranger¡¯s indignation was not on his agenda for the day. That left Golden no recourse but to question the poor captain about wine and spirits and games, music at the least.

    Lucius held Aisha to him, regretting the layers of cloth and metal he had clad about his chest for he could not feel her body. That drew his thoughts to the life within her and old fear stabbed through his guts; fears he thought he would never feel again in his life. Within his mind, he was dragged back years and years to his days with Ezra and myself, to when Leomund was an unstoppable troll of a northerner beating the way of the sword into him.

    ¡°How long will you be gone, do you think?¡± Aisha asked.

    ¡°A trip like this? A month perhaps. I have promises to keep at the capital. We shall be the toast of the king¡¯s court. And while I¡¯m burning in the desert, you will be Felicia¡¯s guest if you don¡¯t mind.¡±

    She laughed. ¡°You¡¯re trying to make a noblewoman of me, are you? I¡¯m just a merchant¡¯s daughter.¡±

    ¡°The way I see it, you¡¯re as close to Giordanan nobility as it gets. Now then, I should get going before Golden has a fit.¡±

    She asked, ¡°you mean more of a fit?¡±

    He kissed her goodbye and leapt into the Sandskipper. Golden followed suit, complaining that such a vessel was slower than him flying there even though he could no longer fly. The two lovers dragged out their goodbyes with much shouting and waving, apologies that they didn''t have more time. Lucius¡¯ voice was hoarse by the time they left the harbor and finished unfurling their feeble sails.

    ¡°Never thought I¡¯d be ferrying a Vassish noble. This is quite an honor,¡± Captain Ayaz said as Golden uncorked the first bottle of rum.

    ¡°You should always be wary of unexpected honors,¡± Lucius said. ¡°They might be trying to pushing you with them,¡± he added before taking a swig of the liquor as well.

    <hr>

    <ol>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">This sentiment is only true for humans. Daemons care quite a bit about their true name.</li>

    </ol>

 Teaser Chapter - Inter Stellar Affairs

    Royal Spring, Colorado would not have been my first choice if I had known I would be homeless. Technically, I could still make it back to Columbus in time to pay my rent and not get evicted, but that would require transportation. Over a thousand miles from home, not only had my girl ditched me, but so had my truck. Some asshole had decided he deserved my truck more than I did, and helped himself to it. Sitting in a half-frozen parking garage, I felt like the start of some kind of new age country song; which is to say I hated myself.

    It was a friday night, and the tech boom town was buzzing with people free from their respective offices. They mingled between nightclubs and dive bars. They got artisanal burgers in sit down restaurants or grabbed Mediterranean food from trucks. It should have been me and Jessica right there with them, but instead I was afraid I wouldn''t have enough money to buy a bus ticket home. The thought of getting cramped into a Greyhound alongside pensioners, the mentally deranged, and who knew who else would be on a cross-country bus, it made my empty parking spot seem welcoming by comparison.

    Still, I wanted a drink and I was kicking myself that I hadn¡¯t gone to a liquor store before they closed. I had no idea how I would fall asleep with my ass on ice without a bit of booze in me. I¡¯d heard that most homeless people just walked. They would pick a direction and go because if they stayed in any one place too long the police would be on them, so they walked until they were in a haze, until they couldn¡¯t tell the difference between dreaming upright and reality. Then they¡¯d drop, dead to the world for a few hours.

    Lucky or not for me, I had a pity story and a police report number to go with it. My truck had only been stolen that day and they didn¡¯t need to know I was unemployed, living on credit card debt.

    When I heard other people talking, the clunk of their boots, the thought occurred to me that I might have to explain what I was doing there. They¡¯d ask questions, or worse¨Cthey¡¯d make assumptions. For all my hours moping, I hadn¡¯t even a flimsy excuse for what I¡¯d done because it had been so monumentally stupid. It felt romantic in the moment, like something a movie would have. My gesture of reuniting had ended with a door slammed in my face and then my truck stolen. I couldn¡¯t bear the thought of explaining to anyone why I was sitting alone in a parking garage, without even power in my phone to browse the internet, so I hid.

    The bottom floor had a grimy area beneath the lowest ramp. There were utility closets and semi-permanent construction barricades. No place for a car to squeeze in, but cubbies abounded for a loser to squeeze into. The voices of the arrivals echoed against the moldering concrete and I immediately realized the man and the woman were flirting. There was a certain slur of alcohol to their enunciation and too much laughter. When a car started, I was grateful the rumble of the engine muffled their voices so I didn¡¯t have to listen to their fleeting happiness.

    Behind a road barrier, the mountain air didn¡¯t cut as deep and shadows cloaked me. I was able to jam my back to a piece of plywood and huddle my knees to my chest. I figured that so long as rats didn¡¯t come take a bite out of me, that was as good as my night was going to get.

    So I was a little peeved when more people showed up. The garage wasn¡¯t very packed to begin with. April was late for ski season, so the seasonal surge of tourists had abated. That left the bottom floor of the parking garage sparse. Not to mention that bars should have been closing soon, so the people leaving were likely too drunk to drive. They should have been getting picked up.

    That left me a little slow on the uptake as I realized the men speaking weren''t¡¯ drunk. They weren¡¯t shouting at one another, their ears half-deaf from cranked club music. They sounded sober, so my mind immediately jumped to the fear that they were cops. That, or employees of the parking garage. Security maybe; people looking to ensure vagrants like me stay out on the street instead of their private property. kick people like me out on the street instead of their private property.

    There were two men, which I dubbed Adam and Brad as I tried to sort out who was saying what. I was extra confused when my brain told me that they had East Coast accents, not quite New York but definitely not Colorado.

    Adam was saying, ¡°Tonight¡¯s finally the night.¡±

    ¡°Isn¡¯t this too many cars? Justinian was supposed to give the night off,¡± Brad said.

    Adam said, ¡°Cars don¡¯t mean people. You know, these corporate guys like to skirt the rules. I bet most of these are spare cars being illegally parked here. They might just show up every now and then to move the car to another spot and trick the security team. Safer than leaving an unused spare at home and cheaper than storage. Nobody¡¯s here.¡±

    ¡°We should scan,¡± Brad said.

    I shrank, pulling my hood around my head and wondering if I might look like a trash bag. I wasn¡¯t next to a dumpster¨Cand my nose thanked me for that¨Cso I doubted it.

    Adam said, ¡°Don¡¯t. What¡¯s it even matter? Tonight¡¯s the night.¡±

    Brad grumbled. ¡°Alright, compromise. How about I pull the fire alarm, eh? We won¡¯t have to write a report if I do that.¡±

    Adam sighed. ¡°Just get a bag on your hand first, alright? Those alarms spray dye when you pull them. You¡¯ll never get it out of your suit.¡±

    I listened, barely breathing, as one of them crinkled a paper bag. Another sucked on a soft drink. Curiosity, with a bit of self-preservation, won out as I peeked around the corner. Adam looked like a Ken doll; his skin as synthetic as the black windbreaker he wore. He chucked the empty drink cup at an overflowing trash can a moment before Brad pulled the fire alarm.

    Sirens blared as the two men stepped over to one of the walls to get out of the water spray. I luckily stayed dry too, but only because the scaffolding was blocking the nearest sprayer. After a moment, Adam and Brad shrugged at each other. No one had come running out of the garage, and I was wondering if I should bolt for it.

    I didn¡¯t though.

    Across the concrete, I heard half a dozen ball bearings scatter and roll. They didn¡¯t bounce, they just grinded across the slush and stone, spreading out until they surrounded the parking garage. I caught a glimpse of one, about the size of a softball.

    I should have ran.

    It sprang open like a capsule and pulsed with light. Then, I was falling. There was no up or down and all I could see was darkness. My insides felt like I was being slung around in the grip of a tornado, but I didn¡¯t feel so much as a breeze on my skin. I couldn¡¯t breathe either.

    As suddenly as it happened, it stopped. I felt like a bomb had just gone off in my face, but then I was just sitting on a carpet floor with my heart racing, my breath catching, and no idea where I was. I shouted something, which caused the two men to spin around and stare at me. The one I had dubbed Adam looked like an agent of the matrix, but his colleague, Brad, had a bit more humanness to him. Which was a bit ironic given that he seemed to be completely hairless. It might have been by choice, or he might have been a vat clone soldier for all I knew.

    This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

    Adam lifted his sunglasses and squinted his eyes at me. ¡°Where the hell were you?¡±

    ¡°Where the hell am I now?¡± I countered, because it looked like we were in an office building. The carpet I was sitting on was cheap, stain-proof nylon crap and the walls were drywall. The ceiling even had water stains in the tiles. The only issue was that the room had no doors as far as I could see.

    The two men looked at each other and Brad asked, ¡°What are we supposed to do with that? Aria, why did some guy get brought in with us?¡±

    For the first time, I saw the silver-haired woman sitting at the lone desk in the room. She was tearing open a bag of fast food and unwrapping her burger. As soon as she had it out, she glared at Adam. ¡°What the hell is this?¡±

    Adam said, ¡°It¡¯s a combo seven like you asked for.¡±

    ¡°If you had gone to the right place, a combo seven would have been a quesadilla. Burgers are disgusting.¡±

    Brad scoffed. ¡°See? I told you.¡±

    Adam put up his hands then pointed at me. ¡°Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay sorry. Whatever. It¡¯s food. Can we address the drunk in the room?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m not drunk. I¡¯m confused but I¡¯m not drunk,¡± I said, getting to my feet. I pulled out my phone and considered calling 911, but I didn¡¯t have any cell service.

    Aria rolled her eyes and took a bite of the burger. I didn¡¯t blame her for not liking it, the greasy press of bun and ground up grime looked nothing like advertised. After she swallowed, she said, ¡°He was like five feet away from you when you cleared out the garage, geniuses. What does it matter? Everyone¡¯s about to know anyway.¡±

    Adam looked at her, then at me, then back to her. ¡°Well he¡¯s not supposed to be here yet. Green, shoot him.¡±

    Brad had an actual name, and a gun apparently. Thankfully, he didn¡¯t draw it on me, he just cocked an eyebrow at the other guy. ¡°I ain¡¯t shooting a civilian for nothing.¡±

    Aria held up a hand. ¡°Don¡¯t get blood all over my office, please and thank you.¡±

    ¡°Excuse me!¡± I shouted. ¡°Who the hell are you people?¡±

    The girl cleared her throat, thumped her chest and held up a finger before either of the men could speak. ¡°I¡¯ve got this. It¡¯s my dress rehearsal,¡± she said, wiping a bit of mustard off her lip. Then she rose and flung her hair back over her shoulder. The instant she smiled at me there was an energy in her, a larger-than-life intensity that wiped away the mundane, bored woman who had been at the desk a moment before. In a booming voice, she pointed a delicate finger at me and declared, ¡°The name¡¯s Aria and I¡¯m the tower master of installation twelve. Welcome to the¡­ Mn, no, wait I guess you¡¯re too early for that. Forget I said that. The name¡¯s Aria and I¡¯m the tower master, but really I¡¯m the princess in the castle, kidnapped by these two jackasses. Oh, please won¡¯t you save me?¡±

    Adam snarled. ¡°It wasn¡¯t us that kidnapped you!¡±

    She huffed and planted her hands on her hips. ¡°Passing the buck already?¡±

    Green shook his head. ¡°We¡¯re ISA, kid.¡±

    ¡°There¡¯s no ISA,¡± I said.

    Green and Adam had a short staring contest, which ended with Green saying, ¡°I told you we should be using our parent department.¡±

    I asked, ¡°Are you guys CIA?¡±

    Adam turned away from me and said, ¡°Aria, this is ridiculous. Teleport him out of here.¡±

    She sneered and shrugged. ¡°With what generator? Everything¡¯s warping the big boy in.¡±

    ¡°Then shoot him!¡± Adam roared.

    Green put his hands in his pockets and walked over to me. ¡°Kid, you ever thought about serving your country?¡±

    It was my turn to sneer. ¡°I¡¯m not a kid. I¡¯m twenty-two.¡±

    Green pressed his lips into a line. ¡°You play video games?¡±

    ¡°What are you getting at?¡±

    ¡°ISA stands for Interstellar Affairs. We were under the CIA until a few years ago. Now we¡¯re part of Space Force. You dig?¡±

    I furrowed my brow. ¡°If it stands for Interstellar Affairs, wouldn¡¯t your acronym be IA?¡±

    Green rolled his eyes. ¡°Come on, kid. All government agencies are three letters. You live under a rock or something?¡±

    ¡°I ain¡¯t ever heard of ISA before.¡±

    ¡°That was the point,¡± Green said. ¡°But you will¡­ I suppose tonight. Tonight¡¯s the night after all.¡±

    ¡°Aria!¡± Adam barked. He gestured at the table. ¡°You got your food, the garage is cleared out. Show time is ready, isn¡¯t it?¡±

    The silver-haired girl groaned and sank back into her seat, flipping some hair out of her face as she refused to look at the fed. ¡°I¡¯d be more ready if you had gotten me Taco Town like I asked for! You bastards work all of me like slaves and you can¡¯t even get a food delivery request right? Come on!¡±

    Adam snarled. ¡°Sorry, we¡¯re only facilitating interstellar war! Not like we¡¯re a bunch of rocket scientists or something. Oh, wait!¡±

    ¡°Food delivery pays less than minimum wage outside a city. The fact that you fucked it up means you¡¯re less competent than somebody who failed to graduate high school, you know that? It doesn¡¯t take a college degree to drive a car around and yet you overpaid goons got it wrong. Pathetic, really.¡±

    Green cut in to say, ¡°Aria, are you ready for the show?¡±

    After a moment of glowering, she sighed and turned up her hands. ¡°Aside from my wardrobe change, sure. Why not? You people have to give me the rewards though!¡±

    Adam whipped something at her and she snatched it from the air. I saw what looked like a flash drive in her hand, which she didn¡¯t seem enthused to see. The fed hooked a thumb at me. ¡°You happy now? Do something about this guy.¡±

    She arched an eyebrow. ¡°Do something? I just told you all the teleporters are busy. I¡¯ll just drop him in with the others when the party starts, alright? Speaking of which, the two of you can go now, alright?¡± she said, shooing them away as a portion of the wall opened up and revealed an equally bland hallway.

    Adam and Green both shook their heads as they looked at me, then headed into the hallway.

    I wondered if I should have followed them. Chasing after a guy who wanted me dead didn¡¯t seem like a great idea though, which leadened my feet and left me standing there like a dunce. Before I could change my mind, the wall sealed back up and I was alone with Aria. She had planted an elbow on the desk, her cheek to her fist as she frowned at me. ¡°You¡¯re not going to kill me, are you?¡±

    She asked, ¡°What were you doing in the corner of a parking garage?¡±

    I hung my head and stared at my feet. ¡°My truck got stolen,¡± I mumbled. ¡°I would have stayed with my girlfriend, but she¡¯s not my girlfriend anymore, so I didn¡¯t have anywhere better to be. I¡¯m kind of like a thousand miles from home.¡± I didn¡¯t know what about her made me honest. I just didn¡¯t have the instincts to lie and make myself sound better.

    She didn¡¯t laugh at me. She just nodded and stood up. The annoyed sneer had vanished from her demeanor as soon as the agents left the room. ¡°You drove a thousand miles to see your girlfriend and got dumped?¡±

    I hung my head even more and said, ¡°Yeah.¡±

    ¡°I guess there is something special about you, not just the fact you got sucked into the warp.¡±

    I looked up and saw that she was walking across the room to me. ¡°Didn¡¯t you just say it was because I was nearby?¡±

    Aria shook her head. ¡°That¡¯s not enough. Didn¡¯t you notice that it was only people who got warped? The system has to recognize people as people, otherwise it wouldn''t know where you end and the concrete you¡¯re standing on begins. Think of that as your synchro-rate. Yours was high enough the sensors thought Tweedlee-Dee and Tweedle-Dum were one person and you were the other it was supposed to pick up.¡±

    The closer she got, the harder it was to take my eyes off her. She had acted like an idol a moment before, and as she got within arms reach of me I couldn¡¯t deny that she had the looks of one too. ¡°I don¡¯t understand.¡±

    She sighed, then turned her head up to smile at me. Brushing her hair behind an ear, she stepped nearly against my chest and put her hands on my shoulders. ¡°It would take a while to explain, and unfortunately, the end of the world as you know it is about to start. But hey, you heard what I said earlier, didn¡¯t you? I may be the game master, but I¡¯m also the princess stuck in the tower, you hear? If you¡¯re a man, won¡¯t you come save me? Ten floors is a lot closer than a thousand miles.¡±

    I wanted to ask what she meant by the end of the world, and about kidnapping, and about ISA, and I definitely wanted to ask just what she thought she was getting at drawing so close to me; but, right when it looked like she was going to shut me up with a kiss, I fell through the world again.

    When I hit the ground again, I was in a far worse place than an office.

 4-7 - Meeting Old Friends

    Lucius'' journey back to the east has little to be remarked upon. He had one run-in with what he thought to be a pirate ship, but the fishing vessel wasn¡¯t worth their time. What had been intended as insult proved to be effective camouflage, at least for that role of the dice. When the Blazen Arrow was at last spotted, patrolling a certain lighthouse, they were able to signal it with a horn, some waving of flags, and were dragged aboard like refugees from a sunken ship. Captain Ayaz was given more than a fair wage and Golden was at least able to find some leisure proper.

    To Lucius¡¯ surprise, the Blazen Arrow had a woman for a captain, one Lady Raine Bellafont of the Order Ashcrow. She flitted about the deck, barking orders and patting rowmen on the shoulders while clad in half as much clothes as one would find decent. While she kept her hips and her breasts wrapped tight, everything else was bare and golden. Save for the divine sigils clad about her feet like sandals. A well-documented but rarely seen stigmata, [Waterwalker], that let her stroll across waves as easily as upon a deck.

    ¡°The gambling lion!¡± she cried out as she hauled Lucius aboard herself. Raine¡¯s laughter was infectious, especially considering that if she wasn¡¯t laughing then a flogging was about to occur.

    ¡°Glad to be aboard,¡± Lucius said as he glanced to the saber strapped to her hip.

    ¡°Have you ever been to the wastelands before, m¡¯lord?¡± Raine asked as she took him to the wheel of the ship.

    ¡°No, only as far as Puerto Faro.¡±

    She slapped him on the back with a grin. ¡°You¡¯re in for an experience of a lifetime I say. But I wont¡¯ say you¡¯re going to enjoy it.¡±

    It was not long after he disembarked from the warship that Lucius began pining to see her carefree smile again, to feel the rocking ship and the sea breeze cooling him. The clarity of those memories gave him comfort, but it was to be a very long time before he saw her again. He told me after that if he had realized his time in the desert would be so long, he would have made the trip there more memorable. He would have burned the captain into his mind and drank deep of her to give him strength later.

    As most people do, he took the present moment for granted. He whiled away his time only getting the barest of details about the woman in charge of ferrying him to the godless lands. He ate officer meals with her and Golden and he played games with the priestess who mixed their oils and said their prayers. He accepted a few spars with her, dancing upon the swaying deck with sailcloth wrapped blades.

    In just a few short days, she delivered him to the sandstone jaws of the wastelands. They sailed into Mandible Bay, named after the pinching, needle-like streaks of land that shielded the harbor. Derelict lighthouses stood at either end to mark the gate, but neither was lit. The fuel of the land had long ago been stripped bare. Raymi¡¯s expedition for ley, the year prior, had gone to the trouble of minor whaling, but the oil was burned up even before the meat was devoured.

    Lucius had perhaps an inkling suspicion of what to expect as he was rowed to shore¨Cthere was no working dock. Golden¡¯s insistence that everything would be neat and tidy only made sense to him much after the fact. Across the light chop of the harbor, peering to see an army waiting for him, the words prolonged the boy¡¯s confusion.

    It was when he stepped out of the rowboat and into the salt slop beach that he began to realize what had been done to him. Perhaps a dozen unwashed men, tawny and bearded, meandered from the mud walled hovels to greet him. They did not applaud, introduce themselves, or even salute.

    ¡°Where¡¯s the army?¡± Lucius asked, trudging up the sand.

    ¡°Here and there,¡± one of them said. ¡°Didn¡¯t think it would be you again.¡±

    ¡°Of course it would be him,¡± another said, lifting up a bottle from his desert cloak to swig half-fermented moonshine with a stench enough to curl Lucius¡¯ nose hairs. ¡°He¡¯s the reason we¡¯re here.¡±

    ¡°Should¡¯ve defected in Puerto Vida,¡± a third said, shaking his head and trudging back to the sandy enclave.

    Lucius¡¯ expression drew down as his memories began to place one man¡¯s face after another. None of them had been remarkable. They hadn¡¯t been sargeants or notable squad leaders, but they were the men he had led out of Puerto Faro the year before. They men who knew the true Lucius von Solhart and had witnessed Tyrion¡¯s insubordination because Lucius was not the real nobleman.

    Rather than confront the men, he spun to see the Blazen Arrow but the rowboat had already shoved off and shouting would not bring it back.

    Golden laughed and threw an arm around his shoulders. ¡°Come on, I said this would be neat and tidy. That means tidying up loose ends. It¡¯s all part of the plan. You¡¯ll just have to make do, you know? Be all the more heroic and tragic before rescuing the lovely bishop.¡±

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    Stranded on the southern continent without a single true ally, Lucius considered trying to kill the angel. He figured he had decent odds of it, but if the wastelands were as savage as he had been taught, there wasn¡¯t a ship fit to sail on the entire coast, and not half as much wood as could build a raft.

    He threw the angel¡¯s arm off of himself and ran into the lost city. To call it even that should be a joke, but any map marking the harbor says as much. Over the last seven centuries, indeed even before though I wont¡¯ bother trying to explain the time before humanity, dozens upon dozens of kingdoms, duchies, city-states and religious exiles had spotted Mandible Bay and thought it a good place to settle down. Indeed, so many ages of ruins layered upon one another and intermingled could only be wonderful proof that it was a fit site to settle. People had been doing it for centuries and surely the only reason nobody lived there was because of the savages attacking and burning. Human hubris always said that they wouldn''t make the same mistakes as generations past. In defense of the Vassish, an armed military camp is much more easily defended than a city.

    But, it does not feed itself well.

    Imagine if you will row upon row of houses like gravestones, half buried in the sand. Every gust of air drags more of the powder into house and home. Leave a building for a week and you might not find the door. The basic act of trying to build anew requires digging in search of foundation, cracking through layers of false concrete. The belief that sandstone should be beneath the city sends every engineer to get his shovels and often they do find a flat bit of beige to unearth from the sand. On that they pile stones, pack on mud, add weight until the stone cracks, one corner tumbling into a sinkhole. If there is a bedrock beneath the sand, no one has ever found it and nothing short of divine intervention will ever allow a two story building.

    Of course, the sand can be tolerated. The poor housing suffices. Worse than the dirty drudgery is the city¡¯s lack of wood. The wastelands have a mirage like effect that makes scrub look like trees. Greenery turns out to be nothing more than cacti that burn out too quickly to heat a meal with¨Cand the stench! Fresh water abounds, about half an hour¡¯s trek to the south where sandstone bluffs rise and a few wellsprings have been cut, but walking there is asking for a snake to bite you. Most men choose to clad their legs and feet in leather, suffering the boiling heat to save themselves from venom.

    To this point, I haven¡¯t even mentioned the savages; the worst kind of predator. They walk on two feet like men but less than one in a hundred has a mind. There simply isn¡¯t enough to go around in such a decrepit land and they envy foreigners for it. Magic is strewn about the wastelands, enough that they believe in it with religious fervor. For this, one belief often rises above all others: that wisdom can be stolen by consuming the brains of the other.

    A perversion of the truth that magic can be stolen by consuming another. Their cannibalism brings no benefit to the world.

    That diplomacy might work drove the bishop to these lands. Perhaps it might have worked if not for war.

    An astute reader will realize at this point that at no point did I describe defensive structures. There was no wood for a palisade. Earthen walls were tried, but the sand smothered them. The closest that existed was a network of mud bunkers which were supposed to house men from the heat to act as a form of advanced warning, but such attention relies on the discipline of the soldiers.

    When Lucius found the majority of them getting drunk on foul liquor and burning the barrels to boil a snake stew, he didn¡¯t even have to ask if the watchtowers were manned, for he knew they were not.

    Again, recognition slowly passed through the army, some two hundred strong by the looks of it. Each took a jab at a jape, taking turns quietly and respectfully as they said such things as, ¡°The gambling lion.¡± ¡°The lying gambler!¡± ¡°The hero of Rackvidd!¡± ¡°The bungler of Puerto Faro!¡± ¡°The undying.¡± ¡°The deserving to die.¡± ¡°The breaker of chains.¡± ¡°Should¡¯ve been chained up and left behind.¡±

    Lucius sucked in breath and roared at them, ¡°Shut your mouths. The next man to speak I will cut down.¡±

    Some of them might have taken the challenge, but these crudely imprisoned conscripts still remembered his fight against Tyrion, against Karakale, and they had heard of his duel against Medorosa. If any of them had been blessed with a stigmata that could contend with him, they would not have been abandoned in the wastelands. As such, they shut their mouths and listened.

    Lucius pointed back to the sea, his eyes locking from one man¡¯s gaze to the next, flitting as they looked away. ¡°That ship was seen for miles around. You think they don¡¯t know you¡¯re here? The sunless are waiting. They¡¯re biding their time until you can be taken with ease. The only reason you¡¯ve been able to laze about like this is because they thought you would run out of food. Look at you, you¡¯re already scavenging!¡±(1)

    Lucius paused for a moment, refilling his lungs as more soldiers emerged from hovels, shadows, and sleep. ¡°What they just saw was a VAssish ship, clouds upon the sea, deliver something to your camp. What do you think they are going to assume it was? Do you think they¡¯re going to assume it was one man, barely tolerated by the rest of you?¡±

    The answer was obvious only to the quicker witted among the men.

    He drove the point home. ¡°They¡¯re going to assume you were just given food! Weapons! Liquor! All things they want for themselves. You think you¡¯ve had it bad here? With shelters? They¡¯ve been burying themselves in sand to stay cool. They¡¯re seething at your shadows, at your wasteful fires. What do you think they are going to do now?¡± He paced down through the middle of the crowd, confident his words would hold them back. When he emerged the other side he turned and stood with his back to the south.

    Bellowing once more, ¡°To arms! We are going to be attacked!¡±

    A few soldiers lifted up their arms and pointed beyond him, to where a sand twister had appeared upon the horizon. It spun and clashed against the desert, gouging a line through the sand as it ripped everything to the sky and drove straight at them.

    ¡°They¡¯re coming!¡±

    <hr>

    <ol>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">Snake stew is quite delicious, if one can remove the venom sacks.</li>

    </ol>

 4-8 - The Purge of Puerto Faro

    There is no denying the facts of history that I set him up. He knew it from the moment he saw that sandstorm and there were no lies in the world I could tell to convince him otherwise.

    I had done a great deal of conspiring over the preceding months, and one of the most important facets was to arrange for the entire Puerto Faro garrison to be consigned to death in the wastelands. They knew the true Lucius better than most and they were present at the switch. Perhaps some lies could have been stretched over those events to construct a safe narrative, but the damage Tyrion Reed dealt to Lucius¡¯ reputation was too dangerous to ignore. Combining these facts with the certain knowledge that some men must die to win a war, it is only reasonable that a leader arranges for the proper men to die at the proper time. In this case, the only men who had to shed their blood were those that could undermine all of our endeavors and not one innocent soul.

    Aside from Lucius¡¯ own blood of course.

    The attack that destroyed the garrison came in three waves. First, the sand devil. A remarkably powerful stigmata, but the wastelands are filled with such monsters. They breed and breed and the children starve. Only the strong remain. The sand devil was one such example.

    With a sail of cloth tied to his body, pinned to wrist and foot, he rode within the turmoil. Winds buffeted into him, carrying him over the slopes as fast as a charging camel and with him he dragged the magic. Pulling on the currents of wind he twisted them about and brought them to a fine point beneath himself. There the spinning sand was able to cut lines through stone. It blasted more and more sand into the raging torrent that whipped about him like a locust plague.

    ¡°Shields! Get your shields. The houses, at once. Protect yourselves.¡± Lucius¡¯ words scattered the men, but gave them direction as they fled the tornado. Thoughts of anger and hate vanished as they all capitulated to their leader. The mud walled hovels were shoddy things but in their simplicity they had protection. By twos and threes the men snatched up their circular shields and meshed them like links of armor. They thrust their shoulders into the leather clad wood and tucked their faces to the backs.

    The force of the wind hammered into them, yanking upon their shields like a panicked horse. Sand ripped at their exposed feet, stripping them of calluses and then of skin entirely. Those unlucky enough to have a crack in their shelter found their bodies shredded by the sand current. The pain was fit for a torturer¡¯s dungeon; stripping them of skin inch by inch and blinding the unlucky. Blood oozed before it vanished into the desert maelstrom. The djinn of sand had no body they could stab, no blood to let, no walls to break.

    Only Lucius could face it.

    He ran through the decrepit city until he found the provisions of his so-called army. Half-plundered but the weapons were still good. He found an entire barrel of pilums, an antiquated weapon he was familiar with. Casting it over to spill them, he snatched up a half dozen before scrambling to the nearest roof. He had spotted the stigmata user like a bird in the storm.

    Even at a distance, the sand lashed out at him. His clothes were slowly ground to dust, the fibers turned ragged in place of his flesh. Before the attacker was in range, blood burst from his hands and face. Only by virtue of his own stigmata was he able to keep his eyes open.

    As the wastelander sighted him and closed in, Lucius threw his first pilum. The missile went wide, careening with the winds. He squeezed the second tighter, blood gushing across the shaft. The next missile plunged not into the man but the parachute cloth he wore. Immediately, it twisted with the sail and the man¡¯s position among the winds jerked and leapt. He was shoved into the vortex and spun about.

    Lucius put the third pilum into the man¡¯s back, dropping him like a slain bird. The sandstorm continued to rage even after the wastelander cracked upon a wall, but in a chaotic burst. Lucius had to throw himself through the mess and stab a fourth barb though his chest to end the magic.

    By then, the jackals had been loosed. Their howling and yipping echoed through the winds.

    Lucius spat the sand from his mouth, in a glob of blood. ¡°Form up! Circle formation! Lock shields!¡±

    Beasts of black fur and fang bounded across the sand streets. They trampled dunes and leapt across buildings. The pack master kept his distance, wrapped in enough cloth to kill him from heat, but the sun was already descending. The soldiers with brains dartied to intersections in the city, as the hounds attacked. They yelled and swung their steel about, clipping flesh and shedding blood.

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    The jackals moved first on the cowards. Those that hid in buildings or had fallen from the storm were dragged out. The bone crunchers had a habit of fighting over their prey. They sank their teeth into arms or legs and squeezed till they had the bone between their teeth. Then they pulled.

    The screaming pain of dismemberment fractured the shield formations. Weak men, scared men, the kind of conscript that was merely taken to fill the ranks and not to be trusted; they faltered. When the jackals began pouncing on the shields¨Cslamming their paws against them and leaping off as they avoided the steel fangs of man¨Cit was those weak men who broke. They were cast to the ground and wherever that happened the jackals entered and brought death with them.

    The scent of Lucius¡¯ blood drew a fair many of the jackals, dragging their leather and chain leashes. Their animal instincts saved them from death. One whiff of the boy and they backed off. They growled and slathered, even snapped their teeth and danced, but not one tried to nip his leg or pull him down.

    He trudged across the fresh-churned sand straight for the pack master. Soon as he was sighted, the wastelander whistled to recall the pack of hounds and to beg for help. A half dozen slingers came running from the desert but Lucius reached the man first. They fought, sword against club and whip. The man had some form of stigmata for training, and was of a fit sort, but nothing was enough to stop Lucius. My pupil pummeled him down, hacking and battering. Even unable to cleave through the club, unable to cut the bite-proof cloth, he persisted with raw brutality.

    Before help could reach the pack master, Lucius split his skull upon the ground.

    Sweating and panting, he failed to raise his shield in time. One of the sling stones struck him upon the breast, denting the metal. He staggered, but didn¡¯t charge them. Hefting his shield as more stones rained, he barked out, ¡°Tortoise formation!¡±

    As he charged the wave of wastelanders, the northerners were still struggling to dispatch the jackals. Animals kept getting among their legs, tearing them down. The wastelanders didn¡¯t come in one single force that Lucius could face, but in many squads of few. They spread throughout the city, ransacking buildings and preying upon the Vassish whenever numbers allowed. A few valiant fighters stood in the middle of the formation and fought back with bow and arrow; they even felled the cloaked sand people by the scores, but it wasn¡¯t enough.

    The men who engaged Lucius were skirmishers. They skittered about the sand with spear and sling and if ever he chased one the fellow scrambled away like a coward. Many did not scramble nearly fast enough. He caught their legs, split their tendons, trampled them and skewered them.

    Before long, his shield was too heavy with arrows and dangling splits of board that he dropped it. Blood poured down his face and out of his armor. Breathing was the highest priority. The approach of more stigmata users was as obvious as the setting sun, he just didn¡¯t know what tricks they were going to bring.

    Then he realized he stood upon the corpses of Vassish men. For a moment, he reeled and thought a hallucination had been put upon him. He had been fighting and killing, but not by the hundreds. Where had the battle been? It had been throughout the city. The corpses were genuine. Flayed by sand or shredded by dogs, the wastelanders had done nothing more than topple wounded men. While Lucius had fought them off, even the most fundamental of defenses had crumbled for his army.

    The thump of more corpses, they were piling the bodies into a heap. In the dusk gloom, shadows stood upon the roofs around him.

    With an honor guard before him, the leader of the wastelanders revealed himself. There were no battle formations, no discipline, but he trusted the enormous bruisers between him and Lucius. Thin and bearded, he held his arms to either side and asked, in passable Vassish, ¡°Where is it, Signor Comodante?¡±

    ¡°Who taught you that?¡± Lucius asked, stalling as his stigmata healed him.

    ¡°It matters not. Where are the cannons? You brought them with you, did you not? We will tear this place apart if we must.¡±

    One of the cloaked raiders hooted and hollered, articulate speech beyond him. They all turned to see the noise, expecting a ley cannon to be dragged out. Instead, Golden was marched out at spear tip. He held his hands up, blood across him. Blood of the savages of course, not his own. His grin and shrug was for Lucius, not for those that postured as his capturers. ¡°Don¡¯t worry,¡± he said. ¡°They¡¯re not going to kill you, yet.¡±

    As Lucius experienced it, something bit the back of his neck. It smacked his head forward and then the world slapped him. The attack had come when he was hardly prepared, and missing his helmet was one symptom. AS heroic as it is to depict someone with their face exposed, their hair flowing, it is not advised by anyone who can actually die. Such a braggart is susceptible to an ax splitting their spine open and even if that doesn¡¯t kill it certainly paralyzes.

    Such an injury didn¡¯t confuse Lucius, but them wrenching it out to roll him onto his back did. As per his usual tactic, he played dead as his stigmata healed him because he thought they didn¡¯t know. In the twilight, he thought his eyes were playing tricks on him as a woman¨Cnearly naked save for some straps of bleached silk¨Cstraddled him and ripped the armor from his chest. She was healthy and virile, with a wolfish grin on her face as she ran fingers across his chest. Their encounter was that of a lover¡¯s bedroom tryst.

    Until she leaned down and bit through his divine sigil.

 4-9 - The Hungering Wolf

    Her name was Lupa Famelico and she had a broken stigmata. I have previously mentioned that a divine sigil can be read to determine just what it does, like any other magic spell one might inscribe. The complexity prevents understanding typically. Nearly universally, the stigmata includes an enclosure, a ring most commonly. This constrains the logic as well as maintains the effect in perpetuity.

    Hers was open, unfinished.

    While that prevented her from exerting any magical force on the world, it created a remarkably dangerous effect upon other stigmata. By biting through Lucius¡¯s crest she consumed the ability, or she would have if he were not who he was. Anyone else would have been striped bare of their powers for the rest of their lives, if they survived the bite at all.

    Lucius was merely rendered weak for a time, as redundancies in his healing regenerated the stigmata to the ire of the tribal priest that captured him. And so, the day after arriving in the wastelands, Lucius was her prisoner and he could do little more than wonder why Golden had allowed himself to be captured as well.

    The questions mulled in his head, for the two of them were kept separate lest they conspire with one another. The angel needed no special protection, whereas Lucius had his hands bound by braided cords of leather, in turn connected to a leash that was tied about Lupa¡¯s waist and there locked.

    On that first day, he did what he had been taught well to do, he looked and he listened and he learned. This was his first time witnessing the sunless desert and it contained many wonders that he had heard of but never seen. Perhaps the reader has misapprehensions about the southern continent as well. Most curiously, it isn¡¯t hot, but it is dry. While traveling can be quite pleasant at first, many an explorer has met his end with a parched throat and delicious, digging fruitless holes to well up water that doesn¡¯t exist. Every drop of sweat is a little wound that scratches away at a man¡¯s life.

    In taverns and harbors across the world, there is a persistent rumor that the only way to survive is to drink one¡¯s own piss. There is no evidence that any of the tribesmen of the sunless desert partake of this barbaric indecency. Such an act might add a day to a man¡¯s life in extremis, but would be ludicrous for one living there. It is purely made up by men who visited those lands without knowing what they were doing. This rumor has led to several decades now of rumor born of the perversion of the gossipmonger, not of fact.

    Now, to contradict myself. The desert is not devoid of life, the life is simply different. The best example are the desert whiskers, a mere type of grass that roots deep in the sand, tangling the dust together to form a sort of bedrock that the rest of the wastelands layer over. They rise high, enough to clever a man¡¯s waist at times. Mice, snakes, scorpions, and the like love to live in such sparse habitats, making them rather dangerous for a walking human.

    However, they thrive at the sky fractures, the most curious of natural features in the wastelands and the very reason I went to so much effort getting Golden a human body. Of course, it was not the humanness that mattered, but the stigmata he now carried.

    The very morning after they were captured, he had bartered with the desert folk for proper rations in exchange for guiding them to the nearest fleeing oasis. While the dunes of Giordana can be plagued by phantom mirages which are nothing more than the sky reflected back across the layers of heated air, a traveler in the wastelands might spend an hour chasing after a water spout only to find it empty and dry by the time he arrives, some damp sand if he is lucky.

    This water is very much real. It is no work of a djinn, though the wastelands have numerous daemons of just such a malicious intent. What baffles the northern explorer is that the water falls from blue sky, or gray depending on how far south they are. The wastelands don¡¯t have clouds and the water does truly fall from the empty sky above. No human alive, save a few surviving veterans of the emperor¡¯s army I suppose, can fathom the true nature of the material world beyond the protection of Helios.

    What matters is that such leaks from the sky are the very manna from heaven that the sand people survive from, along with a few more permanent trickles at certain shrines. Golden proved himself a better dowsing rod than any of their trackers, thorough only after a heated debate with the priest. He won the debate of course, but in doing so was drenched by the falling water.

    This sight I was able to pull from Lucius¡¯ memories clearly because Lupa burst out laughing as she watched the affair. The idea that his warden might have a sense of humor about it baffled the future emperor.

    ¡°Am I your captive or not?¡± he asked.

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    Lupa sat upon the sand and grinned at him. ¡°You¡¯re chained up, aren¡¯t you?¡± she asked, speaking perfect Vassish.

    ¡°Are you going to ransom me or something?¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re the backup plan,¡± she said. ¡°But the priest is a good deal confused about what to do with you. Never seen a stigmata heal before. You might be more dangerous than the cannons.¡±

    ¡°I still can¡¯t believe you found cannons.¡± Two of the prototypes had been dredged out of the sand. They hadn¡¯t been sent to the wastelands, but fashioned there by Raymi¡¯s engineers the year prior. Despite explicit orders to only fashion the ley into movable shapes, the southern lord had taken it upon himself to prove that they worked by making cannons himself, then abandoned the crude things in Mandible Bay.

    ¡°They¡¯re heresy, you know? For us at least. All of us here are heretics. We¡¯re dancers strung along on Luigi¡¯s pipe tune and we¡¯re too far along to go back now. He turned our backs on the gods and we must either go to the sun lands, or to the darkness. At least we understand the sun lands.¡±

    ¡°I doubt that.¡±

    She laughed at him and told him to sit. He chose to continue standing, but it was his loss. Watering the camels and filling the water pots could take hours and was only kept in line by the whip hand of the glass master, turning sand vials over one after the next to track the hours with one hand and lashing out at laggards with the other.

    Lupa asked him, ¡°Do you feel bad about the people you kill?¡±

    ¡°In war?¡± he asked. ¡°I wouldn¡¯t be a very good warrior if I stopped to think about it too much. I have no choice but to trample my enemies.¡±

    Lupa kept an easy smile as she continued, ¡°But every man, woman, and child in the sun lands can think, can¡¯t they? They have hopes and dreams. They love and abhor, don¡¯t they?¡±

    ¡°Is it different here?¡±

    ¡°So the daemons say,¡± she said. ¡°Do you need to eat? Or are you immortal like the daemons?¡±

    ¡°I won¡¯t die from it, but it¡¯s not pleasant,¡± he lied.

    She clapped her hands together and patted the sand. ¡°Well then, you¡¯ll have to get your own food. Take a look, dinner is stirring. We¡¯re close enough to the water that they¡¯ll start slithering out to wet their bellies and they¡¯ll be happy to take a bite out of you too. Man flesh is a delicacy second only to mice for these poisonous snakes¡­ or are they venomous? I can never remember the difference.¡±

    Lucius¡¯ gaze dropped at once. He spun about, kicking sand across the whiskered dune. He saw the way it fluttered and slid, revealing the hidden paths beneath the surface. They leapt up like rain drops across a window pane. Memory of the Giordanan sand snake slammed to the forefront of his mind as a copper-jacket asp spiraled out of the dune beneath his feet.

    The reptile hissed at him, baring a half dozen rows of venomous fangs as it danced through the grass and closed in on him. He had no weapon, not even a stick or a rock. He had nothing with which to beat it bloody, save for raw confidence in his stigmata, or perhaps I should say all the years I spent beating fear out of him so that he wouldn¡¯t miss an opportunity.

    He dashed at it, the half step allowed by his leash. Making a show of stomping on the creature, he threw himself down the dune. The yank of the leather spun him about as he snatched the snake with his hands. It writhed and bit the leather cuffs before he threw it at Lupa.

    The wastelander shrieked, throwing up her hands and legs as she fell upon the sand and the snake landed across her breasts. Frantically, she clutched it to her chest and fought with it before she gave a jerk and fell still on the sand.

    Lucius breathed thrice, slowing his heart and watching for any shift, especially that of the escaping serpent. Then he fell on his knees beside her to undo the lock.

    ¡°Gotcha!¡± Lupa shouted as she rolled back over and threw the snake into his face.

    He screamed, falling to the sand to avoid the living missile, only to see it land beyond him and slither away as Lupa collapsed in hysterics.

    ¡°Are you merely ignorant or also a fool, Solhart?¡± the girl asked as he tried to compose himself. ¡°What use would a snake have for venom in these lands? To ward off us humans who arrived only a few generations ago? And you were so vicious, trying to stomp the poor thing when all it wanted was a drink of water. They eat scorpions, you know!¡±

    He snarled at his captor. ¡°Next you¡¯ll tell me the scorpions are safe too!¡±

    ¡°No, they¡¯re quite dangerous¡­¡± Lupa said as she wiped a tear from her eye. Then she did stop moving, transfixed by the thing that put a tickle through Lucius¡¯ scalp. ¡°Don¡¯t move.¡±

    ¡°You know! At least in the donjon I¡¯d have the dignity of privacy! This is no way to treat a prisoner,¡± he roared as he brushed the sand from his hair, feeling the tangle of sweat.

    Then the scorpion that had been stuck on the nape of his neck clung to his wrist and promptly stabbed his arm.

    Lupa swept over him, snatching it off of him and ripping the creature in half. She devoured the venomous tail with the power of her stigmata before hollering to the tribal workmen. ¡°We need a knife!¡±

    Lucius staggered, his arm feeling at once ablaze and thrice as heavy. The shock struck him harder than most for he hardly remembered what it was like to feel pain and not also the tingling rush of power as his stigmata healed him. ¡°That was poisonous, wasn¡¯t it?¡±

    ¡°Venomous,¡± Lupa said, holding his arm before him. The skin welled from one color to the next, rainbow bruises spreading through his lymph and veins. She swore and bit the rotten flesh off, ignoring Lucius¡¯ screams.

 4-10 - Roots of the Inverted World

    Three days ride south of the coast and the difference between day and night was nothing more than a color on the horizon. The yellow sand had wilted to almost shadeless grey. The ripples and dunes would have snared Lucius¡¯ feet as surely as a swamp if he hadn¡¯t been tied onto the back of a camel. The dogged dromedary plodded up and down the desert, only voicing complaint through the gaseous ejections of its rear.

    Golden trudged beside the camel, his wrists bound just as tight as Lucius¡¯ legs were to the desert steed. ¡°This is outrageous,¡± the featherless bird said.

    ¡°You¡¯re the one that got us captured,¡± my pupil snarled. Sweat ran down from his hair, trickling into his eyes and wetting his lips. This wasn¡¯t from the heat but from his body trying to fight off the venom. His body was liquefying on the inside, not the least of which symptoms were a form of sea sickness atop the camel. His balance kept rattling around his skull like a children¡¯s toy, which made the flat of the desert seem to come alive.

    ¡°Disposing of that garrison was a necessity and besides, this will get you so much more than Vassermark could ever offer you. I just don¡¯t understand why I¡¯m walking! I¡¯m their premier dowsing, aren¡¯t I? Such incourtesy.¡±

    ¡°Where are they taking us?¡± Lucius asked, shutting his eyes in a vain hope of settling his stomach.

    ¡°Isn¡¯t that obvious?¡± Golden asked. ¡°To their god. I probably know the fellow. Hope there¡¯s no bad blood between the two of us. You¡¯re lucky I was born of the Shepherd. My mother was always a friendly sort and everyone was friendly with her.¡±

    ¡°Oh yes, who would want to piss off Death?¡±

    ¡°She¡¯s not death. Being the goddess of death is not the same as being the ontological concept of it.¡±

    ¡°So that¡¯s somebody else?¡±

    Golden took a time longer than I would have wished before he answered that inquiry. He of course knew that Lucius had been taught much of the true nature of magic, but there are realms of speculation even I do not have proof of and certainly neither does he. What he told my pupil was a meaningless wedge between he and I that accomplished nothing beyond giving him reason to think that I may have overstated my wisdom. He said, ¡°Not in our layer of existence, but there does seem to be such a thing as death, doesn¡¯t there?¡±

    ¡°And this tribal god. What layer does he exist in?¡±

    ¡°Ours obviously, else we couldn¡¯t converse with them. There¡¯s no point in worshiping something like gravity, you know.¡±

    Lucius cracked an eye open to look down at his unwanted companion. ¡°And this thing deserves worship?¡±

    ¡°Oh yes,¡± he said with a devilish grin. ¡°Worship is a form of barter, you know.¡±

    ¡°If that¡¯s how you see it, then civilized people have gotten screwed.¡±

    ¡°Have they?¡± Golden asked, his tone markedly different. ¡°They have civilization, don¡¯t they?¡±

    ¡°Lu!¡± Lupa shouted as she came running across the sand and waving her hand.

    He snarled at her. ¡°Don¡¯t call me that.¡±

    ¡°We¡¯re almost at the spot where we can heal you,¡± she said as she caught up with the camel and put her hand to its reins.

    ¡°I don¡¯t need a special spot. I just need to be left alone and I¡¯ll be right as rain. Do you know that expression here in a place that doesn¡¯t rain?¡±

    She sighed and shook her head. It was Golden who chimed in to explain that the idiom had actually come from the wastelands, where their only water came from the sky, rain as it were. Lupa saved him from his own embarrassment and said, ¡°The holy man won¡¯t let you regenerate. It¡¯s obviously not safe. Even though at this point you¡¯d probably get lost and become a mummy if you tried to make it back to the coast that doesn¡¯t mean you aren¡¯t stupid enough to kill a bunch of us and try.¡±

    ¡°I wouldn¡¯t become a mummy,¡± Lucius said, turning his gaze to the sandstone gullies before them, like wrinkles in the face of the desert. ¡°I could just take him for water.¡±

    ¡°So, I was able to negotiate a compromise with him. You see these cliffs? They used to be a city.¡±

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    Lucius scoffed. ¡°When?¡±

    ¡°Back when the gods walked among the mortals,¡± she said, and that shut him up well. She had no way of knowing it, but he was already familiar with the age of my people. Taking his reaction as a prompt to go on, his jailor explained, ¡°Obviously, it¡¯s been abandoned for as long as history, but that¡¯s short as the gods reckon it. Some of their stuff is still here.¡±

    Lucius tried to squint his eyes and see through the mirages and sand gusts. ¡°What? Like gold?¡±

    Golden snarled. ¡°Gods and beasts alike do not barter in currency.¡±

    Lucius rolled his eyes. ¡°Forgive me for not thinking this sand pit is filled with wine, women, and whimsy.¡±

    The bird snorted. ¡°At least you know some things we do like.¡±

    Lupa groaned and took the camel down a slope. With no sun, there was little wind. If the sand weren¡¯t so fine, it would hardly lift up at all. So just getting their heads below the floor of the wastelands cut their temperature. Tugging a thin blanket off the back of the camel¡¯s saddle, Lupa explained, ¡°It¡¯s nothing of much value. Just sentimental to our god. Nobody has ever gotten it because¡­ well¡­ how do I put this nicely? We use it as an execution pit?¡±

    Lucius asked, ¡°You people have the death penalty? Half of you are cannibals.¡±

    She didn¡¯t look at him as she said, ¡°There are some things that can never be permitted and yet can never be eradicated.¡± For further reading on this subject, I suggest a curious reader investigate their nearest library for a treatise on natural rights and commonalities between the faiths. There are times when even rape and murder can be permitted by society, but not all crimes.

    Like most things in the wastelands, the thing was no longer itself. The city was a shadow of a city. While it was home to creatures that walked on two legs and slept beneath those stone eaves, those things could not be said to be people. They were shades less fit for cohabitation than the scorpions. It made the city oasis almost not worth the danger to visit. The sand people found it to be a familiar danger however, and they were used to the protection of hounds at their flanks. It can be assumed, though I have no proof, that a good number of the stragglers were killed here, perhaps a dozen total. Such a trifling loss was not recorded by the priest.

    They cared only about the water and Lucius¡¯ hospital as they euphemistically called it.

    The priest, Luigi Sacerdote, spoke to him gruffly, describing the relic in vague, poetic terms. He had only heard it described by oral tradition, something touched up with reverence every generation.

    Still sick with the venom, Lucius was in no shape to belabor the discussion. ¡°Just let me in,¡± he growled, and was given a rope. They pointed spears at him too. At their prodding, he wrapped the rope around his waist and eased himself down a masonry crag to the tunnels below. Eventually, his sandaled feet hit the sand floor and he looked up expecting a knife to cut himself free.

    Rather than a knife, Lupa joined him. ¡°Your bonds,¡± she said, untying him.

    Lucius frowned, rubbing the sand rash that had formed across his wrists. ¡°Are you coming with me or something?¡±

    Lupa shrugged and leaned against the wall. ¡°I¡¯ll be staying here until you¡¯re ready to leave. I have to bind you again before they¡¯ll let you out.¡±

    He looked up, eyeing the cracks and crevices of ancient bricks. ¡°I could climb.¡±

    ¡°They have spears.¡±

    He looked over his shoulder, to the dusty catacombs of the lost city. There was light. ¡°What if I find another exit?¡±

    ¡°Then you would be craftier than a thousand men over a thousand years, but you¡¯d still be lost in a desert with neither sun nor star to guide you home. So, not very crafty after all.¡±

    He snorted. Turning to the dungeon, he picked up a loose brick and shook the sand from it. A cruder weapon I can hardly imagine, but fit enough for his purpose. ¡°So, I just have to go in there, kill all the¡­ what¡¯s in here, anyway?¡±

    ¡°Lion worms are the worst you¡¯ll encounter.¡±

    ¡°Any scorpions?¡±

    She turned up her hands. ¡°Maybe, but once your stigmata is back, will that matter?¡±

    He wrinkled his lip. ¡°Maybe, maybe not. What if I don¡¯t come back?¡±

    She pinched between her brow and said, ¡°Then I have to go get your corpse and bring it out, because this was my idea. Try not to? That¡¯d be incredibly rude.¡±

    ¡°I think you can handle a bit of rudeness, you man-eater.¡±

    ¡°You wish.¡±

    He turned away from her and took a deep breath of the dungeon, smelling the dank air oozing from the pit. ¡°Right then. Kill the monsters, get the thing, get out. What could be easier? I love a straightforward problem.¡± He strode into the tunnel, half his mind watching for a way to crawl out and imagining how he might kill his way through the army and force Golden to show him a way out. The other half watched as inverted roots appeared from beneath his feet. Hardy plants the texture of coral had stabbed through the firmament and stood proud of the sand like brush.

    Perhaps it¡¯s a bit silly of me to say they are like roots. They are roots. They are roots from an inverted world the sunless desert laid atop, never knowing the warmth of the other inferno, not even through molten crags of slagged stone. The locals didn¡¯t mind the intrusion. The plants proved to be one of the best sources of firewood in the whole of the wastelands, something Lupa put to quick utility as she waited for my pupil¡¯s return. They were like a half-stone jungle, a refuge for all manner of creatures that crept and hid.

    For they were one of the few habitats that a lion worm could not slam its maw into, ripping the critter apart and devouring it skin, bone, blood and all. Lucius had been taught what a lion worm was. That day he learned what they were and the difference between those two concepts is not to be understated.

    Still, if one wants to sharpen a blade, a hard stone is needed.

 4-11 - The Lion Worm Nest

    There are many legends and tall tales about delving into ancient ruins or caves and the like. Some are true, undoubtedly, but I am always irritated by the portrayal of monsters and animals in the deepest part of the pit. Why should a bear go any further than necessary from the entrance? The air would grow stale as they hibernate.

    While many strange creatures can be found in dark caves, they are hardly dangerous. Blind cave fish might have maws with more needles than a seamstress workshop, but they can hardly bite a man¡¯s leg off. The issue is one of ecosystem. For large, dangerous animals to exist, able to contend with humans, an enormous wealth of smaller life must exist for them to predate on, which in turn require even more plant life to sustain them. It is often impossible to find such circumstances.

    The roots of the underworld filled the bottommost niche within the desert ruins however. Ants nibbled away at the plant life, which in turn fed spiders, beetles, and other vermin. The presence of mice allowed the snakes to live there, and they had enough meat¨Cas well as the ability to travel in and out of the dungeon¨Cto sustain lion worms.

    My pupil was in too much of an injured haze at the time to consciously make note of this. He stumbled on, out of sight from his captor, and dropped the attitude of a conqueror. The first snake he spotted, he bashed its head flat. Emboldened by the knowledge that venom was uncommon, he devoured it raw. The blood fouled his mouth, but without water, he had no other fluid to drink.

    At his fourth or fifth snake, like tossing logs to a dying fire, he encountered his first lion worm. With his knees to the cold sand, his hands still trembling with weakness, he had to look up at the speckled-eyed monster. For a moment, neither moved. Then, the coloration of the creature rippled and it vanished.

    He had seen it bare for a moment, some twelve feet of wrinkled flesh with a beard of tentacles draped over a short beak. The head had stood nearly to chest height and it must have weighed over a hundred pounds, but it vanished nearly without a trace.

    Had he been a northman, or an Aillesterran, or even a Giordanan, Lucius would have died. But he was of Vassish blood, born and raised. Even without my guidance, no son of the sea would be shocked by the conniving of an ambush octopus. The only hesitation was from his surprise to see such a creature on land, in a sand cave no less.

    He understood how perfectly a predator could turn itself to stone. The flesh had changed, but the beak could not. As soon as the face tendrils parted for its attack, he saw the hooked ivory.

    Lucius had not been idle in his hunting, not merely sated himself. While hunting the snakes and vermin he had sought out the sturdiest, straightest shaft of wood he could find; a better weapon than a mere rock. He dove back from the monster, scrambling to his feet and hoping to force his body into life, energy, healing. All he got for his efforts was vertigo, but he snatched up the stick and swatted it across the worm¡¯s neck.

    The blow was soft, weak. The stick had no cutting edge, no heft to hammer with, and he struck nothing but meat. Bone could have been broken. Metal could have been dented. Hide and muscle merely recoiled. Swelling wouldn¡¯t even begin for minutes more¨Cminutes that he didn¡¯t have.

    Had he been able to redouble, to strike and trounce and beat it into the sand, perhaps it wouldn¡¯t have been an issue. He lacked such finesse, and no sooner had he struck the beast than the blur of camouflage adjusted. The hook of ivory vanished and he had only the spurt of sand to judge by.

    With a roar, he stepped in and swung again, clipping one of the tendrils, no more than a passing pressure. When he cut back, the thing ducked and his blow hit naught but air. Training saved him as he thrust his off hand forward and grab hold of it by the face. The beak incised on his hand, ripping through tendons and cracking through bone. Rather than a war cry, he bellowed in pain but through that pain he understood where its head was.

    The far end of the stick had been snapped off, a crude spear if ever there was one, but sharp enough he could ram it through the lion worm¡¯s neck. Blood squirted free and the camouflage pattern faltered. It rippled through colors, shades, shadows, hues, and luster. He twisted the haft of wood and wrenched it free of his hand, then slammed it against the wall. Stunned, it was easy prey for him to cave in its fleshy skull with his heel.

    The spasm of death passed through the lion worm, rippling and building from kneck to tail until the mass of its body was thrashing and slapping against the sand and stone. It beat upon the earth and in doing so it told all the other lion worms that it had just died.

    It declared that its territory was free game.

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    Lucius was still panting and trying to re-align his broken hand when he heard the first hissing. The clacking of beaks. He heard the other predators screeching at one another and declaring the tunnels to be theirs.

    He laughed morbidly and focused his mind on the change from before and after the fight. He no longer had his stick, but he was not without options. Before any of the other lion worms arrived, he lifted up the corpse and stuffed his hands into the drooling beak. Heedless of any venom, he hooked his remaining good fingers in one side, and his dominant hand in the other then snapped the beak free.

    Thus armed, the fighting began.

    Trained by Leomund Tolzi, he was well versed in the berserker style. More than just the various stigmata, the battle frenzy haze is something any human can achieve given enough stress, enough panic and rage. It is the overflowing of instinct and vitality  that overrides the natural inclination of flight.

    He put such a defense mechanism to good use, hacking through the hides of lion worms and ripping them free of his regenerating body. They bit through his flesh and broken his bones, but not faster than his power stitched him back together.

    Soon, he was the one stalking them through the half-lit tunnels. He trampled over vermin and snakes, stabbing the predators and ripping through their entrails.

    Hours passed before he had purged the nest. Half the flesh from his face had been ripped free. Scar tissue covered his skull and quickly receded to new flesh. For all the bites and cuts, the missing fingers and severed tendons, he still stood on two feet. He staggered more than he walked, dragging the biggest of the lion worms to a destination he hardly understood, but he walked. The smell of smoke, a hint of warmth and human existence drew him in like a cabin in a storm.

    Looking every bit the bloody monster, he arrived back at Lupa¡¯s pit where she had harvested enough of the roots to set a fire. The gnarled and hooked kindling burned clean, no sap to foul the smoke, but it treated the stone like a furnace. It broiled the two of them as Lucius ripped strips of muscle out of the lion worm¡¯s body and tossed them upon the embers.

    She tried to speak with him, but for all of my research, all of his memory, that has been lost entirely. He could barely be considered sane at the time and only regained his senses after gnawing through nearly thirty pounds of desert meat. His stigmata devoured every scrap of food he offered it, dissolving the creature¡¯s flesh faster than it could be digested, transmogrifying the meat into his own body to restore his injuries.

    As though coming out of a dream, he found himself chewing upon a strip of gristle. Sand covered his feet, shielding them from the dying blaze. Overhead was not the glimmer of night, but more sunless grey, and yet his body knew that it was night. The half-eaten carcass of the lion worm sat beside him, more a graveyard waiting to rot than a recognizable animal. He had shredded it with finger and beak, no elegance of butchering at all.

    And across from him, with her head nodded to one side, her hands interlaced over her knees, slept Lupa. Her chest rose and fell in gentle rhythm, her pale skin glistening with sweat that pooled into the hems of her clothing. She was his captor, and still had the ropes to bind him with, but she too had no way out of the pit; something she had negotiated to restore his health at her own risk.

    The pit could hardly be said to be quiet, it whispered and moaned with gusts of wind through cricks and tunnels. The wastelander camp was a screaming riot in the distance, their incoherent chanting and arguing a demonic echo upon the winds. But the two of them were close enough he could still hear the sigh of her breathing across the fire.

    A greed bloomed inside him as he looked at her. Irrational perhaps, and likely to bring more danger than it was worth, but no rational man has ever ascended high in the world. The spirit of conquest must be indulged, risks must be taken and desires stoked. That manly spirit is the lever which can move the world. It is the very same greed that would later lead him charging headlong through gaps in the enemy line, only with his honor guard at his side into an army thousands strong because he saw a path to the enemy commander¡¯s throat.

    Lucius had the will to grab the thread of fate and that night he realized he wanted to make a turncoat of her.

    Leaving her with a freshened blaze to keep the vermin away, Lucius delved back into the dungeon. He burned with vitality, his stigmata fully restored and his mind clear of the venom. Such armed, navigating the old ruins became trivial. He later told me that he found a half dozen attempts to tunnel back to the surface. Horrid sights of stone scratched by tooth and nail, the bones of the criminals still strewn about their failed escape. As far as he could tell, there was no other way to the surface that a man could fit through. The hope was a lie and the tunnels only went deeper. Perhaps there was a way out of the world, back the way the lion worms had come from, but he did not venture so far.

    When Lupa awoke, she found Lucius dozing in all his might. The soft nobleman of the north she had captured was no more, for not an ounce of fat remained across his body. The lean muscles of the lion worms had not been rich enough, so his stigmata rendered his body into that of a heroic statue that still glowed with life.

    She woke him inadvertently, calling for a bucket of water and a change of clothes for him. As he stood, she asked, ¡°You look better, but you¡¯ll have to find the relic soon or we¡¯ll be left down here.¡±

    ¡°That won¡¯t be a problem,¡± he said as a spare thobe was tossed to him. Once dressed, he held up the clockwork relic and a ladder was soon sent down.

    Lupa let out her breath and laughed. ¡°And to think I was worried! Now we may resume our journey,¡± she said as she picked up the rope bindings.

    Lucius shook his head and took the relic in both hands, bending the wrist backward until the metal strained and all could see. ¡°No. I will be riding free, or else.¡±

 4-12 - The Crystal Caves

    Until now, I fear I have given a hazy view of the wasterlander constituent. A reader might be given to thinking they were human rather than animate meat. This misgiving is due to my own biases, my focus on those few that had minds and thus can be given names, actions, agency, trajectory. It is the folly of a novelist that I shall correct with the firm hand of history.

    Lucius was given a clear look at the true nature of these creatures when he exited the ruins. It was something akin to a new day, in that people were waking up from their dozing beneath the sunless sky and naturally, most set about filling their stomachs with what was on hand.

    On that day, it was the corpses of friend and foe, of some hundred savages that had attacked Luigi¡¯s caravan. The corpses numbered only a few dozen, so the survivors clustered about the bodies, ripping at the flesh and gnawing on the bones. They crunched through knuckles and fought to stuff fingers into the soupy mass of gray matter within the skulls.

    Despite this attack, Luigi¡¯s cohort had grown. This was the nature of tribal warfare in the sunless desert. Loyalty did not exist among the masses. Combat generally ended whenever the leaders were slain, then the followers would no longer have a reason to fight. They could be haranged and whipped into line, following the victor as meekly and savagely¡ªas circumstances demanded¨Cas their previous owner.

    It is this behavior that draws them even lower than slaves. These mindless creatures have more in common with corpses than with people. Their mental faculties preclude memory, empathy, problem solving. Like cockroaches, they can direct themselves in a straight line toward a desire. With a firm enough hand, they can carry out tasks of the simplest nature. In this way, they can haul their own food and water, they can follow across the dunes, but they cannot conceive of a reason to do so besides avoiding pain.

    They cannot even conceive of themselves as thinking things, let alone one another.

    This is the characterization of the hungry mob that Luigi Sacerdote had to stare in the glazed eyes and intimidate into submission. Not just anyone could do that, for it was always too obvious that a slight mistake would have them turn on their master.

    Thus, Lucius did not ask where they procured his clothes. It was Golden that told him, unbidden. ¡°You should thank me. Do you realize how difficult it was to kill a man without shedding his blood? And without him soiling himself either! There¡¯s only a bit of sweat in those clothes and you¡¯ll just have to bear with that until we find an oasis. Are you going to thank me?¡±

    Riding atop one of the camels, as befit a man with a mind, Lucius took his attention off the clockwork hand and cocked an eyebrow at his angelic companion. ¡°How did you kill a man without shedding his blood?¡±

    With a smirk, he explained, ¡°I should clarify that I only kept his blood off the clothes. With some of these puppets, I knocked the fellow off the edge of a building and flipped him upside down. Then all I had to do was lop his head off and let the blood drain into the sand. I was afraid something might splash when the creatures started lapping up the blood like wine, but luck was on our side.¡±

    Lucius quickly inspected the neckline of his thobe again, but there were no stains, only another man¡¯s smell. ¡°I wonder if they have perfumes somewhere,¡± he mumbled, turning again to the relic.

    It was a curious thing, not because the construction was altogether so impressive. The materials were largely gold and elegantly crafted to create a blueprint for a prosthetic. He had seen much the same mechanism about three years prior at The College.(1) A certain craftsman, whose name I shant spoil yet, had created a similar fake hand for a swordsman. The request had been to allow his return to dueling, but that had proven too much for the future golemancer at the time and not for lack of ingenuity. A duelist¡¯s grip is not some cludge to grip the handle of a sword, but every bit as elegant as an orchestra conductor¡¯s wand. Every finger must be individually engaged to whip a blade about with proper speed and force. With an arm cut off midway between elbow and wrist, the only thing that could be made was a grasper. It would open and it would close with the flexing of the remaining forearm. The duelist could toast a goblet of wine, but spent years failing to learn how to use his left hand instead.

    The desert relic was fully articulated, but controlled like a puppet. By a series of loops and pulleys, every digit could be manipulated as though it were the user¡¯s own flesh. Naturally, someone missing their hand could not use it, so it could not be a prosthesis. My pupil lacked the morbid ingenuity to realize that the loops he played with his own fingers were not meant to remain. The wires were designed to be stabbed through the flesh and fused to the person¡¯s tendons.

    Instead, he postulated, ¡°Do you think this is for working in acid or something?¡±

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    Golden huffed at the change in subjects, but said, ¡°To keep your hands clean?¡±

    ¡°To keep your hand from dissolving.¡±

    ¡°I suppose it could be used like that. Maybe it¡¯s just a novelty. Inventors are always experimenting and it¡¯s clear that whoever made this didn¡¯t care particularly much for it else it wouldn¡¯t have been left there.¡±

    Lucius fitted his hand to it and played with the fingers, making a few vulgar gestures until he realized Lupa was riding her camel toward him. ¡°What now?¡±

    ¡°We¡¯re being followed,¡± she said, gesturing to a shadow on the horizon.

    ¡°Perhaps I should run off and join them.¡±

    ¡°If you¡¯d prefer your luck with cannibals, by all means.¡±

    He sneered. ¡°And I¡¯m not surrounded by them already?¡±

    ¡°The priest keeps these ones in line.¡±

    ¡°Then why not send me back there to kill their priest? And have Luigi convert the thralls.¡±

    She shrugged. ¡°We may yet, but not here. I¡¯ve come to warn you that we will be going down to the crystal caves.¡±

    Golden groaned. ¡°Must we?¡±

    Lucius asked, ¡°What are the crystal caves?¡±

    ¡°Our larder,¡± Lupa answered, and tugged her camel away.

    Lucius gritted his teeth rather than yell after her, then asked the question again of Golden. The bird said, ¡°Quartz mostly, enough that light can come up from below. Very pretty, if you¡¯re into that sort of thing. I understand it can be rather like finding yourself in a twilight swarm of fireflies, or the illumination pools of Aillesterra. The latter I can¡¯t speak to, the snake never much cared for me.¡±

    The explanation didn¡¯t quite satisfy Lucius, but they were soon upon upon the earth fissure. The camels had to be dismounted and led by the reins, often by force as they balked at the damp smell. This slowed the mass of people, bunching them together until it seemed all manner of spear, club, and sword danced about Lucius in a forest of weaponry matched only by the heat of battle. The formation was chaos, but to expect more of the thralls would have been folly.

    Lucius grumbled about how they should be marching four abreast with sergeants at the fore of every unit, that they should have been scouting and ranging the land for forage or camp sites. Entering into a cave system is something no sane general would ever willingly partake of, but that was the logic of northmen¨Cmen afraid of other armies.

    As Lucius would learn, no ambush could possibly be laid in the crystal caves, for lion worms were the least of the threats. Such danger came after the mind-numbing awe of finding himself inside rough-hewn sandstone and quartz caves. The veins of crystal glowed all about them in a hundred thousand facets of purple(2).

    What was more than the light was the water. It trickled and splashed in natural springs and ponds that grew deeper and colder the further beneath the surface they went. Lupa had to grab Lucius before he knelt down to drink from one of the ponds. ¡°Does your stigmata heal loose bowels?¡±

    Drying his hands upon his thobe, Lucius muttered, ¡°Theoretically.¡±

    She scoffed. ¡°Maybe I should have let you. Biting off your stigmata would have been so easy with you shaking and sweating, hugging your knees and begging the world for mercy.¡±

    He sneered back at her. ¡°Point taken. But maybe someone needs to tell him that?¡± he suggested, pointing to where Golden was wading into one of the larger pools. Before Lupa could speak, he dove in. After a moment, he emerged with a wriggling eel as long as a pony between his hands. Leeches dangled from the creature¡¯s soft hide, which flopped off and across the ground. The thralls snatched those up, chomping through the bloody guts as Golden laughed at them.

    ¡°I don¡¯t suppose you have any cleanser, do you?¡± he asked as he stuffed his fingers into the eels gills and ripped the head off. In short order, the waste of the fish had been tossed to the thralls to fight over and he had two enormous filets that he wore about his bare shoulders like a sash.

    Their moment of awe was interrupted by the grunt of a thrall. ¡°Lion.¡± Lucius hardly knew to react to such a moniker. The idea that the mindless thralls understood him to be the Gambling Lion, a name barely known among the armies, seemed beyond belief but that was because he didn¡¯t believe the memories of one man might pass over, however muddled, to his predator.

    As it turned out, the thrall had been sent to fetch him by the priest. Enough hours had passed if not quite to exhaust one¡¯s legs but to befuddle the march entirely. Camp had to be made before the mass of thralls disintegrated and became food for the wasteland. With no requirement of restraining him, the thrall brought Lucius near the front of the host. A round tent had been hammered into the stone, not for protection from the elements, but for privacy. It distinguished the priest from the lowest caste.

    Into this, Lucius stepped, quickly realizing that this would be his opportunity to whip the army with his tongue, to twist its aim to suit his purpose. He stood little hope of escape without them, so a path had to be found with them.

    <hr>

    <ol>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">The College is capitalized because at this time, no other such institution had been founded. Other kingdoms had their methods of instruction, but only Vassermark had ventured to make an institute where pupils had to go to their teachers rather than the other way around.</li>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">The color feeding through the firmament is subject to change over the years, it was purple at the time but many an adventurer has gone looking for these caves since and reported green, red, even black light. I suspect those last explorers have a touch of madness to them.</li>

    </ol>

 4-13 - Eating Brains

    The priest¡¯s tent had a layered bottom, thick cloth packed with wax and raised at the edges to keep insects from crawling inside. It was a luxury no one else in the convoy could boast. Similarly, he had a platter of goat cooked for himself, something Lucius hadn¡¯t even realized was available in the desert. The whole animal had been boiled and stewed, melted down with desert vegetables and melted with its own fat. Luigi Sacerdote picked at the heaping of food with his clean hand, tugging bright red shreds of meat from the bones as he stared at Lucius.

    ¡°What do you think of my army?¡± he asked.

    Lucius crossed his legs and kept his hands in his lap. Try as he might however, he struggled to keep his gaze on the priest and not the succulent feast. Weeks of soldiering rations left a yearning in him, and an irritation. ¡°It¡¯s not an army, it¡¯s a rabble.¡±

    ¡°Pray tell, what¡¯s the difference?¡±

    ¡°Discipline.¡±

    ¡°Impossible to achieve with these soul-less wretches. Even the gods cannot whip them into shape.¡±

    Lucius shrugged. ¡°That simply means they can¡¯t be made into an army. They¡¯re still a rabble. They don¡¯t march in line. They barely take orders.¡±

    Luigi nodded. ¡°And what orders do you wish they would take? If you were in my shoes. Indulge me, northman. Such conversation is rare in these lands.¡±

    Lucius crossed his arms to keep himself from reaching forward, and part of him wondered if he should take his chances killing the priest. ¡°Shields, for starters. I know wood is scarce out here, but that makes it all the more important. You can twist some of those branches, string leather across it, and have a decent bit of protection. Of course, nothing compared to a proper tower shield, but it¡¯s better than nothing. With the shield to start, you can then make a shield wall, and from there all other formations come. I noticed you didn¡¯t plunder the men you killed.¡±

    ¡°No, they ate their fill and left the waste, as they saw it,¡± the priest said, rolling a soft tuber between his fingers before eating it.

    ¡°So, after a standard formation of any shape, you then need to manage food.¡±

    ¡°But, they are each other¡¯s food, more often than not.¡±

    Lucius shrugged. ¡°I suppose that¡¯s one way of having them eat their own stomachs. Water though, you treat them like camels, shoving them into whatever oasis you find and drinking it dry. With proper barrels, or pots at least, you could take more direct routes.¡±

    ¡°Oases cannot be relied upon to appear. We must navigate day by day, even if it takes us off course.¡±

    ¡°But with proper storage, you can endure foul luck.¡±

    ¡°Until disease festers in the stagnant water.¡±

    ¡°Better to fall ill than to go thirsty, if you ask me. If I were in need, I would be prepared to drink an animal¡¯s piss if I had to.¡±

    The priest waved his hand and shook his head. ¡°I think expecting inspiration from you was an error. You are a northman. I think very highly of your¡­ creativity when it comes to weapons, but you don¡¯t understand our peculiarities.¡±

    Lucius nodded. ¡°I suppose there¡¯s fair reason no army has ever made it this far south. Just getting to the ley quarries was an ordeal. We were entirely reliant on Giordanan guides. But honestly, the land could be conquered, with the right stigmata. Take Golden¡¯s ability. In normal circumstances for us, that¡¯s not an ability even worth remarking on. But, with the right application¡­ I imagine with a proper census of abilities, many hundreds of specialists could be hired and all of these issues resolved. In fact, there is one stigmata, colloquially called [Cement] that would conquer this desert easily.¡±

    ¡°Oh? And what does that one do?¡±

    Lucius grinned. ¡°It compacts sand to sediment. We could make roads across the dunes.¡±

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    ¡°But they would be buried soon.¡±

    ¡°Not if they were used well, and even then; so what? We could make more. This desert is nearly the ideal material to work from. The stigmata is most foiled by moisture. Pure earth like this would barely make them break a sweat. Then, we could march at double the pace. The basins beneath these skyfall oases could be turned into proper reservoirs. You¡¯d capture ten times more water.¡±

    Luigi closed his eyes and nodded. ¡°That I can see the merit in. We shall se what our god has to say about it. But first, fill your stomach northman. Let it get on your hands and into your blood. You will be viewed with nothing but suspicion if you do not smell like one of us.¡±

    ¡°Who¡¯s going to be smelling me?¡±

    Luigi grinned and picked up the cracked skull of the goat. He swirled it like a wine goblet and said, ¡°My patron of course. If you wait much longer, the fat will begin to congeal like butter. I know that may sound good to a famished man, but trust me: it¡¯s much better liquified.¡±

    His rational mind told him to hesitate, to be cautious. But experience told him that he would need all the energy he could muster if he was to face off against a so-called god. Clearly not one of the true gods, but something powerful enough to flatter itself as one. Something like Umbra, or the Giordanan coast godling, or my little pet from Jarnmark. To face it unprepared would likely be suicide, but without information all he could do was trust in his strength and his wits and the steel in his grasp.

    For those who have never had the pleasure of a full animal roast, the idea might seem queasy. Some people can be so squeamish about organ meat, about sucking marrow from cracked ribs and scraping out the innards of leg bones. To them I counter that fish head soup is perfectly common. Many people have even eaten cooked frog. I believe it is far more disgusting what sea creatures, shellfish notably, people eat as delicacies. Compared to that, what harm is there in seeing an eyeball float across a ladle of marrow gravy?

    Now, I must say that there was a certain and obvious flaw with the meal. It lacked any wine, beer, or spirits to speak of. That did not stop it from loosening Lucius¡¯ tongue however. The more full he became, the more bold, and the more frustrated he became by the desert-dweller¡¯s hospitality, until he asked, ¡°Aren¡¯t I supposed to be your prisoner?¡±

    The priest laughed. ¡°Is it not your custom to treat enemy commanders well?¡±

    ¡°Only among civilized nations. Rebels, criminals, and pirates are given no such treatment.¡±

    The priest had to pause as he cleaned his lips. ¡°Well, you certainly are none of those, so are you implying that I am one? There is no kingdom here to rebel against, no laws to make me a criminal, and I believe a pirate must be at sea. I know some poets have described the dunes as waves of sand, but I think you see the difference?¡±

    ¡°The key difference is I have not given you my word of honor to be your prisoner. There is no basis of agreement. I have no reason to respect my imprisonment and yet you seem hardly perturbed that I have my apparent freedom of your camp.¡±

    Luigi swept his hand around the tent. ¡°You are a prisoner as sure as if you were clad in steel. You would die if you left, or if we retracted our support of you. I suppose that¡¯s a form of freedom, but I doubt you would risk your soul falling into a grasp other than your dear Shepherd¡¯s.¡±

    ¡°You don¡¯t restrain Golden either.¡±

    Luigi laughed and used a leg bone to point at him. ¡°Why would I have fear of that? Your friend is a turncoat. Did you console yourself that you could escape and drag him around to find the oases? Why do you think he came on your ill-fated expedition? I met with him long before I treated with you, northlander. He has come to visit old friends.¡±

    I¡¯m sure any reader at this point can imagine the shock and rage that appeared within Lucius at this time. His appetite ended, giving the priest more good humor than a troupe of minstrels could have afforded. Lucius flew out of the tent, not even pretending to maintain the etiquette that rival commanders should have. As he already said, Luigi had no bond of honor on him. The entire premise of their polite words was because Lucius still had on his person the relic, and because he was one of the only people in the hundreds of wastelanders that could hold a conversation. Even the priest of a dark god could be tempted by mere conversation.

    The thralls certainly provided none.

    Even a divine beast could not see them as more than objects, not even animals. Their minds were like dolls. If rewriting and sealing memories had been difficult for him, controlling these husks of human flesh was trivial.

    Lucius found him using a trio of them as a chair as a dozen more dove into one of the fetid ponds, grappling with the blind fish. ¡°What haven¡¯t you told me?¡± Lucius demanded.

    ¡°Lucius, Lucius, Lucius, the volume of things I haven¡¯t told you would last longer than your life!¡±

    Lucius grabbed the bird by the throat and pulled him to his feet. ¡°What are you doing for the wizard?¡±

    Golden coughed and wheezed, making a show of his struggle to breathe. As soon as the grip about his throat loosened, he cracked a grin and said, ¡°Why, I¡¯m only here to do what was always the plan. I¡¯m helping you get an army. In this case, a very¡­ very loyal one.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯ve been eating their brains as they fall dead.¡±

    ¡°A side benefit, nothing more. You¡¯ll understand as soon as you meet their god. You¡¯ll find him very familiar I think.¡±

 4-14 - Ironhide Dragon

    I suppose it would be of poor form for me to omit one of the more dramatic moments during the trip through the crystal caves. I am more than a historian as I go about this task. I am a storyteller as well, and at times that means offering something of wonder but little consequence. It helps that this actually occurred, though there is hardly any evidence of it. At the end of the day¨Cfor as much as time could be measured by days down there¨Cthe only impact was the upraising of a small number of thralls to sapience.

    The only thing that truly matters from this time, after his confrontation with Golden, were the harrying parties, the raiders and auxiliaries that preyed on any thrall left to wander from the herd. Little micro-tribes of cannibals hunted them, nipping at their extremities because no true host could charge into the caves meaningfully. Every attack shrunk their force and prodded Lucius into deeper thought about strategy.

    Occasionally, it was the animals that hazarded their journey, lion worms and the like.

    Once, it was an ironhide dragon.

    While lion worms can be said to form one of the middle parts of the food chain down below, a very important role to be sure, they are not, never have been, and never will be the top of the food chain. Such a lofty and prideful role belongs to creatures such as ironhide dragons. The name may cause readers to mis-imagine the creature, for it has no wings nor arms. Its legs are myriad, but no longer than a finger. It has more in common with a millipede than a dragon, if superficial appearance is all that is judged.

    Slay one, rip the steel sheets from it, and do a bit of post-mortem biology on an ironhide, you¡¯ll find all the right organs and bones, even if some of the spine is repeated a hundred times over. It makes perfect sense as well. Not many creatures can form the evolutionary foundation for a monster able to carve new tunnels through the firmament.

    Sacerdote¡¯s herd encountered the thing at a watering hole. They were trying to siphon the contaminated water through filters when the water began draining. The stupid thralls fell on their knees, slapping and clawing at the receding shoreline until they felt the trembling in the ground. Their ensuing shrieks drew out the beast. Had they the wit to keep their mouths shut, nothing would have happened, but their primal urge to screech warning won out.

    The dragon had been only interested in flooding its gut, to soak the myriad minerals and stones enough that its muscles could grind it to mud and excrete the stone slurry(1). Their fear roused its hunting instinct, near dormant. The beast shoved its head up from the pool like an antlion.

    While an ironhide dragon primarily lives off the profusion of bacteria in its gut which suckle nutrients from the stones it eats, the dragon never lost the ability to consume meat and it certainly never learned fear of humans.

    A dozen thralls had been chased down and ripped apart by the time Lucius arrived at the chaos. Perhaps if he had thought more cruelly and utilitarian he would have ignored it entirely, but he wasn¡¯t used to being a prisoner.

    A reasonable fighter would have turned and fled from such a foe. Lucius had been inadvertently trained to see any enemy as killable, a flaw of hubris that many of his future enemies tried to turn against him. They had returned his sword to him after he stole a weapon from a thrall, but his infantry blade was not fit for breaking through steel carapace, nor was there enough finesse to slide it between the plates. He should have retreated and gotten a hammer or mace, instead he charged in.

    The ironhide dragon was nearly invulnerable as far as he was concerned, but that didn¡¯t mean it could carelessly attack him. With nothing but stub limbs, the only method of attack it had was to lunge and bite, to chomp with its maw of rough fangs. It lacked even the serpentine ability to whip its tail. Lucius saw this at once, staying light on his feet.

    When the dragon lunged, he darted to the side and slashed. It slammed into stone and twisted, he hacked at a leg. It curled and tried to constrict around him, he dared to vault over. The hooked toes were enough to rip his clothing in shreds, to draw lines of blood across his back, but not to hang him up and snare him.

    Blood began to spew out of the dragon, mixing on the ground with Lucius¡¯. Scratch by scratch, he chopped at any exposed flesh or joint. He hacked off limbs and fought to keep his footing as the dragon rolled and thrashed. If there had been enough time and solid stone, he might have been able to fell the beast with bloodloss, or at least drive it off.

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    The caves were not bedrock however, not even firmament. They were a lattice shell of stone barely holding together. Drenched in the blood of the dragon, he was caught completely unaware when the cave collapsed beneath them. Cracks shot through in every direction, turning the pool basin¨Cdrained¨Cinto rubble.

    He fell, screaming into the abyss. Hitting the mud below was like being caught between a castle gate and a battering ram. It knocked all the sense out of him, but not out of the dragon. Bone crunched as he was lifted from the mud, one arm ripping apart inside the ringed maw of the dragon. Ripping him from the clutches of the dark mud nearly ripped his shoulder from the socket, but it freed him to hack and stab with his sword.

    The jaws of a beast, especially a dragon, are a curious and bloody affair. Mostly bone and tooth, they are still laden with blood vessels. It took only a moment for him to break several of the teeth free, for steaming blood to come pouring across him. As for wounding the dragon however, it did nothing more than infuriate the create. It thrashed, yanking him back and forth and digging its teeth in deeper like barbs. Lucius howled in pain and tried to stab out its eye. He jabbed the metal through a gap in the steel carapace, but not the gap that sheltered its eye.

    Perhaps he would have eventually bled it out, he stood a good chance of doing so. But the fight did not remain one against one. After fetching a proper weapon from the supplies, Lupa fell down through the hole, swinging a hammer in both hands. What impacted the dragon¡¯s hide was anything but a hammer.

    I believe I have previously and satisfactorily described the way ley stone functions. It amplifies force from an expanded face and redirects it out the contracted face, similar to how cream erupts from a pressed pastry. With clever stone cutting, axels, and steel cams, a recoil engine can be created.(2)

    Like the metal beat of a heart, the mallet slammed against the dragon¡¯s carapace, then from the middle spike of steel slammed forth. The natural armor crumpled and cracked. The dragon roared, reeling away and dropping Lucius as its body thrashed.

    Lucius had never seen such a weapon before, but he understood that his former warden had just saved him. She landed on the muddy cave floor beside him, soiling her feet but unharmed.

    And well, from there blood flowed more plentifully than wine at a wedding. Lucius could hardly use his left arm for a time, but the fracture of the carapace was like the cleft between a harlot¡¯s legs. He thrust into it until the beast bellowed and screeched. More than once, it rolled atop him, cracking ribs and bursting blood. He was smashed between tail and stone, his guts nearly liquifying for he had no armor of his own.

    But the life and the heat of the dragon were pouring out.  The scent of death oozed out from the thing, and that scent laid hooks in the minds of the thralls. Their ancient and atrophied scavenging instincts were roused. During the fight, heedless of the metal clash, they descended in ones and twos.

    The thralls grabbed at the little appendages of legs, first at the tip of the tail. The dragon was dying inch by inch as blood failed to flow to its fatty extremities, so it could hardly kick off the carrion eaters. They swarmed like maggots, not quite waiting for the creature to die. They ripped the limbs off and stuffed hands into the steaming flesh. With broken nails, they ripped out marrow, meat, and tendon to gnash between their teeth.

    The bleeding of the dragon went from one wound, to a dozen, to scores. As though they were tying it down with ropes, the thralls stretched their wirey bodies across the creature to pick and tear and eat. At last, with laboring breaths and twitching whimpers, the dragon¡¯s blunt head collapsed to the mud. It laid, twitching and dying as the half-living men of the desert feasted on its flesh.

    Lucius staggered off, seeing enough of the grotesque act in just a moment. Just a short ways off in the cave was another pool. Heedless of leeches or eels, he waded into it and let the cold water prickle his skin, wash off the blood, and cool his fervor. Then he turned his mind to Lupa, beckoning her over.

    ¡°Are you my captor or my savior?¡±

    She smiled and sat on the stony edge, dipping her feet into the pond. ¡°Can¡¯t I be both?¡±

    ¡°Only if I can trust you.¡±

    She laid back, turning her face to the cave roof. SIlence dragged before she said, ¡°There¡¯s nothing I can say to that until after you meet our god. You¡¯ll understand why we have done what we have then.¡±

    ¡°Is that where you¡¯re taking me?¡±

    ¡°Of course. You and the things you have stored away within your brain.¡±

    <hr>

    <ol>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">The slurry is of course digested. Leeching iron is but one thing an ironhide dragon does with the stone, and from this mass digestion, like a whale filtering for plankton, they collect enough nodules of iron to create their armor carapace.</li>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">The fact that ley primarily operates through impulse and orthogonal to the initial vector has made many an engineer tear their hair out with frustration. A recoil engine was discovered long ago in an attempt to turn the exerted force back on the initial object. Truly skilled workers can use such a device to quarry stone, but the impact is far less precise than boring holes, wedging with wood, and cracking them with water as is traditional. Thus, the recoil engine is little more than an expensive way to make gravel, or obliterate armor.</li>

    </ol>

 4-15 - The Demon Lord Of The Sunless Desert

    At the end of the crystal cave was a structure whose location I will not specify, it would not be right to help explorers go hunting for it, so I will leave it more mystery than fact. Indeed, the construct can hardly be believed as real when before ones own eyes.

    Let me explain in a way that will allow a reader to understand, rather than the wonder Lucius experienced. He came from the outside in, seeing the sights in reverse order of importance. Understanding flows from the center, where water continually pours from the sky in a grand waterfall. There, it collects in a grand reservoir from which it can be siphoned this way or that, flooding fields and purging sewers. It can be irrigated out to animals where crickets are flushed like herds of bison to fling themselves at the pecking maws of chickens.

    There are grand ponds of manure, mud, and algae where thralls trudge and stir, mixing the mire to a loose fertilizer. Down from this are the fields and terraces, the rice paddies and grain patches. From here, Lucius at last understood where the base gruel rations had come from. The sunless desert was not bright or hot, but without any hint of night the plants were able to grow nearly as well as in Vassermark.

    This grand foundation, this mosaic of engineered life, was as a quilt beneath the city. The denizens had cultivated palms and through arcane arts calcified them. Normally, the trunks of palm trees are considered as no more than chaff for construction. Their trunks splinter, fray, decay, and mold. To build even a meager two story building would be impossible with such material, but through the crafts of their local god, they managed. The still living trees had their essence reconstituted, hardened with resin and set like stone. Their boughs were knit together like woven baskets and laden with creeper vines and again and again, hardened.

    Atop these semi-naturalistic pergola platforms sat the city. Huts and hovels, far cruder in make, design, and distribution, dotted the ancient trellises. In these pustules of rotting wood the thralls huddled, ate, defecated, and reproduced. The noise of the city was greater than any city in Vassermark save perhaps the heart of a port at midday, but the sounds hollering back and forth were not words. The ape creatures chanted and grunted, they mimed back at each other repeating each other''s mantras of nonsense. Emotion existed only in tone, in grunt and roar.

    The oasis city was truly a degenerate society. It was the still functioning infrastructure of the soliedar struggling to hold up soulless inheritors. Had I been there myself, I think I might have slain them all and burned their remnants to ash, but I refrained from joining my pupil¡¯s journey for this very reason.

    But this was not my playground, it was and perhaps to this day¨CI still have not gone down to see for myself¨Cthe playground of Anubi. Old even by my reckoning, he slumbered in the wastelands in exile, as far from the wolf goddess as he could go. His fight with her is not the appropriate subject of this text at this time, but needs to be noted to explain his figure.

    Thrice the height of a man, his body still carried the strength that once fought the gods in memory only. Muscles were shrunken and gaunt, bulging from ebony skin. His fingers were spindly and slender, tapering to hard points still capable of the greatest crafting finesse, but seeming more delicate than the art of a sugar-spinning baker. The extremities of his body, legs and head both, were mutated by his exposure to Roma¡¯s essence, fully canine.

    Anubi awoke as they mounted the steps to his marble pavilion, not the clever constructions of the city but an elegant palace constructed at much expense. It wasn¡¯t the padding of their sandals against the stone, but the trained trumpeters and drummers he kept at the outskirts. They struck up a tune as the three of them approached.

    ¡°Faster than I expected,¡± Anubi said, his mongrel mouth enunciating the Giordanan tongue without problem. The old god lounged upon his throne, looking Lucius over.

    ¡°My lord,¡± the priest said, falling to a knee and bowing his head. Lucius did not mirror the action, and to his surprise, Lupa did not either. ¡°We were harried by the rebels and forced to delve through the caves for protection. We only made time because of the assistance of the water seeker.¡±

    ¡°That would be the creature you left behind, yes?¡± Anubi asked, gesturing in the direction of the main thrall herd¨Cwhere Golden had been left.

    ¡°Yes, my lord.¡±

    ¡°Enough, I will copy your memories at leisure. Leave me, I wish to speak with the outsider. No, don¡¯t worry. He doesn¡¯t need to be bound. I am not so weak as to be afraid of a little peasant boy with a chip on his shoulder. Go on, before I accuse you of being too interested in him.¡±

    ¡°My lord,¡± Lupa said, bowing suddenly. History will never know for certain if she blushed at the accusation. Lucius flattered himself with the idea however. The two wastelanders retreated from their god, leaving the stranger as commanded.

    For a moment, my pupil stood in front of the magical monster, hands clenching the old relic as he tried to make sense of Anubi. A godling he would have understood. So too a divine beast or an angel. Anubi was something else, but not something unfamiliar.

    Once they were alone, Anubi leaned forward and grinned his jackal maw. ¡°Tell me, how is Amurabi doing these days?¡±

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    ¡°You¡¯re the same as him.¡±

    ¡°I was. My path took me down a different life, and now I am steward of the shadowless lands. I don¡¯t even know how long it has been. That toy you have, may I have it back? I built it some time ago. Years surely. Generations perhaps. It is so difficult with the apes. I can¡¯t tell their age anymore. Often, I can¡¯t tell them apart. Come now, Jarnpojka, you don¡¯t have to be afraid of me. We¡¯re on the same side.¡±

    ¡°Everyone beneath the sun says demons rule the wastelands.¡±

    Anubi laughed. ¡°They¡¯re right, in a sense. Give it here.¡± Once he had the prosthetic, he spent a moment turning it over in the wan light and grinning. He muttered to himself and laughed about jokes long forgotten. ¡°There we go. It still works. It¡¯s a shame that swordsman died before I finished it,¡± he said as he slid his fingers into the contraption and played with the golden digits.

    ¡°You know, I suspected as much. Master would have told me if the lord of the sunless desert was a godling.¡±

    Anubi laughed and held a hand to the sky. ¡°A godling wouldn¡¯t be drawn to such a desolate land. Tell me, you¡¯ve spent weeks now traversing this realm and I believe you have been given the wits to think. Not even by cruelty. You were born with them and nurtured the old fashioned way. The seeds of discernment were planted in your skull and I would reap some of them. What do you think of this world without Helios?¡±

    Lucius held his tongue until he formed his words, like any good schoolboy should. ¡°This desert is like river sediment left to dry out.¡±

    Anubi stroked his mutant jaw. ¡°Go on.¡±

    ¡°There¡¯s material and there¡¯s creatures that don¡¯t belong. Like they¡¯ve washed up from elsewhere. Like the people, if you can call them that, who walk the desert but with no dogs. They are not chased by mice. Thus, they don¡¯t beguile cats. There are no shepherd flocks, no ranching herds. There aren¡¯t even fleas and ticks. The little things that torment men don¡¯t survive here and it¡¯s a wonder the two-legged ones do either. The fish seem poisonous when you can find them and most meat is from eating other intruders to the wastelands. I¡¯ve heard it said that nature is a pyramid of predation and man cheated his way to the top(1) but here there doesn¡¯t seem to be any foundation. It¡¯s like those at the top are perpetually drowning, only able to keep their heads up by shoving one another down.¡±

    Anubi nodded. ¡°Not a bad assessment, but I believe you think the missing link lies at the little things. The fleas and ticks you mentioned. I thought your trek through the sand would have tipped you off. What is the difference between sand and soil, boy?¡±

    ¡°Nutrients and water retention?¡±

    Anubi laughed again. ¡°I can¡¯t say that you¡¯re wrong, but you¡¯ve overlooked the reasoning, boy. This desert lacks the fundamental miracle of life. Consequently, the little grubs too small to be seen fail to find nourishment. Thus, they do not gnaw upon the sand. They do not suck elements from the air. Feces is not broken down but ossified. So the sand stays the sand. Plants struggle to grow. The little vermin find a dearth of food. Predators have no vermin and so on¡­ So, it hardly makes sense that there are human-like creatures. Tell me what you think of Lupa, the hungering wolf.¡±

    ¡°The one who bit my chest off? I was worried my nipple wouldn¡¯t grow back after she ate the thing.¡±

    Anubi stroked his chin. ¡°How curious. Your stigmata recognizes certain scars and vestigial features as part of your self, but not novel ones? You had it since birth and yet it did not stop your aging? I¡¯m surprised you weren¡¯t stuck as an eternal infant with a brain too soft to conceive of thought yet brimming with power like some kind of larval god.¡±

    Lucius cleared his throat. ¡°You are just like Amurabi, aren¡¯t you?¡± he asked not quite under his breath. ¡°Why do you want to know my opinion of the girl? Are you asking if I¡¯m a man or something? She¡¯s proud but caring. She is soft but swift. The only thing she lacks is an education but that is through no fault of her own but the depravity of this wasteland.¡±

    Anubi leaned down, one elbow to his knee. ¡°How does she compare to the women of your home?¡±

    Lucius balked. ¡°Well, my home? The land I must call home I have no fond memories of. The one woman I like from there was cast out and¡­ if you mean more broadly of Vassermark, I would say that she compares quite favorably, but that may speak more of my distaste for the nobility. I have nothing bad to say about the common sister-wives of the land. If, however, I neglect the gem of Tavina, I may never hear the end of it. I have a certain obligation on that front.¡±

    Anubi laughed. ¡°An obligation you say? A little lord like you has an obligation to a woman? Amurabi surely didn¡¯t teach you to value marriage. He sees no intrinsic value in it. So what does that mean? Is she with child? Ah! She is. Wonderful. I am a few centuries too old for that myself, at least the traditional way. Lupa, like most every human in these lands, can be considered a child of mine however. I¡¯m afraid I¡¯m not a very good father though. I¡¯m no Helios.¡±

    Lucius glanced about himself. The pavilion had no walls, but the flowing water had a certain way of consuming noise as it dissipated. He dared to ask, ¡°Are you the one who made their stigmata?¡±

    The demon god of the wastelands nodded. ¡°Through blood and death, the compounding of logic and life and an imprinting of myself. ¡®Twas I that crafted them from naught but flesh. Every one of them with power beyond their mind was born of dozens if not hundreds of deaths. It¡¯s such a ghastly affair when there isn¡¯t enough to go around. It leads to envy you know. Some can¡¯t handle the evil that brought them into being but self hatred isn¡¯t such an easy thing. They turn it outwards. They craft envy, and that is a very powerful force.¡±

    Realization began to dawn on Lucius, on what he would have to do to secure the blessings of my kin and return victorious. The actions of the priest and of Lupa and the hounding of thrall packs. For the moment, he banished thoughts of the girl from his mind and set himself like the edge of a blade. He had no idea how I had managed to communicate with him from so far away, but he knew better than to put anything past me. With such a faith, he boldly asked, ¡°Then, you need me to hunt down and kill your rebellious children, don¡¯t you? Before they spill over and breach the peace.¡±

    The cursed, mongrel soliedar, the one-time bane of the gods and now lord of sand, answered him. ¡°Precisely.¡±

    <hr>

    <ol>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">Second from the top, depending on how broadly the classifications are made.</li>

    </ol>

 4-16 - Fall Of An Angel

    At this point, I shall leave much of Lucius¡¯ preparations as an exercise for the reader. There were many days of trial and error that I will soon come back to, for the structure of the army he made was a rather curious adaptation of standard block formation that Vassermark had been molding for centuries. Without drummers, buglers, or complex commands however, he was forced to improvise.

    To tell this story chronologically however, I must focus on resolving a question that I am sure has bothered at least some of my readers to this point. The reasons for Lucius being in the desert, his motivations, his worries, and his obligations, have all been laid out well enough. The function that Golden provided was also demonstrated, but not how we motivated him to help.

    Lucius himself did not question the matter because he assumed that I had already paid him, as I had in Giordana, or that it was further compensation for glutting himself in the Misty Isles. These theories seemed to hold water for him but were not the truth.

    The bird had his own motivations that were in a sense deeper than Lucius¡¯. The boy was practically running away from his own self-imposed chains in a juvenile adventure. He couldn¡¯t think of it that way because he didn¡¯t know how to think about Aisha¡¯s condition. He was too immature at the time. With the blessing of age and hindsight, much can be forgiven.

    The bird went with a purpose, to barter with Anubi for something I could not provide him. In fact, all the effort of putting him in a human guise and giving him a stigmata worth persevering in the wasteland was for this purpose.

    While Lucius argued with the priest, he slipped the watch of Lupa and sent off his cadre of stolen thralls so that he could mount the steps to Anubi¡¯s stone garden. With a word, he banished the desert lord¡¯s thralls and stood before my kin almost as an equal.

    Anubi had been at work on some project, some construction of magic that I cannot speak to, but he set it aside and met gazes with the divine beast. At this point I think it is more appropriate to call him a cast off splinter of a god. Anubi asked, ¡°What do you want, Reaper?¡±

    Golden scoffed and glanced around the oasis. ¡°I don¡¯t reap anymore. If I did, I would have no end of work here, returning these scraps of soul to the cycle.¡±

    Anubi had a staff, a wonderful thing of gold internally inscribed with more runes than I can even fathom. It throbbed with intent as he slammed the butt down. The noise resonated with the city like a beat upon a drum. ¡°I have never before quarreled with your mother, but that can always change.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m not here to fight. You think I would be in this ape skin if I wanted to fight, Wolf-slayer? Come now, I¡¯d have either stayed true or at least fetched the form of a dragon.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ve slain dragons as well.¡±

    Golden continued to fidget like a man hunted by loan sharks. ¡°Yes, in fact we killed one on the way here. Not what I would usually consider good eating, but neither are these walking husks.¡±

    Anubi sank back in his throne, releasing his walking staff once more. ¡°What have you come for then? We both know it is the way of my kind to allow barter even with enemies.¡±

    Golden sneered. ¡°Yes, but you adjust your costs accordingly.¡±

    ¡°Of course.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ve come to barter nonetheless.¡±

    ¡°We shall see if you can pay my price.¡±

    ¡°I could fly about this desert and slaughter your misbehaving children in an instant. I could return before¨C¡±

    Anubi cut the air with his hand, his intent almost fracturing the tenuous veil. Helios¡¯ light could only just mend his scratch. ¡°That deed has already been bartered off before you and I shall not renege.¡±

    ¡°The traditional way then, power.¡±

    ¡°Of which you seem to have plenty to give. What is it you seek?¡±

    ¡°I wish to leave this world.¡±

    Golden¡¯s statement caused quite a few reactions that might be expected. Anubi hesitated, recoiled, frowned, turned over the words for deceit, and then deduced his meaning. ¡°You know as well as I how trivial it is to descend. I take it that you don¡¯t mean that, so you must mean how to reach up, how to fly close to the sun without your wings melting.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯ve done it before, haven¡¯t you? Wolf-slayer.¡±

    Anubi chuckled. ¡°It¡¯s easier to summon them¨C¡±

    ¡°Liar. You did not summon Roma to this world, you dragged down an aspect, an imprint of her being. It¡¯s not the same. That would hardly be different than meeting my own sibling.¡±

    Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

    Anubi began to say, ¡°The scale is¨C¡±

    ¡°I have named what I ask of you, now name your price.¡±

    For a long time, the two of them stared at one another, not because of animosity but because a proper accounting had to be taken. Power is not something easily quantified. Consider a king with his many realms and fiefs. How much power does that king have? He can call on his dukes, he can tax the temples, he can rally the peasantry, levy armies, and imprison merchants for evading his tariffs. But which of those is more important than another? How much tax would you exchange for the loyalty of a duke? There is no heavenly account book in the world that can make such a sum.

    Many hours passed before Anubi declared, ¡°You have enough to trade, but you would be little different from a human after.¡±

    ¡°Would I still be me?¡±

    ¡°You would still be you, at your core. You might find it strange to drag around such a colossal piece of inanimate intent though. It would be like a lame limb.¡±

    ¡°Then I will make the deal.¡±

    Anubi rose, picking up his staff once more. He towered over Golden and said, ¡°I shall have to remember to bid you farewell when you leave, for I expect to never see you again. This will be the death of you.¡±

    ¡°Perhaps, perhaps not,¡± Golden said.

    Anubi pierced him through the skull with his staff as though the golden rod were a spear tip. The divine beast was there crucified in the garden, caught in a cycle of death and rebirth. The remaking of his soul was a slow process, as it was when he consumed Umbra.

    During that time, Anubi was forced to show his age. His walking staff was more than a mere piece of metal to prop his old body up, but an extension of his intent. With it busy, and to make a crude analogy but my options are limited when speaking to a mere human, it was as though his legs had fallen asleep.

    He was forced to call for a litter. A dozen thralls nearly broke their backs hoisting him up and carrying him out of the garden. Golden was making a racket of inane gurgles and groans. He gasped in pain, kicking his slippered feet against the stone. For a time, Anubi busied himself with the routine work of repairs, of tidying up and seeing to old projects that had languished. Eventually, he felt the welling of raw power that had been extracted from Golden and he went to see Lucius.

    The thralls available to him numbered approximately eleven hundred, but they would be useless without first decimating them at the least. To craft any specialists, more would have to be sacrificed and compounded, but he was not convinced that the reduction in numbers would be warranted.

    The two of them met near the northern end of the oasis city where there had once been a school. The shaded slate still stood and he had scrounged some bits of chalk to dash down his ideas. At Anubi¡¯s request, Lucius began his explanation of how he wanted to turn the thralls into an army.

    ¡°The idea came from birds, you see? Honestly, it was a bit of a fluke of boredom, but Master always said to schedule some boredom into the day. If nothing else, it helps you stay on schedule. A busy mind needs time to relax. While I was bored, I was reflecting on the fact that the desert doesn¡¯t have any birds. Which makes sense, there¡¯s no food. You need berry bushes and seeds and crops and bugs and whatever to feed a great big flock of birds. That was just where my thoughts started though. You see, birds are stupid. I mean, some of them can be very smart. I¡¯ve seen crows do things you wouldn¡¯t believe.¡±

    ¡°I would,¡± Anubi corrected, but he let the boy go on.

    ¡°Most birds, song birds really, their heads are smaller than acorns. Their brains smaller than nuts. They probably have just as much will to them as these creatures you have here. They move around, fly, eat, shit, mate, but they also weave nests and manage territory and they stay together when they flock in the sky. How do they do that? That¡¯s what I was thinking about. Ants are another good example of creatures too miserable to think. You can scream all you want at an ant hill and they¡¯ll still dig and eat and spread. They must follow simple rules that complex behavior emerges from¡­ simply, well, because if you were to write out their brains there wouldn¡¯t be room for more than a few simple rules, not after all the biological work.¡±

    Anubi nodded along, for he was enjoying the show. He had several solutions to the problem, but doing it himself was no longer his style. The point was for Lucius to do it.

    ¡°Alright, so starting from there, I began comparing it to how army formations work. Normally, you just want everyone who shows up to magically know what to do, but let¡¯s be real, even professional armies are dumb and confused most times. That¡¯s why you have to assign men to battalions and teach them what banner is their banner and once they have that figured out, they just have to stand in formation around it. Now, formations only matter if you have an array of weapons. We¡¯ve got what? Slings and spears and lots of them?¡±

    ¡°A few swords,¡± Anubi said.

    ¡°So, how do you take a blank slate and get them to stand in formation? I could do a lot of math I barely understand about lattice coordinates, or I could just make do with blobs and say that they should back away from their friends if they are close enough to touch, but they should approach their friends if they can¡¯t reach them. That will make them jostle around and self-organize into a formation that at least has room to swing their arms. Then I add a rule that they point the face of their shield and the tip of their spear away from their friends and just like that I¡¯ll have a basic formation I can work with.¡±

    ¡°How would you move them?¡±

    ¡°With a bannerman that will need more intelligent controls. Then I just have to move these great big mobs like units and spread them out so I can encircle and destroy, reinforce failing groups and form lines. I should be able to utilize their normal violence for hunger to handle the melee. Their instincts are feral, so a shield wall is out of the question, but an open brawl is fine.¡±

    Anubi said, ¡°Think about it for another few hours and send for me when you have the sets of commands decided on. I¡¯ll begin the decimation. But, don¡¯t you want any of them to have stigmata?¡±

    Lucius shook his head. ¡°We¡¯d have to sacrifice either bodies or pack animals and while that would mean less mouths to feed, it would weaken the army more than it helped. Master never taught me the efficient stigmata for combat.¡±

    ¡°Well, I hope you weren¡¯t planning on combat support from your pet bird.¡±

    Lucius turned back from his chalk scribblings. ¡°What do you mean?¡±

    ¡°By the time your army marches, he will be no more than human.¡±

 4-17 - Cutting Deals With The Locals

    The baths in the oasis city were engineered for solitude, for a clever kind of twilight privacy. A series of shades and veils shifted the hues of dismal light to the twilight of onsetting rest. Those alcoves of poorly heated water, for even in the closest thing the wastelands had to a metropolis wood was scarce, created one of the few refuges to slow one¡¯s thoughts.

    Lucius discovered them only several days into his work, preparing the thrall army. Without the cycles of day and night, the boy was working himself ragged. He had no measure of time. No sun, no candles, no regular meals. The cocks did not crow on any schedule. Time merely slipped by like the oozing flow of a droll canal.

    Only by the raging of his own internal clock, the little biological mechanisms that begged for sleep and for wakefulness and wanted to synchronize to a proper schedule, by those did he pick his time to put down his chalk. He hung up his cloak and turned down questions, drilling, practice, inquiry. Then, he melted his body into the lukewarm waters and fantasized about warmth, about comfort, about alcohol and the company of women.

    Here, his former warden waded in with him, clad in nothing but a sheet to cover her body. Lupa crossed the stone floor on silent feet like the padding of a predator, then sank her body into the water. It was the rising of the bath that dragged my pupil¡¯s fatigued brain back to the moment. She sank herself down, till her hair splayed out like a halo on the water and her body was hidden by the shimmers of the surface. By virtue of the size of the bath, not even their toes were close enough to touch, but there was no mist to obscure. This was no hot spring to feign decency.

    ¡°What are you doing?¡± he demanded.

    ¡°I was scouting on camelback and sand was in my hair,¡± she answered, diffidently not meeting his gaze.

    ¡°There are at least four of these baths and there aren¡¯t even four people with brains,¡± he said, but his accusation lacked strength.

    Lolling her head on the rim of the bath, Lupa said, ¡°Your friend will recover soon enough.¡±

    ¡°And you thought it fine to mingle our dirty clothes, is that it?¡±

    ¡°Well, we gave you that thobe. Shouldn''t you be back in your armor?¡±

    ¡°I will be soon enough. Shouldn¡¯t you be fleeing? You¡¯re not indebted to Anubi, are you? You¡¯re not his priestess, nor his temple¡­ maiden. Don¡¯t tell me you went to war to capture me for no reward.¡±

    Lupa sank a few inches deeper into the water, till almost her nose banished beneath the surface. After a moment, she rose to speak. ¡°Is the north better?¡±

    Lucius laughed. He matched her previous posture, lolling his head back and staring at the shadowed arches above them. Within the darkness, he let his imagination manifest and play out his memories for him until a yearning taunted his mind. ¡°In some respects yes, in some; no. Too many people is a problem the north has. It¡¯s hard to explain. Even here, when I walk among hundreds of these¡­ husks, it lacks that something; that alienation. You¡¯ll feel it in the cities. The countryside is more welcoming, or perhaps I should say there is less pressure on the soul in rural villages. It feels like you can be the master of the countryside in a way you can never master a city. Can you even imagine being surrounded by not hundreds, not thousands, but hundreds of thousands of strangers? Most too close to starving to even think of what behavior is proper?¡±

    Lupa huffed, leaning to the side and in effect, moving herself closer to Lucius. ¡°I can¡¯t imagine that, no. Can you truly imagine what it¡¯s like to be one of a dozen people for as far as you can possibly march? That should you feud with them, you would have perhaps one? Perhaps two people to be with?¡±

    ¡°You like Luigi then? The priest?¡±

    Again, she submerged in the water and ruminated. ¡°I have to, don¡¯t I? He isn¡¯t offensive and it¡¯s childish to want more than that, is it not?¡±

    Lucius looked at her. ¡°How old are you?¡±

    Lupa looked away. ¡°I wouldn¡¯t know. Lord Anubi says you northerners measure by the year, which is measured by seasons, but we don¡¯t have those. We don¡¯t have days and nights either. How could I tell you?¡±

    ¡°You look old enough to not be a child, but young enough to be stupid¡­ like me.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m not stupid!¡±

    ¡°Yes, you are.¡±

    ¡°If you mean to call me ignorant¨C¡±

    ¡°No,¡± Lucius said, partly rising from the water to raise his voice. ¡°You¡¯re stupid. I¡¯m stupid. Just about everyone is stupid. Anubi might not be stupid, but I¡¯m too stupid to know what he wants. I just know what he¡¯ll likely do in the immediate future. I can guess; nothing more. That¡¯s the difference between humans and gods, you know? We¡¯re like children riding atop a camel, yeah? We might think we have the reins but the camel goes where the camel wants and all we can do is pretend that we¡¯re in charge. That¡¯s why we¡¯re stupid. And I¡¯m not even talking about the pressures of society yet; the tide of history.¡±

    ¡°Camels, huh? Is that your attempt to sympathize with me or something?¡±

    Lucius shifted closer. ¡°Living this way is getting in my skull.¡±

    Lupa sighed. ¡°Aren¡¯t you eager to go home? You have a family don¡¯t you? Like a flesh and blood one? The thralls fornicate and act like parents for a time, but it¡¯s just an imitation of what you northerners do.¡±

    Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

    Lucius, may I remind you, had no contact with his blood family for nearly ten years. Instead, his mind went to Aisha, to the life inside her. There was a great unknown dwelling within her belly; an act of nature he had committed without understanding.

    He recoiled from the thought. His mind shrank back to the familiar confines of muscle and violence. The boy set his eyes upon the hungering wolf beside him. Self-blinded as he was, he did not comprehend the fear that drove her, how it ravaged her sleep and left her cringing from every footstep in the sands. She lived in a world with no family, no blood, no trust. Even her god saw her as nothing more than a particularly well crafted statue for his garden. In Lucius, she saw the proper life humans should lead.

    He saw in her weakness and beauty intermixed and that stirred his masculine spirit. He embraced the primeval will. ¡°You subjugated me.¡±

    Lupa recoiled. ¡°If we had come any later, we would not have been able to. It was the confusion of your arrival we subjugated.¡±

    ¡°You tried to force me to your will.¡±

    ¡°If your will was so easily bent, it would have been right to force you. We would have delivered you to Anubi and been granted the weapons we need. There was no way we could have foreseen how he would welcome you.¡±

    Lucius shifted toward her, his eyes locked on hers. ¡°Well, it seems that I am your weapon and from here on out, I will be directing the marches, ordering your mob, and defeating your enemies. Are you willing to put your life in my hands?¡±

    Lupa sighed and turned her gaze once more to the ceiling. ¡°You¡¯re not a very tender man, are you?¡±

    Lucius recoiled. ¡°What?¡±

    She shook her head and slid back to the far side of the bath. ¡°I suppose they don¡¯t call you the gambling lion for nothing,¡± she said as she pulled herself free of the cool water. She wrapped herself in a cloth and left him there.

    Lucius stayed in the shadows, silent and shocked and truly alone. He had not one friend for hundreds, perhaps a thousand miles. That left him nothing but his thoughts to reflect against.

    After a restless night wherein he spent more time staring at a wall than sleeping, he sought out the priest. Luigi had settled into a workshop, sacred only in a scientific sense. The wastelander surrounded himself with wood carving tool and the scraggly detritus of the desert, attempting to fashion roots into arrows. He delicately sliced, whittled, and carved, rendering the twisted shapes into shafts all while listening to the echoing plucks of a thrall with some crude stringed instrument.

    ¡°Shouldn¡¯t you be doing some kind of religious service?¡± Lucius asked.

    ¡°Shouldn¡¯t you be training an army?¡± the priest retorted. Luigi did not take his eyes off the shaft of wood. He ran his thumbs across it and whittled away rough edges before twisting the point of his knife against the end. He bored into it slowly.

    Lucius glanced about the room when he realized most of what surrounded him was gold, or perhaps gold-plated. Instruments and mechanisms and parts of mechanisms. The twilight of the room glimmered like some forgotten treasure hoard, but not one piece of jewelry or coinage could be seen. ¡°I¡¯m technologically limited.¡±

    ¡°Only technologically? From what I heard, you¡¯re rather morally limited too.¡±

    Lucius snorted, flicking an array of prongs fit for a music box but without a cylinder to read. ¡°I don¡¯t want to hear anything about morals from you.¡±

    ¡°Could you have such a discussion even if you wanted to? There doesn¡¯t seem to be any reverence in your soul. You speak to my god like an insolent child expecting a pat on the head,¡± Luigi said, at last turning to fix my pupil with a stare. ¡°It¡¯s revolting.¡±

    ¡°He¡¯s not a god.¡±

    ¡°Isn¡¯t he? He is one with his tao, older than the desert and wiser than any human. He can reshape us apes to fit his purpose and yet does not impose upon us.¡±

    ¡°No? But he does slaughter those he deems lesser for the benefit of the others.¡±

    ¡°Such is the way of the tao, the teleos, the logos, the way of the world. Lord Anubi sees beyond the shadows. You see nothing but flesh.¡±

    Lucius¡¯ face colored. His mind veered with the memory of Lupa¡¯s body almost within reach. ¡°I need a horn,¡± he said, using the words to clear his mind.

    ¡°A horn? What would you need that for?¡±

    ¡°Signaling.¡±

    Luigi shifted around before realization struck him. ¡°Oh, that kind of horn. A metal one. I thought you wanted a goat horn. Those are only good for carving dice. There, you may take that amplifier,¡± he said with a gesture to an elegant but unwieldy blossom of brass.(1)

    It took a moment for Lucius to disentangle the instrument and more time still to fashion a proper mouthpiece to it. Before he could leave however, the priest stopped him with a question, ¡°Aren¡¯t you spending too much time here?¡±

    ¡°Marching with an unfit army will just get them killed.¡±

    Luigi set his wooden creation aside, along with half a dozen other shafts just like it, but of varying lengths. ¡°You aren¡¯t the only northerner in these wastes. Didn¡¯t you come here to fetch that woman?¡±

    At this time, Bishop Jean de Jeamaeux was a week¡¯s travel away, in the ley mine Raymi had excavated.

    ¡°The other tribes, the ones that followed us and attacked, they should be coming here, shouldn¡¯t they? I was preparing to meet them in the city, to turn irrigation canals into trenches and fortifications.¡±

    Luigi chuckled. ¡°If they were going to attack you here, they would have done so already. This is sacred land, even to the mindless. You¡¯ll need to move fast to catch them now. Jumping from waterfall to waterfall in a land you know nothing about. You don¡¯t even have the sun to guide you.¡±

    ¡°Name your price, priest,¡± Lucius said, cutting through the man¡¯s suggestions.

    ¡°Freedom, citizenship, positions and titles, anything you can give as you bring me, my sister, and my brothers¨Cremade as they must be¨Cto your land beneath the sun.¡±

    ¡°I cannot,¡± Lucius said. ¡°Your god ordered me to kill them.¡±

    ¡°Remade! When they die, the lowly creatures will feast and awaken. They will be as my kin. It is them that I want you to take north. Promise me that and I will guide you across the desert. I will even play your horn, I can¡¯t imagine you can do so in the middle of a fight. I don¡¯t see how your friend could take you across the desert in his current condition.¡±

    ¡°I must speak with Anubi.¡±

    ¡°Funny, I must as well. I finished the mock-up of your ley cannon,¡± Luigi said, holding up a wooden replica of a ley bolt.

    <hr>

    <ol>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">The sono-phone Lucius salvaged from was not one of Anubi¡¯s projects, but a gift from long ago. The sentimental value had been overwhelmed by the distaste of the memory, so pilfering it proved to be most welcome. Perhaps in the future the sono-phone may be brought back from the obscurity of history, but it would take a good deal of effort better put elsewhere.</li>

    </ol>

 4-18 - Birra da Cimitero

    Lucius could do nothing on his own while he waited for his bannermen to awaken. He could take a train of camels and charge off on his own, perhaps with Lupa or the priest, but he was not enough for the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of thralls and creatures that the desert people were taking to the ley mine. He needed an army, so he had to wait. A lesser man would have enjoyed chewing the fat, a moment of respite before the war.

    Anubi found him pacing the garden, glaring at the form of the once-divine beast. The potency of Golden¡¯s presence seemed to be oozing out of him and leaving behind the chrysalis shell of a metamorphosis.

    ¡°He will be able to join you,¡± my comrade of old said, leaning on a withered excuse for a walking cane, one merely of material form.

    ¡°He should have waited until after the war,¡± Lucius said, stopping before Golden to look the doll-like body over once more.

    Anubi chuckled. ¡°There is always another war, until you retire like I have.¡±

    ¡°Why did the wolf-killer retire anyway? You don¡¯t seem injured.¡±

    The jackal grinned. ¡°You don¡¯t know what I used to look like. But come. I will show you. Take it into your being and you will be a man worthy of my daughter.¡±

    His pride pricked, Lucius followed the aged demon. They departed from the garden, passed through the fields and past the hovels. Within one of the ancient houses, one with doors still locked and maintained, Anubi took him into the embrace of the firmament. They did not descend into caverns. Not worm-riddled caverns spotted with the warrens of vermin. The stairs had been crafted into marble and the oddments gilt in gold. No light was needed, for the chamber itself glowed as though molten ore flowed through the veins of the stone.

    Anubi took my pupil into the great treasure room of the desert.

    An artist might be inspired to depict it laden with gold, with coins and jewels and the spoils of war. That there were heaps of treasure the kind a fat dragon would crawl through in hedonistic gluttony. No such clutter existed there then, nor I hope exists there now. Treasure of the material world is next to meaningless.

    The treasury of the desert was a library. Shelves and crates laden with papyrus scrolls preserved by the dry air and protected by the dearth of little life, no better reliquary could exist beneath the light of Helios. But it was not old plays or treatises on morality, not even forgotten histories, that were the gem shown to Lucius. All those, I could have wrenched from mine own soul if there were merit.

    At the heart of the library, precisely beneath the garden of Anubi, was the gloomy fields fecund; rife with the mycelium of godly thought and fed by the blood of life.

    ¡°I don¡¯t know what I¡¯m looking at,¡± my pupil said as he knelt beside the loam. The phallic caps of death before death stood like a little, rubber forest before him, engorged on corpse rot and dusting their faintly toxic spores across the soil.(1)

    Anubi said, ¡°We had a rather vulgar term for it in my time, I suppose you would balk to think of this as the ejaculate of the sun. We didn¡¯t feign such propriety long ago. Call it the mystery.¡±

    ¡°I think I understand what this is,¡± Lucius said, turning his back to the botany. He swept his gaze instead across the urns, the bottles, and the casks. ¡°Before I came here I was the governor of the Misty Isles. An angel turned godling invested herself, itself, into a local narcotic. The transfusion of will mixed with bodily euphoria¨C¡±

    Anubi said, ¡°You do not understand. If you take nothing else from me today, take the knowledge that you will not bring with you this life. It will stay here with me. My gift I give you now, not for your benefit, but for Lupa¡¯s. Birra da cimitero I bequeath to you. Drink this not tonight, nor under any desert lull. Carry it north and only consume it in the embrace of the Shepherd.¡± He plucked from a shelf and handed Lucius a phial dark with occult medicine. It was no larger than his hand, stopper excluded, but with the glass fused together to seal it against the elements and time.

    ¡°The Shepherd?¡± he asked, taking the gift.

    The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

    ¡°Of all the gods and goddesses, she is beloved by all. Even if her emissaries leave some to be desired. If I might make a suggestion, bring your woman with you to her home of Tavina and drink it with her.¡±

    At once, Lucius¡¯ grip tightened about the vial. ¡°How do you know about her?¡±

    Anubi cackled and began his trek back to the surface. ¡°Your friend, the angel. He paid with his essence for the gift I gave him. I picked through quite a few of his memories since. I know much. Tell me boy, do you enjoy protecting her?¡±

    Lucius released his tension, for he understood the nature of such bartering. I had included it in his training, but he never had enough will to exchange so the knowledge was purely academic. The idea that a man¡¯s memories are private is purely a human misconception. I myself am clearly writing this document through such after-the-fact examination. His answer to Anubi was childish. ¡°I¡¯d rather that she didn¡¯t need protection.¡±

    ¡°But, you enjoy it, don¡¯t you? The same way you enjoy winning a fight, conquering a city, laying the mighty low. Does it not put a stir in your chest when you see so many hundreds of spears at your command? That you may turn them against your enemies and grant wealth and safety to those you choose?¡±

    ¡°What¡¯s your point? Master told me women shouldn¡¯t drink. It¡¯s a poison.¡±

    ¡°It is a solvent,¡± Anubi corrected. ¡°Typically of restraint, currently of something a dash more liberating. But¡­ yes, it does have a way of dissolving healthy, developing tissue. I don¡¯t think that will be an issue. By the time you reach Tavina, the child will be at her teat.¡±

    As they mounted the steps, leaving behind the great library, Lucius faltered. ¡°It will be months before her¡­ our child is born.¡±

    ¡°And months it will take you. You have a war to win, don¡¯t you realize?¡±

    ¡°In the mine, yes¨C¡±

    ¡°For Jeamaeux you fool. The bishop¡¯s presence here has created a power vacuum that is being assaulted by your prince¡¯s brazenness. Someone else will seize the power she has left behind. It must be you that crushes them, with her at your side. You¡¯ll be lucky to return to Vassermark by the harvest festival.¡±

    Lucius could only scowl and expand the scope of his plans. ¡°I need to march, now,¡± he grumbled as they emerged to the twilight city.

    ¡°Your friend has awoken, you may begin ladening the beasts I believe,¡± Anubi said, gesturing toward the garden.

    Lucius excused himself and took off at a run. Sweat speckled his body as he flew up the stairs. He was panting as he spotted the new Golden.

    Here, I should stop referring to him as an angel, an emissary, or a divine beast. With his soul stripped bare and grafted to such a great, arcane machine, the needs of his human body trumped the effects of his will. Golden was a man, no more powerful than any other. He sat at the edge of the stone platform, his legs dangling off the side like he might leap into one of the retaining ponds.

    ¡°Does your army have use for a newborn, Solhart?¡± Golden asked, tilting his head to his shoulder and glancing backward.

    ¡°For an infant? No. That¡¯s not what you re though.¡±

    ¡°I barely remember a thing. That jackal stripped me bare like meat from the bone. I think once I could have picked up a sword, if I so chose. Now, truth be told, I am seated here because I don¡¯t quite remember how to walk. I stumble and lurch. My feet aren¡¯t numb but my body doesn¡¯t know where to put them. The part of me that was bird and the memories of the man we killed, they don¡¯t fit together like they previously did.¡±

    ¡°You sold off a lot of memory then.¡±

    ¡°But not the structure beneath. As I said. I am wiped clean. I am newly born. I suppose I shall have to ride with the baggage train.¡±

    ¡°No,¡± Lucius said. He stepped beside Golden and gestured to a few of the clearings¨Cwhere homes once stood¨Cto the masses of human-shaped thralls emerging from their cognitive metamorphoses. ¡°Those are blank. There¡¯s still plenty of you in you. If you can¡¯t fight, you can fill the role children fill.¡±

    Golden¡¯s brow furrowed as he glared at the young commander. ¡°What role do children have in war?¡±

    ¡°Drums and horns and running messages. Doing as they are told to echo the intent of their commander. Those bannermen I had created are worthless if I can¡¯t give them orders and I need to be fighting, not blowing my lungs through a horn.¡±

    Golden¡¯s features relaxed. He nodded and sighed. ¡°That, I suppose I can do. To war then?¡±

    ¡°A brutal, tribal affair. A war only in the crudest sense. In fact, I hardly want to call it a war if I can¡¯t match wits against an enemy commander. We¡¯re just going to have a great big brawl I think; no matter how much I try to maneuver or strategize.¡±

    Golden laughed. ¡°Historically speaking, that¡¯s most wars.¡±

    ¡°I thought you sold your memories?¡± Lucius said, smirking and offering a hand up.

    ¡°Only most,¡± the former angel said, taking his hand.

    <hr>

    <ol>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">I have omitted identifiable features of the fungi on purpose. Anyone qualified to harvest the fungus doesn¡¯t need to be told of its appearance here and anyone learning of it from this text deserves to be poisoned for their folly.</li>

    </ol>

 4-19 - A Dead Godling

    There was an unexpected, to Lucius, boon to his chasing after the other desert tribes. While he had to contend with poorer forage, along a path already decimated by camels and picked clean by thralls, there was something he didn¡¯t have to deal with.

    Reports from Raymi¡¯s expedition to the ley mine had treated the stories as apocryphal, both impossible to have occurred and impossible to confirm. The very notion of a sand demon that could summon storms and lead men in circles before devouring them seemed to be nothing more than the heat-induced derangements of scared men. As was already seen however, summoning sand storms was but one of many stigmata available to the tribesmen.

    The confusion of direction was believed to be entirely natural. Of course some amount of northmen would be confounded by traveling without even the light of the sun to guide them, or the patterns of the stars for that matter. With no day or night, the passage of time became muddy, and with it the perception of speed. This was the primary reason no serious attempt to conquer the sunless desert had ever been made, despite the firm knowledge of earthly resources to be plundered.

    Raymi¡¯s men were not navigating by dead reckoning however, nor by landmarks or any other rough estimate. They had pocket compasses, a design introduced by myself but miniaturized and perfected within the Vassish University. Specifically, they had a number of pocket compasses; magnetic needles fitted to in the same direction, roughly north by north east.(1) these should have worked, in fact they were believed to be fool-proof and more valuable than human lives for they indeed were the lifeline of travel.

    By using this almost magical tool, they should have been able to conquer the desert, so any missing soldiers must have been killed by the locals or done in by some combination of dehydration, fatigue, and weather. Raymi never quite imagined that something in the desert could twist their needles.

    That something was slain by the other tribes. Lucius came upon the carcass, nothing more. It made a bloody boneyard of carapace and pink bones. A deviant species of the ironhide dragons, this demon of the dunes had swollen to enormous size. Just approaching the magic-saturated corpse was enough to make the hair upon his body stand on end. Akin to an electric eel far to the north, the creature had survived so long it became a godling, and in doing so harnessed the power of lightning within its flesh. All compasses¨Chad they any¨Cwould have pointed directly toward it and led the traveler to a grisly doom.

    Indeed, many thralls met just such a doom and then became part of the feast as well. The human bones had just as many tooth marks as the inside of the godling¡¯s carapace and no flesh anywhere remained but what rotted in the sand of blood and filth.

    Sacerdote said, ¡°This is bad. They are awakening their thralls. They will have more stigmata than us.¡±

    ¡°Quite the opposite,¡± Lucius said as he twisted part of the hide. It was laced with iron the way black laces white marble. Growth had betrayed the creature and slain it. By gorging on the flesh of men rather than rocks, it had replaced the sturdy, organic steel with a shell no better than keratin. There was iron enough to make armor from, if he wanted to burn off the useless ivory first and he of course did not have that much time.

    Cleaning his hands with a fistful of sand, Lucius explained, ¡°He might have a few dozen more stigmata users but does he have their loyalty? Are they going to remember their time as thralls kindly? Will they follow orders now that they approach their commander¡¯s status? An untrustworthy friend is worse than an enemy.¡±

    ¡°Do not forget your promise,¡± the priest said, jerking upon the reins of his camel. The beast cantered away, dancing over uncertain sand and bones to bring him back to the head of the procession.

    Lupa came walking down a sand slope, her hands behind her head. ¡°What promise?¡± she asked.

    ¡°He wants to escape north afterward,¡± Lucius said, picking up one particular shard of carapace to see what kind of weapons had been used to slay the godling, but he could only guess what had punched square holes through the hardened hide.

    ¡°Is that so? I was wondering why he didn¡¯t stay behind at the library. He always fancied himself having extra affection from Anubi.¡±

    ¡°Doesn¡¯t he?¡±

    Lupa snorted. ¡°He simply spent more time in the library than anyone else.¡±

    ¡°What about you?¡± Lucius asked, gesturing for her to follow him back to the start of the carnage. ¡°You don''t mind leaving your god behind?¡±

    She crossed her arms and frowned. ¡°Did you know there¡¯s a fiction section to that library?¡±

    Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

    They had been walking back to the pack animals and Lucius nearly walked past his animal while trying to recall where a section of poetry, plays, or even complete novels could have been. ¡°He doesn¡¯t seem like someone who would collect stories.¡±

    ¡°Lord Anubi didn¡¯t discriminate in what he collected. Rescued is more like it. He has filched from shipwrecks, explorers, caravans and exiles. Not to mention the ancient texts. I only vaguely recall some of those from before my uplifting. He collects even what he doesn¡¯t read, so I grew up reading unknown mixes of history and fantasy about kingdoms that may or may not exist. Like, obviously Vassermark exists but where is Blikland?¡±

    Lucius frowned and mounted his camel. As he drew his dromedary alongside Lupas, he offered her a hand and said, ¡°Nowhere, I think.¡±(2)

    ¡°See my point? What is real, what has faded away, and what never existed at all? I want to know and I want to feel the sun on my skin. Warm days and cold nights. I want to huddle beside a dancing fire and be surrounded by real people.¡±

    Lucius snorted. He waved his free hand at Golden and Sacerdote, gesturing for the rag tag army to be marched on. As horns bellowed, he said, ¡°I¡¯ll take you north, but I don¡¯t think you¡¯ll like it very much. Those very people you want to see are the problem. There are too many of them. Can I ask you something? How many people do you know by name?¡±

    Lupa flicked up one finger after another until she said, ¡°I¡¯m not sure they¡¯re all alive anymore, but I think fifteen?¡±

    My pupil almost leaned out of his saddle as he quietly asked, ¡°How many people do you think crewed the Blazen Arrow that took me here? The ship with all those oars.¡±

    Lupa again went to her fingers, blushing as she realized something was very wrong. ¡°H-how should I know?¡±

    ¡°Ninety, give or take a few. All with families¡­ well, most with families. Their own hobbies and dreams and relations, their own appetite for wine and play and each with a different price to put a knife in your back. When I take you north, Lupa, I¡¯m not going to keep you at my side like a thrall, but I would highly suggest staying with me.¡±

    She pouted. ¡°Like I am now?¡±

    The two of them mounted a dune and he looked upon the wind-scarred tracks of the army they pursued. ¡°Just like this,¡± he said, and took the lead as the great ley mine appeared upon the horizon in so many jagged spires of stone.

    The land around the mine was something of a shallow crater. If the dunes had been smoothed to a polish, it might have focused the diffuse light of the desert and burned a new sun into existence far above. Alas, sand might be melted to glass but it is the metal backing that makes a mirror. Lucius¡¯ vantage point was not above some cosmic weapon, but merely of a grand slope down to the distant war camp of his tribal enemies. Even with his healthy sight, he could see nothing more than dark smudges in the haze some distance before the lip of the mine chasm. No plumes of sand spoke of their movement and no noise carried across to him, so he could only conclude, ¡°They¡¯re preparing something.¡±

    Lupa shaded her eyes and squinted. ¡°That¡¯s three days ride still, if we go straight.¡±

    ¡°Priest!¡± Lucius bellowed, sending his mount scampering across the sand. ¡°How much water do we have?¡±

    ¡°Two days,¡± Sacerdote answered.

    Golden sat up from a pot laden cart, sticking his head above the railing so he could say, ¡°Isn¡¯t it weird you people measure by days when there is no night?¡±

    The priest launched into an explanation about the grand water clock, but Lucius cut him off. ¡°Hey, Compass, where¡¯s the nearest waterfall?¡±

    The former angel pointed a lazy finger forward. ¡°Dead ahead.¡± The cracks that spill water into the world are many, but not that many.

    Lucius nodded. ¡°Stop us when we need to wait. We¡¯ll fill up and engage three days from now. Finally, this is what I¡¯ve been waiting for.¡±

    ¡°A march?¡± Lupa asked as the two of them headed back to the front.

    ¡°Action!¡±

    ¡°In three days.¡±

    ¡°Maybe sooner, they might turn around to engage us, but that would be their mistake. I¡¯ll crush them in open ground.¡±

    Lupa stared at him, incredulity growing. ¡°Oh my gosh you actually are like a child playing a game.¡±

    Lucius balked. ¡°How do you even know what a child looks like? I thought you were awoken as an adult.¡±

    She laughed. ¡°Even the mindless have children and children always play. You¡¯re actually scaring me somewhat. I guess for someone who can¡¯t die, war is a game.¡±

    ¡°Of course it is. You have winners and losers, plays and counter plays. I just have advantages, the least of which is that I don¡¯t die. I especially don¡¯t want to hear it from the woman who captured me.¡±

    She snapped her teeth at him and laughed. Then their march to his first open battlefield began.

    <hr>

    <ol>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">The world is destined to have quite a navigational struggle between maps and compasses. While it seems like it should be trivial to make maps work well with compases, only in Aillesterra do they point to the nominal north. By convention, the cardinal directions are defined by the passage of the sun across the middle of the world. This makes for a perfectly usable coordinate system to locate any landmark. However, a compass does not care in the least about the sun. It points to the mountain home of the dragon lord, deep in Drachenreach. Because they point toward a specific location, you must first known your starting location to interpret the angle correctly. With the aid of the sun, one might re-derive their location but this is of course not possible in the desert.</li>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">Blikland is an antiquated region of Skaldheim originally known for its tin mine. The resource dried up half a millenia ago and the name has slowly been forgotten.</li>

    </ol>

 4-20 - A Water Bluff

    A military commander has many weapons at his disposal, and any one advantage might be enough to win the day. The first and most obvious is numerical advantage, followed by superiority of weapons, food, supplies, and so on. Even a child can understand that the larger army has an advantage but history is replete with examples of the seeming underdog winning.

    Terrain is often the second aspect of battle discussed, how one might use the height of hills, or press an enemy into water. More exotically, battles have been disrupted in Skaldheim because invaders didn¡¯t understand the lay of boiling geysers and of course Aillesterran campaigns had never been able to pierce the jungles. Flood plains, salt marshes, tide pools and more can be used by a sly commander to compensate for a numerical disadvantage. Later in Lucius¡¯ own wars, he waged what became the definitive example of using a mountain pass to negate a larger army.

    Unique stigmata can swing a battle, but no serious text on the art of war has ever accounted for them because to plan an entire campaign around one man¡¯s ability invites disaster should sickness or assassination take him. Lucius¡¯ stigmata being of course an exception.

    With those accounted for, a commander begins reaching for ways they might have the upper hand. Composition of forces may, at times, be advantageous. The three great resources of an army are the melee infantry, the ranged infantry, and the cavalry. A camel charge had only ever been effective in western Giordana for the simple reason that the wastelands lacked enough camels or any beasts of burden at all.

    Bravery and morale can win the day, but this was not a factor for the thralls and he had no direct means of communication with the bishop¡¯s besieged forces. Once again, he thought of his coded communication strategy, but if the bishop could discern such signals without prior knowledge then so could the enemy. What was more, he had no wood to burn to make smoke.

    Lucius had but two advantages. First, the trained soldiers of Giordana and Jeamaeux were worth more than half-mindless conscripts if he could rendezvous with them without endangering his position. Second, he had been trained by me in the art of war and that tactical advantage had to count for something.

    Unfortunately, in a nearly flat, open desert between equally skilled troops, the advantage clearly laid with the larger force. After all of Anubi¡¯s work, a few travel mishaps, and simply losing forces for reasons unknown, Lucius had less than one thousand troops at his command. The force between him and the ley mine was estimated at two thousand.

    Such a foe was enough to make him grind his teeth, for he didn¡¯t even know how they were equipped, if they had a method of command, or any training at all.

    The standard advice when facing such an overwhelming force would be retreat, to pull the enemy into your territory while uprooting all the resources. To stretch supply lines thin, to seed disease among their troops and wear them down. Lucius could not retreat. He was the reinforcements. Sitting his army on their haunches a short march from the enemy could occupy some of their defensive forces but not many.

    This was, however, not a repeat of his rescue of Rackvidd. Most obviously, the bishop was in dire need of rescue. She did not have the forces to fight off two thousand wasterlanders the way Lord Raymi could have cut down the rebels. Secondly, there was something Lucius could do besides outright attack.

    After their three day march, he had Golden brought to the front of the army. The former angel sprawled across one of the supply sledges long since depleted of food rations but not abandoned. Golden gazed at the sky, half awake and almost dreaming while Lucius imagined what tactics might be used. He was not idle however, merely waiting. Eventually, he sprang up and swung his finger.

    Lucius bellowed his command to the priest and horns blew quickly. Nine hundred pairs of feet pounded across the sand as his diminutive army made a seemingly meaningless pivot across the sands.

    While the ley mine was like a canyon through the desert, it formed a sort of wall that the enemy could only press against without committing themselves to an invasion. It was also so long that they could choose any point they wished to prepare against, so Lucius¡¯ movement did not force them to relocate their camp.

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    But they should have.

    If they had realized what he was doing, they would have charged in mass and chased them off. Prudence kept them rooted as the sky opened and showered water upon the spread pots of Lucius¡¯ army. Open mouths drank the spill and the thralls filled their bellies.

    One momentary oasis would not sway a battle. Indeed, it didn¡¯t even stir their camp as they crafted siege tools. The second oasis came while Lucius slept and nearly came to blows with the enemy but only a trickle came down and retreat quickly sounded. My pupil¡¯s retreat that was. He drew the wastelanders to him, away from the mine.

    In due time, an oasis sprang down from the heavens to their rear and the wastelanders scurried back to claim the water. With the full host between them and the water, Lucius could not press in for it, but that was within his calculations. On the second day of keeping the wasterlanders on edge, he played his gambit and pressed the luck of his tactics.

    His ploy, the product of days of thinking, was a simple one. Of course, he prepared for outright combat. The open field allowed for a fighting retreat that could prevent encirclement while his slingers whittled their forces away and that might have proved effective. To risk a fight like that, however, would not have been wise, merely wasteful of resources.

    Of course, that arithmetic only applies at scale.

    When Golden next identified the coming water fall, Lucius charged to it but sent his army in the opposite direction. He took with him only one battalion of one hundred and left orders to array his primary forces as though to defend a coming water fall. He used himself as bait, appearing like he was there to outflank the wastelanders.

    In truth, he had his slingers carry empty pots and arrange them beneath the coming water while surrounded by shields. For how flat the desert was, only the press of bodies could camouflage their activities.

    When the water poured upon them, confusion erupted in the ranks of their enemy. A shield wall had been lazily erected between Lucius¡¯ ¡°flanking¡± position, but their minds had only idle defense in them. The sight of the water made them panic, more out of rage that they had been duped.

    They charged him.

    At once, the blob of one hundred morphed about their bannermen. They spread out and returned the charge, abandoning the pots to the gushing fall behind them. The water was nobody¡¯s true concern. Stone¡¯s whipped through the air as wastelander¡¯s bellowed at one another. Each sling was like a hammer. Meager shields cracked and skulls shattered. The sand was littered with blood and teeth as men howled over broken fingers or wheezed with broken ribs.

    Then the butchery began.

    Spears clashed against shields, twisting and slashing through air as bodies collided. The two lines surged into one another. Grips shortened and the melee became a shoving and stabbing match. Animal roaring filled the desert as the greater parts of the army hesitated to act.

    Then Lucius himself swept in from the side. Heedless of slings and indifferent to their spears, he alone flanked the contingent. He fought with a two-sword style that wasn¡¯t his forte but it was the fastest way he could break down such a rudimentary force. Their spears and clubs rained across the Vassish steel that girded his body. Their attacks glanced off his helm and grazed his arms. For every attack against him, he returned two.

    His thrusts ran through chests. His slices opened arteries. Blood showered the desert as the oasis dried up beyond him. It took only seconds before his bannermen wrapped the edges of the enemy wastelanders and the encirclement began.

    Then lightning struck him. Not from the sky but the fingers of the enemy leader. The energy leapt from body to steel and burned through his body. Muscles locked in place while those near him were blown back. Burned hair and flesh fouled the air as the enemy leader shouted, ¡°Kill him!¡±

    A dozen speartips blindly punched through his arm and chest, sliding through muscle to bone. His armor held the crude weapons from killing him though. They had to pull back and try to thrust again, but by then it was too late. The collateral damage of the stigmata attack had been too much. The distraction to cut down Lucius too total.

    The wastelanders were soon encircled and cut down like huntsman prey. Lucius personally opened the throat of the leader who had blasted him, helped in no small part by his bannerman. The leader shrieked words and pleas in half-thought bargains.

    My pupil paid it no heed. That the lightning user was the upraised spawn of feasting on the godling was obvious enough. It mattered little, only that the fight had taken longer than expected.

    Across the sands, both armies raced along their line of confrontation, spilling over themselves to extend to the left: towards him. The priest wasn¡¯t able to move the troops fast enough to outmaneuver such a larger force and Lucius no longer had the time to regroup. Already some four hundred savages had closed ranks and begun charging his wounded few.

    ¡°To the mine! Grab the water or dump it,¡± he barked, and they fled to the only safety they could reach: the very people they had come to rescue.

 4-21 - The Cursed Bishop

    To someone who has never worked with ley, it is a very fickle material. There is a misconception that stone, the fundamental manifestation of earth, of solidity and matter, is somehow stable. This is not true, even less so for ley. As a material heats and cools, it expands and contracts respectively. This is most obvious with ice, but ice is in fact a peculiar example because of its crystalline simplicity. In general, everything grows with more heat. Materials often used in homes, such as wood, also grow and shrink with humidity and water.

    Ley grows and shrinks with magic. More than that, when exhausted of magic, it becomes almost as soft as clay. Shaping it can still be difficult, but the differential firmness creates an almost living reaction to a mass of ley. With the tenacity of a root, it spills over and drags itself toward the fundamental source of magic. In seasonal time scales as the shifting of the firmament crushes and relaxes upon the vein, it is able to refill and change its shape to squirm closer to the font of mana.

    In the case here, it approaches the barrier of the world and drills into it where it is weakest. Thus, the ley mine of the sunless desert was once a mountain, long ago when man was still exploring the world he found himself in. Over the centuries, it has been dug down, leveled, ripped open, excavated, and burrowed into like ants.

    In fact, the upper layers of what were once the roots of the mountain had been rebuilt with masonry to create sifting platforms, quarrying and sculpting regions, and of course all the places of basic life needed for miners.

    Lucius blundered down one of the extraction ramps, charging with eighty injured wastelanders right against the crude defensive barrier the bishop had put up to protect her rag tag missionary force.

    Naturally, they confronted him as though he were an invading force, or perhaps just shy of it. They didn¡¯t start by pumping grapeshot out of ley cannons at his face, but they didn¡¯t throw down ladders or open any gates or anything of that sort. The captain of the guard bellowed, ¡°Not one step closer.¡± He spoke in Giordanan, which was not particularly comprehensible to the wastelanders, but men of all times have that sort of personal bias.

    Lucius pushed through the mob of warriors around him and raised an open hand. ¡°I¡¯m here to help,¡± he called. ¡°I¡¯m Vassish, can¡¯t you see?¡±

    ¡°You some kind of captive?¡± the defender asked.

    This rankled my pupil deeply, for he had been a captive only recently. So, he sucked air into his chest and shouted. ¡°My name is Lucius von Solhart, hero of Rackvidd and leader of the Misty Isles. I have been dispatched here to rescue you stranded explorers now let me in so I can save you. That¡¯s my army out there protecting you, so stop wasting time.¡±

    His name was known to several of the men, and all could hear the shouting in the dunes beyond. There were rattling drums and the pounding of slings on shields, war cries and perhaps death throes. From their depressed vantage, none could see how the distant battle fared except a few secluded scouts.

    Alas, while I had been able to get word to Anubi, the bishop was wholly ignorant of what form her salvation would come in. For a stressful thirty minutes, Lucius was kept outside the camp, in danger of being smashed upon the rubble wall by the wastelander forces. He was contemplating jumping off the side of the ramp and into the pit of the mine, for only one side of the ramp was hemmed by stone and the other by air.

    ¡°Bring them in,¡± a new voice ordered, and rope ladders were tossed over.

    Lucius set about cajoling his forces into climbing over, but soon saw that while the bishop¡¯s army had let them in, they were not at freedom. A hundred wary Giordanans blocked their further progress with rows of shields. ¡°Very pretty,¡± he said, standing before his battalion.

    The man who had let them in stepped forward. Middle aged and bearded, he bore a striking resemblance to Medorosa, but aged a decade more. With age, came temperament. He stood with crossed arms and nodded. With a rumbling voice, loud enough for all to hear, he said, ¡°I never expected to meet the Gambling Lion here.¡±

    ¡°I have come at the behest of the King of Vassermark! Rejoice.¡±

    The Giordanan frowned. ¡°My name is Abdul Alraaei. I must ask, if you are here, who is out there?¡±

    ¡°My second and third in command. I wouldn''t trust them to do anything decisive, but they can keep the savages in check.¡±

    ¡°And so you bring your own?¡± Abdul asked, thrusting his chin at the battalion behind him.

    That was when Lucius brought out his mischievous grin, that trick of charisma from long ago when he worked in a minstrel¡¯s troupe. ¡°If all goes to plan, they won¡¯t be for much longer. If you want to see me pull that off however, I must speak with the bishop.¡±

    ¡°She¡¯s not available at the moment,¡± Abdul said.

    ¡°Then I¡¯ll leave,¡± Lucius said at once. He turned and signaled his men, bringing them back into formation and pointing them back to the wall.

    Abdul started, shock breaking through his demeanor. ¡°Are you mad?¡±

    ¡°No, I¡¯m a gambler and I know when to cut my losses.¡±

    ¡°You expect us to just bring you to the bishop? What if you¡¯re an assassin?¡±

    ¡°I am here at the command of the king of Vassermark. How dare you call me an assassin! You all know my name. Does one among you doubt I am who I say I am? Here, let me prove my name,¡± Lucius shouted as he began unbuckling his armor. He shed it down and bared his divine sigil, the mark of his stigmata.

    Not one of the men could have read anything about it, but the complexity was clear, and his undying nature well known.

    If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

    Abdul grunted and shook his head. ¡°Leave your men here, if you can. I¡¯ll take you to her.¡±

    Down through the masonry layers of the mine, they eventually reached a strata wherein the stone of the world had been carved into, not to chase minerals and ley, but for permanent settlement in the mine. Nearly half a city was prepared by the King in Yellow before his downfall, on the belief that the mine would one day lead to the underworld. In a sense, he was correct.

    His temples were a queer form of blasphemy to the Giordanans however, because he elected to have Helios worshiped in the land where the sun did not touch. This obscure, archaeological fact was what drew Jean to the mine to build her religious outpost. Of course, she underestimated the difficulty of creating a self-sustaining monastery even of the most poverty seeking monks.

    Still, of all the places in the wasteland aside from Anubi¡¯s city itself, she chose the best known local. While the mine was often showered with water from the sky, it was also so deep in the stone that natural spring water filtered down across the bedrock and oozed out of fractured channels. It gushed into root-like chasms and filled them with year round water, deep and as cold as the north.

    Bishop Jean de Jeameaux spent her days in meditation before the great shrine to the sun wheel, sheltered in shadows and surrounded by the purest water¨Cwhich she had been forced to allow bailing from to support the army¡¯s rations. Rather than the austere dress, the immaculate form of angelic beauty, she had stripped down almost to bare flesh. Barely more than a few strips of cloth wound about her now-tanned body. Her hair was tied up and kept out of the way so that she could turn her body into a work of divine art.

    The sight brough Lucius to his knees. His head throbbed and blood burst from his nose. His eyes watered and his heart clenched within his chest as he tried to stagger closer and compose himself. Every furtive glance at her assaulted him anew until the sandstone scraped across his knees and hand.

    Abdul abandoned him with scorn, writing Lucius off as an immature youth taken by a woman¡¯s beauty. This was not so. The lad knew his way around women as fine as the bishop in form. What assaulted his body was the overflowing force of the human angel; completely unleashed from her form.

    ¡°What are you doing?¡± he demanded, clotting her face to his oozing nose.

    ¡°Lucius?¡± she asked, rising to run over to his side. Her radiance tried to blind him like a lantern thrust below a ship¡¯s deck.

    He grabbed her by the shoulder, hauling himself up and snarling. ¡°Are you trying to kill yourself?¡± he roared.

    The bishop blanched and pulled back, but she couldn''t escape the swordsman¡¯s grip. ¡°What are you doing here?¡±

    ¡°I came here to save you, and I find you martyring yourself?¡±

    She held up a hand and began to speak, taking on the tone of a proselytizer. ¡°It is my duty as a steward of this world to spread the truth and to enforce the will of the¨C¡±

    Lucius clawed at her belly, raking his bloody fingers through the ink she had scrawled there. He ripped through the boundary markings, the ancient lettering, the crude will she was attempting to force onto her own body with the life of her body.

    The divine glow of her body abated, as did Lucius¡¯ pain.

    Enraged as a bull, he grabbed the bishop by the jaw and forced her to stare into his eyes. ¡°Who taught you this?¡±

    Jean nearly collapsed as the spell broke. The recoil and exertion innervated her body but Lucius¡¯ grip kept her upright. ¡°What would you know?¡±

    ¡°More than you, clearly! They don¡¯t teach this in temples. Who taught you this and what did they say it was?¡±

    ¡°Nobody. Nobody taught me,¡± she said, her glasses almost falling off her face as Lucius glowered down at her. ¡°I mean, I studied it. I put it together myself. We¡¯re in a godless land. The works of the gods need to be brought here!¡±(1)

    Only by his knowledge of how ridiculous a claim that was did he manage to stay his frustration with the well-meaning idiot. ¡°Show me,¡± he ordered.

    Several armed guards had to be waved off by the bishop so that she could bring him to a stone garden whose only access was through a narrow, and defensible tunnel¨Caside from jumping down to it from above. It had served her as private enough for her needs, given the respect the Giordanans gave her. Here, she had an unassuming codex by the standards of a temple library, but most unusual in the sunless desert.

    Perhaps a reader will object to this, saying that Anubi had many books, tomes, codexes, lexicons, scrolls, and so on. Technically true, but his knowledge of useful things he kept encoded in magic. He also kept all of those protected.

    Jean¡¯s tome was almost larger than the table she had set it on. It was the kind of leather-wrapped, gold-bound brick of vellum that a new temple would have fawned over for the sheer status it would exude to the rubes of their laity. Or rather, they would have if it had been marked with anything approaching a divine symbol. The tome was barren.

    When Lucius opened it up, expecting to see the very blueprints, examples, philosophy, and logic constructs that I had shown him in his youth, blank pages stared back at him. Jean gasped as he flipped back and forth from cover to cover. He ran it open from front to back and back to front without spotting a smudge of ink.

    ¡°How did this teach you that?¡± he asked, throwing it back upon the table with a crash.

    The binding hit first, ringing hard against the sheet of stone before the pages fluttered open. Ink marked that page. Jean shook her head and slumped into a chair, one hand clutching her bloody belly. ¡°I don¡¯t understand. Did the heat destroy it or something? The humidity?¡±

    Lucius put a hand to the tome and read. ¡°I showed her what she wanted,¡± the book said.

    With his finger stuck to the page, pinning it in place, he turned back to the bishop. ¡°What was it you wanted to know when you began reading this?¡±

    She pulled back, glancing about the mine to where several men were not-so-discretely watching. ¡°I wanted to know about the lost regions of our world.¡±

    ¡°And then?¡±

    ¡°I became interested in the desert. There are ruins out here, not just the mine. But, obviously, we know most about the mine because of the ley.¡±

    ¡°And then?¡±

    She rose, lifting her chin with practiced dignity. ¡°What are you getting at? I can only give you so much leeway for who you work for.¡±

    ¡°Do not think of who I work for!¡± Lucius roared, slamming his hand on the page again. ¡°When you have no idea who you work for yourself.¡±

    At this outburst, a familiar man stepped out from the shadows of the temple, with his hands clasped behind his back. Nikolai Tolzi asked, ¡°Is something wrong?¡±

    Lucius twisted back to the tome, but the ink had already vanished. He hissed and pointed once more to the bishop. She was practically fleeing to the northman for support as Lucius asked, ¡°How did she mark the small of her back?¡±

    The northmen stepped between her and him like a butler, his bushy brow wrinkling. ¡°Not even a hello after so long?¡±

    ¡°Answer the question, Tolzi. You people are going to get us all killed if I don¡¯t do something. How did she do that? Did you write it for her? How?¡±

    Jean couldn¡¯t meet his gaze as she said, ¡°It appeared there on its own.¡±

    Lucius turned back to the book. Seemingly, an errant breeze had turned the page. New text appeared. ¡°Do you want to save her?¡±

    He threw the book on the ground. ¡°Where is a fire? I¡¯m burning this."

    <hr>

    <ol>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">On behalf of Anubi, I resent this statement.</li>

    </ol>

 4-22 - Mustering the Army

    Lucius set fire to the book, but it didn¡¯t burn. He had no understand of what it was, but his instincts were good. The difference between it and a godling was trifling and it had already nearly killed Jean. As far as the curse afflicting her, he understood very little of it but his mind at once seized upon the solution.

    Because the magic was taking the form of a runaway stigmata, Lupa¡¯s broken sigil could devour it. Unfortunately, there were nearly two thousand armed men between the two women.

    ¡°Why didn¡¯t you stop her?¡± Lucius demanded as he tossed more tumbleweed and brush onto the pitiful blaze. The leather binding hadn¡¯t even charred or smoked. The papyrus may as well have been wet. No words appeared upon it.

    Nikolai paced the stone room restlessly. He stroked his mustache and massaged his arms. He shook his head like a frightened horse. ¡°It is a book from her temple!¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s clearly alive!¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s a book. I was preoccupied with sending for help.¡±

    Lucius fixed him with an incredulous stare. ¡°And did you?¡±

    The northman scowled. ¡°You¡¯re here, aren¡¯t you?¡±

    Their conversation quickly ran through the preceding weeks of turmoil and hardship, both men fostering frustration for me even as basic food rations were brought forth. Lest you, dear reader, sympathize with them too much, allow me to grace you with insight my pupil lacked.

    The angel of Jeameaux, for over a century at this point, had been catatonic. I won¡¯t delve into the precise psychological reasons, but the guiding light of the faith for a very long time had been nothing more than a light. All major decisions were done by the aged clergy who did little more than pine for the past and manage ledger books. The cathedral was thus left entirely without divine protection. It was like a castle with the gates open and unguarded.

    An ancient being, akin to Anubi, drew close step by step, spreading his movement over decades such that not even the most sensitive dreamer would tremble at his approach, touched upon the world and took hold of an ancient codex. I have no idea what original text laid within the book, such information has been blotted out from reality, and that matters little. The world is filled with libraries unused.

    The codex however, then became an extension of a being anathema to the light of Helios. A shadow of a creature long ago banished. It was as a tiny keyhole through which it could whisper and it had to work very carefully to position Jean¡¯s mind into just the right state of confidence dancing with ignorance. It managed the delicate act of teaching her enough to be useful, but not so much that she could forsake it.

    If not for Lucius, it would have succeeded. Or, to be more precise, if not for the hungering wolf of the desert, the devouring of stigmata: Lupa.

    Lucius declared, ¡°We will have to take to the field.¡±

    ¡°How will you get the men to abandon fortifications?¡±

    ¡°To save their leader¡­ and perhaps by force. How many men are in fighting condition?¡±

    Nikolai sighed and guessed that the total fighting force would be about three hundred useful men. Abdul, Nikolai, and Lucius were soon assembled in the lower reaches of the mine. A wall had been smashed down, the concrete broken open to reveal an inner passage to the mine¡¯s actual spring water. Sliding over the deep stone of the desert, it poured in through fractured channels to an ancient cistern, and from there oozed into the depths of the mine where it took on a fetid corruption.

    Lined up and down from the water, tended by men whose faces were bound tight, were the sick. The air wreaked of their filth. Lucius understood what had happened at once, but it took him a while to come to terms with it. He had just been assured by an expert on the matter that the desert was almost devoid of microbial life, but the ley mine was not like the desert.

    Abdul shook his head as one man vomited, barely making it onto all fours to keep his face out of it before falling over. Nurses labeled water into his parched mouth. ¡°They¡¯re recovering,¡± the Giordanan said.

    ¡°If the desert people saw this, they would charge in without a second thought,¡± Lucius said with a shake of his head.

    Nikolai gestured to the tarps shading the men. ¡°They haven¡¯t yet, and in a few more days, these men will be on their feet once more. Weakened perhaps, but a weak warrior is better than these slaves.¡±

    The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

    Lucius could see that the clean water had been hidden, presumably by Raymi¡¯s expedition. It made the mine toxic to occupy, which kept the locals out but clearly had side effects. ¡°Take me to where you first watered.¡±

    Down layer upon layer, into the pit of the mine, the trash of human life had piled up into a form of organic cement. The little fissures and fractures that should have let the water drain out of the firmament had been sealed and the water which occasioned into the wide maw of the mine lingered. While anywhere else in the desert would have still had potable water, the mine had accumulated the filth of humans. They had expelled their life, bit by bit, into the mine and made it like an oasis in the arcane sense.

    While Lucius squatted beside the quarry shore, Nikolai explained, ¡°There was never enough wood to boil. The bishop had us build sand filters instead, but that only bought us time.¡±

    ¡°This mine may as well be cursed. Jean came here to spread civilization to the sand people but they already had it. What I¡¯ve seen, they have more of it than we do. There are no words that can sway them. No peace that can be brokered.¡± He rose as he spoke, pointing to the rim which scarcely held back the marauding army. ¡°The only thing they want is the means to go north.¡±

    Abdul scowled. ¡°How does attacking us get them there?¡±

    ¡°Weapons,¡± Lucius said. ¡°First, of the divine nature. They have the means to capture stigmata. Second, they know we Vassish have cannons capable of slaying dragons. They want those for themselves.¡± He didn¡¯t explain the nature of just how the wastelanders could capture a stigmata, because he would have had to explain it wasn¡¯t really capturing at all; but much worse.

    Abdul shook his head. ¡°You¡¯re the only Vassish here though. We have no cannons.¡±

    ¡°But I do.¡±

    ¡°What?¡±

    ¡°My army has two of them sledged behind our army, hidden in the sand and armed with grapeshot. I had intended to keep them hidden and fight it out safely, lest they steal them, but that isn¡¯t an option any more. We have to settle this siege immediately or Jean will die. Worse than die, she¡¯ll become something inhuman.¡±

    Abdul looked to Nikolai for confirmation, and the northman nodded. ¡°You can trust what he says. He¡¯s not just the hero of Rackvidd, he¡¯s the governor of the Misty Isles. At least he was before he was sent here. He hunted down and slew a demon to liberate those people.¡±

    ¡°You can¡¯t slay a demon!¡±

    Lucius smirked. ¡°You can if you have an angel to feed it to. I brought with me the carrion bird of Tavina to rip it apart. Trust me, I¡¯m the closest thing to an expert on these matters you¡¯ve got.¡±

    Abdul sighed and looked around the mine once more. ¡°I¡¯ve had enough sitting and waiting regardless. I can¡¯t sleep. I keep dreaming they will drop rocks on us and come bolting out of my blankets in a sweat. I want to ride down on them, trample them! I will gather the men. Prepare your speech, boy. You¡¯ll be leading the charge.¡±

    Lucius gave him a bow to see him on his way. ¡°I wouldn¡¯t have it any other way,¡± he said as Abdul trekked back up the stairs of the mine pit. His posture relaxed the moment he was alone with Nikolai. With an immature scowl, he added, ¡°Master allowed this to happen, you realize that, don¡¯t you?¡±

    Nikolai¡¯s face flushed, for the seed of love had festered inside his iron-clad chest. It sowed the rift between myself and him, pushing him closer to the embrace of a woman who would never truly see him as a man, but he had been taken by romanticism. ¡°Perhaps he thought he had taught me enough to recognize this myself.¡±

    ¡°Did he ever teach you magic?¡±

    ¡°Did he teach you?¡±

    ¡°Not enough,¡± Lucius said.(1)

    Nikolai huffed. ¡°Master Amurabi is a most enigmatic employer. Part of me thinks he has nothing more he could offer me but what I can already grasp with my hands(2), but another part of me wonders what he would offer me if I said as much to him. What would he ask of me in exchange for more? I fear he has already written off my life with this gambit.¡±

    ¡°What? Nonsense, you¡¯re just as good a fighter as Leomund. Surely you could cut your way out of here.¡±

    The northman laughed and slapped Lucius on the back. ¡°I alone cannot survive this though. How would I make it through the wasteland? Even if it¡¯s the two of us, what a wrinkled pair of mummies we¡¯d make!¡±

    ¡°Then we¡¯ll have to not just win, but win greatly.¡±

    ¡°With you at the front? It will be a simple matter I think. Yes, you¡¯ll take the center with your gaggle of sand people. I shall take the left flank and we stick Abdul with the right. We¡¯ll round them up and smash them against your army.¡±

    ¡°Right! Just one thing,¡± Lucius said as they began climbing the steps to the wide shelves of work space near the top of the mine. ¡°I need different armor. Something made of leather and hide. Any chance there¡¯s some dragonhide I can requisition?¡±

    ¡°If that is your wish, we will see what can be done, but you must promise me.¡±

    ¡°Save the angel?¡±

    ¡°Precisely.¡±

    Lucius laughed. ¡°What kind of hero would I be if I did not save the beautiful maiden? The picture of hope and faith. I shall pull her from demoniacal clutches and carry her back myself if I must¡­ though I do hope at least one camel survives.¡±

    <hr>

    <ol>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">While I don¡¯t fault my pupil for this opinion at this stage in his life, I had in fact taught him quite a bit. Magic is a form of logic and I spent many years endeavoring to teach him the art of logic as applied to the real world and evidence shows he learned well underneath me. This was entirely the foundation necessary to begin learning true magic.</li>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">I trust any reader can surmise that his infatuation with the bishop was not reciprocated. Truly an example of chivalrous platonic love.</li>

    </ol>

 4-23 - Haranging The Troops

    Lucius spoke with his chest. ¡°Men of Giordana, of Rackvidd, of Jeaumaeux and of Vassermark. Men of the north. I am Lucius von Solhart and I am hereby ending your excursion to the wastelands. Your time beneath a wayward sky, fighting for water and meager food is to end. You are all to go home. There¡¯s just one problem.¡±

    Only most of the men had been assembled, partly because the mine had limited space and partly because they couldn''t be spared from the defenses. By luck, Lucius¡¯ rally had come between their arbitrary feeding times, which left little to distract the men from the looming threat of combat. The wastelanders had refused to commit to a proper attack, but hadn¡¯t left either. The siege was wearing down their minds like grain in a mill, which made it all the easier for Lucius to reach out with his words and grasp them.

    ¡°You came to these lands to bring hope, honor, and civilization. You did not come to spill your own blood. They took your hospitality and spat on it. They are biting at you now like feral dogs. Over a thousand of the savages are between you and your homes, your families, your freedom! So tell me! Do I really need to ask the men of Giordana how to treat feral dogs? You there, You¡¯re from the Ashfall Mountains, aren¡¯t you?¡±

    A skinny fellow with skin almost pink leapt upright when he realized Lucius was staring at him. ¡°Yes, sir?¡± The art of picking on someone na harangue is tricky and often a matter of gambling. Lucius took his best guess who could be led on and who had enough force of voice to be heard. He chose well.

    ¡°You like dogs?¡±

    The mountain man glanced about, seeing the hundreds of people listening to him. ¡°They¡¯re a shepherd¡¯s best friend, I guess.¡±

    ¡°Trained ones, yes,¡± Lucius agreed. ¡°I can think of few other things I¡¯d prefer protecting me in my sleep. A dog with a purpose can be a wonderful thing. You think these are sheep dogs over this edge?¡±

    The mountain man fidgeted and said, ¡°No, sir.¡±

    ¡°They¡¯re feral, aren¡¯t they?¡±

    The mountain man mumbled his answer, but when Lucius snapped at him, he said, ¡°Yes, sir!¡±

    ¡°Do you trust feral dogs?¡±

    ¡°No, sir.¡±

    ¡°Do you let feral dogs be when they¡¯re between you and your family?¡±

    ¡°No, sir.¡±

    ¡°Say it louder!¡±

    ¡°No, sir!¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s right. It¡¯s time for all of you to go home to your families. We just have a thousand problems to fix first. A thousand feral dogs to put down. I¡¯m not going to ask you to follow me into combat. You hardly know me. But I am asking you to follow me home. You think you all can do that?¡±

    ¡°Just a thousand?¡± a pale Giordanan man said, his famished cheeks sagging as he grinned. The desert had emaciated him, but left behind a warrior¡¯s grin.

    ¡°One thousand blanks, not men, just blanks. Perhaps a dozen real men. You¡¯ll have to watch for them. Those are the honor kills, you hear me? Their flag bearers with the magic powers. Take their heads and you¡¯ll be the hero tonight¡­ or should I say when we finally see the stars again? To the north, in Giordana, alive with your angel, that is when we will celebrate but I¡¯m not going to make it easy on you, you hear me?¡±

    The men about him were wistful with memory and stirred at his provocation. Unfortunately, the impact of his speech came up short because his squadron had been quarantined, never allowed from the ramp inside. The word had spread however, and he relied on it. ¡°I will be in the center, leading my own blanks. Half of you will be to my left under Abdul, and half to my right under Nikolai. We estimate there are a dozen stigmata users among the enemy. They¡¯re the leaders. We kill them, the rest will scatter and everyone goes home. In an hour, I¡¯ll be headed over the wall to meet your reinforcements and I expect all of you to show me your pride by coming with me.¡±

    If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.

    Nikolai stepped forward, puffing up his chest to shout even louder. ¡°The bishop has been poisoned. She needs treatment. Enough of playing at siege. It¡¯s time we kill these savages!¡±

    Abdul matched the shout, turning to his own half of the men. ¡°One thousand kills, that¡¯s not even two per man. I told this pale-skinned lordling each of you was worth ten of them. You¡¯re not going to disappoint, are you?¡±

    ¡°One hour,¡± Lucius barked, signaling for the assembled men to be dispersed for final preparations. The place they had been assembled wasn¡¯t fit for charging over the cliffs regardless. He hadn¡¯t been long enough in the camp to truly know what armaments were available to them, what strategies could be used. He was entirely at the mercy of his now sub-commanders, which left him to focus on his contingent of wastelanders he had begun to think of as his honor guard.

    It was common practice for all lords, old and young, novice and experienced, to keep about themselves an honor guard. The very name indicates the point of the practice. Not only does it protect the commander, but it is a form of safe aspiration, to instigate competition among the men for prestige and a way to reward the valorous. Nothing his mindless warriors had done earned them this position, but that simply meant they were to be replaced.

    And he had other things on his mind in this one hour.

    On the cusp of battle, he returned to Jean and spoke with her. She had retired to a most secure room within the mine, easily locked, barricaded, and fortified. A dozen honorable men had been selected for her dedicated defense. The chambers selected had been expanded during Raymi¡¯s excavation, but existed previously. Just about any person arrogant enough to think mining the wasteland to be a good idea saw fit to need a conference room, a private bedroom, and so on. In fact, several had tunneled in escape tunnels and bolt holes, all without conferring with one another over the decades.

    With no such fore knowledge, the Giordanans viewed the dark room as a defensible spot to be lit by oil lamp. The bishop might have known, but she had drawn in on herself and spoke little. While the men had prepared something resembling a bed for her, though it was more akin to paupers pretending to be a sultan of old, she sat upon the coarse fabric with her knees to her chest.

    Her hair, now the blonde yellow of the rising sun, seemed to flutter and drift in the breeze, but not even a gasp of air moved through the inner chamber. ¡°I shouldn¡¯t be moping. This isn¡¯t like me,¡± she said as Lucius was begrudgingly given admittance.

    ¡°Now is your only chance to mope. Soon, we will be riding for freedom, homeward.¡±

    She looked up with a wan smile. ¡°Have you ever heard of the hero¡¯s journey? It¡¯s a playwright¡¯s term. If you really get down to it, it¡¯s just a metaphor for a child becoming an adult but the crux of the journey is the change in the hero because of the things they learn.¡±

    Lucius faltered. His mind had partly been on the staleness of the air, wondering if she actually could survive in such a cloistered room. ¡°Did you think you were a child before coming here?¡±

    ¡°Now now, let¡¯s not bring up my age.¡±

    ¡°At least you can joke.¡±

    ¡°Every human in this world is a child, compared to the gods.¡±

    ¡°You know,¡± Lucius said as he walked over and planted his hands on his hips. ¡°Just because someone is young doesn¡¯t mean they aren¡¯t wise, and when someone is old they almost certainly can¡¯t fight.¡±

    ¡°But the wisest people are the oldest. You know that first hand, don¡¯t you? Student of Amurabi?¡±

    He shrugged. ¡°Depends on how you define wisdom. He¡¯s shockingly ignorant of some things.¡±

    ¡°Can I ask you something?¡± Her tone had shifted. ¡°Where does your power come from?¡±

    ¡°The same place all stigmata get their power.¡±

    ¡°But the sun doesn¡¯t reach here. How does that make any sense? It¡¯s common knowledge that the light of the sun revitalizes magic, but then why do they not wane at night? Is it Roma in the moon? Or is it something else completely?¡±

    Lucius hesitated, because he knew the answer. I explained it to him years prior because it pertained to the fundamental flaw in his regeneration. What I hadn¡¯t quite prepared him for was the on-the-spot lying he might need. The very act of holding his tongue conferred to the bishop that her suspicion was correct, which spoke very poorly of her looming fate.

    To put it succinctly; the more men who died in the sands above, the quicker her self-afflicted curse would progress.

    ¡°I¡¯ll be fighting at the front,¡± he said. By an effort of will, he softened his features and smiled grandly. ¡°Be prepared to come running out to congratulate me. My lovely curse breaker is on the other side of the battlefield and doesn¡¯t yet know about you.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll run as fast as I can.¡±

    Lucius nodded and excused himself, but not without stopping beside the guard. He leaned close and whispered, ¡°The moment you hear the fight is won, carry her out if you must. If you don¡¯t, I¡¯ll flay you alive.¡±

    The Giordanan blanched. ¡°Why would I balk at sprinting directly towards an army of cannibals?¡±

    ¡°No reason to balk at all, when they¡¯ve been killed.¡±

    ¡°Then there¡¯s no worry.¡±

    ¡°Remember. Flayed alive.¡±

 4-24 - Carnage of War

    For lack of Lucius¡¯ guidance, the siege had not progressed well. The two legions of wastelanders had sparred. They had pushed and thrust, retreated and counter-thrust. Scores of men and women¨Cfor the sand people discriminate little between the sexes¨Claid dead upon the ground. At times, their bodies were picked over by auxiliary forces, by skirmishers or slingers. The kinds of soldiers that had to be summoned up for good use, rather than kept in line with shields. Where discipline slackened, cannibalism thrived and both sides allowed it.

    Not only the mere caloric advantage, but the theft of soul mattered greatly. Unlike the battles in the north, of chivalrous knights or even barbarous trolls, the loss of bodies mattered little to the wastelanders. The spontaneous manifestation of stigmata would more than compensate for the requisite loss of life. Indeed, a winning victory could become an overwhelming victory as the creation of more stigmata users could easily outweigh the loss of menial thralls.

    For the legions wild and the army beneath Solhart¡¯s banner, the grand number of bodies had reduced but the effective fighting force had not.

    As Lucius emerged with the rallied forces of Giordana, Rackvidd, Ashfall, and his diminished Blanks, allow me to simplify the numbers. Essentially eight hundred thralls followed the orders of Sacerdote. Three hundred men of the north crawled out of the ley mine.

    Two thousand wastelanders held between the two forces.

    This was by no means a hopeless quantity. Despite nearly outnumbering Lucius¡¯ forces two to one, the critical difference was in the encirclement, and of course in the valor and quality of the men of the north. If the sand dwelling thralls had been just as good as northern levies, they would have surged north long ago. Thus, we can conclude that the infantry forces were nearly equal.

    Therefore, the advantage lay with Lucius.

    He was not satisfied with this in the least. After years of tutelage in the art of war, not just the direct act of fighting but in their, tactics, strategy, management, and so on, for him to be forced into a reckless assault seemed like a waste of effort. It almost eroded his spirits as he marched at the front of the army. If any of the northmen had been able to see his expression, discontent would have spread through the men, but at his back were his trained thralls. The Giordanans saw only the leather armor he had requested, and the wooden club he gripped in his hand.

    While his army formed up, he intentionally waited so that Sacerdote would be able to see and to surmise his intentions. When Nikolai rode over atop a camel, Lucius said, ¡°We have a problem.¡± The mass of enemies had taken a peculiar shape, akin to a hollow teardrop. The greatest mass of them were arrayed to Lucius¡¯ right, to the region Nikolai would have to push back.

    ¡°They¡¯re just a rabble,¡± the Skaldheimer said.

    ¡°We¡¯re just a rabble. We have no cavalry, our archers have no range, and the two pieces of siege equipment are on the wrong side of the battlefield. We don¡¯t even have good stigmata to use, except our own while I have every reason to believe they will be slinging lightning at us.¡±

    ¡°But we have to win,¡± Nikolai said, drawing his blade. He still kept his northman weapon, a heavy, single-edged blade designed for breaking the limbs of trolls. It was ill-suited for unarmored men, but it fit his hand as he would say.

    Lucius sighed. ¡°Worse. We have to win quickly. You¡¯ve got a horn, don¡¯t you?¡±

    Nikolai tossed him a hollowed out goat horn and he put it to his lips. Lucius blasted out a tuneless bellow of short and long notes(1) and tossed it back to Nikolai. ¡°You taught them a code?¡±

    ¡°No, but it sounded like one, didn¡¯t it? It sounded like I had a grand plan, right? Now, I¡¯m going to go do something reckless,¡± he declared before signaling his bannermen. Shields locked behind him in perfect formation as Nikolai snapped the reins on his camel. A chorus of shouting, both of orders and of warcries began to fill the desert. Lucius kept his actual orders short. ¡°Hammer them!¡±

    His hundred men(2) started forward at a sprint, not one of them lagging the others. When the charge began, the other wastelanders returned the charge with a bellow. At thirty yards, slingers on both sides fell back to lob their missiles. At ten yards, short spears were thrown into shields, their narrow tips ripping through the meager hides. Wherever tip ripped flesh, howls escaped but Lucius¡¯ formation did not falter for the action had been written to their souls.

    The shields crashed against one another and spiked clubs began to pummel down across the divide. Missiles continued to fly overhead and beyond the wastelanders came Sacerdote¡¯s march. He brought his eight hundred down as one, refusing the charge and in so doing drew the wastelanders to them and widened the teardrop gap.

    If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

    This was as much as Lucius could observe before he took his action. Abandoning his duties as commander, he sprinted at the shield wall and leapt upon the backs of his own men, using them to launch himself into the midst of the enemy. He landed between confused spearmen and crushed their skulls before they could bring their polearms to bear. Then began his gambit of slaughter.

    While his fight was less bloody with a club in hand, it was in no way less lethal. He broke arms. He shouldered over and trampled men. Skulls were cracked and ribs shattered. As grappling permitted, he took hold of spears and ran them through other men while dancing across bodies.

    Of course, one man can only kill so fast, and his effect was mostly the confusion among the ranks. He stirred up those that should have been slinging, lobbing missiles, and plucking bows like deadly harps. A marginal diminishment of their lethality to be sure. Soon he drew out the proper target of his escapade.

    When bodies covered the floor like a tapestry of blood, lightning arced toward him. It cracked the air and burnt the hair off all around. Lethal energy surged from the outstretched arm of the wastelander leader, leaping from him to Lucius. But it did not meet my pupil. It twisted in the air, it¡¯s crackling chirp drawn inexorably to the conductive blades all about him. The lightning was summoned into the metal weapons and through them to the thralls and down to the firmament.

    To kill a few thralls meant nothing to the wastelander, and he stood grinning as he pulled new reserves of energy into his body. ¡°What a rotten fool!¡± he bellowed.

    ¡°Are we talking now? Or killing?¡± Lucius asked as he checked the downed men around him, but none had the life left to threaten him.

    The wastelander scowled. ¡°How are you fine? That was the might of a god!¡±

    ¡°Only a godling,¡± Lucius corrected, crouching low and approaching the stigmata user through a rift in the vile army.

    ¡°I am Marcus Pontius! The twin-blessed! I shall slay you here, northman!¡± the wastelander bellowed as he held up both hands. Lightning sparked in one and fire licked off the fingers of his other.

    Lucius sighed as he came to realize the quality of the men he now fought. Hardly better than children, they were a magically empowered rabble.

    Lightning again shot toward him, lancing instead to the fallen swords. Molten sand exploded across him, searing his armor and burning his skin, but the pain was mild. Lucius sprinted and leaped at the confused wastelander Marcus Pontius. When fire blasted at him, he interposed a stolen shield before cracking down with his club. A forearm bone shattered and Marcus howled. Slamming the burning shield into his foe, he abandoned it then took the club with both hands. Twisting his body, he slammed it across the enemy¡¯s head, breaking a warding hand in the same swing.

    Marcus Pontius fell, but Lucius knew enough of the old languages he could only sigh because if that man was Pontius, then four more hid in the masses around him.

    ¡°Surround him!¡± came the order, and it was echoed twice more.

    Two young men and a half-dressed woman emerged at the front of hastily aligned spear walls. They penned him in in a crude triangle, turning the center of their army formation into a fighting arena.

    The woman clapped her hands, the sound empowered with thunder. Her stigmata had imprinted upon her throat, reaching up over her chin like demonic flames. ¡°It¡¯s him!¡±

    ¡°The chosen of demons,¡± one of the male commanders said, his skin bronze and his blonde hair standing on end

    The third snickered. ¡°Come to us all by himself.¡±

    Lucius straightened up and peered over the churning heads of the melee, not to his own battalion but to those under the command of Sacerdote. No chaos had erupted and sufficient time had elapsed. Rather than speak with the newborn savages, he lifted his bloody club overhead as though challenging them.

    It enraged the enemy, but they did not charge at him, for he stood upon the corpse of one of their equals. They spent their last moments insulting him, jibbing and goading. They puffed up their own egos and braced themselves to fight against the unkillable northman.

    Not one of them considered that he was not the true threat. Even when Sacerdote bellowed, ¡°Down!¡± and a hundred warriors threw themselves to the sands, they did not conceive of another threat.

    Lucius dove, throwing himself behind the corpse of Marcus Pontius just before hammers were struck. Firing pins collided with accelerating pins and those chained through one another into the sabot of grapeshot his two meager ley cannons contained. Balls of lead belched out of the rusty iron mouths like dragon¡¯s breath.

    The salvo punched through shields, through flesh and bone. It turned warriors to sausage filling and continued on. The balls broke and shattered, they ricocheted as shrapnel and tore rending lacerations through the inner lines. One of the male commanders took a round through the throat that ripped his larynx from his body and left him drowning in blood. The bronzed warrior was struck in the head and gut. The thunder woman¡¯s arm was shattered.

    The executioner¡¯s blade of chaos fell upon the wastelander army as Sacerdote ordered the cannons be reloaded and in the midst of the carnage, Lucius stood back up. Bloody and grinning, he laughed. ¡°Your lives are mine to have, now!¡±

    <hr>

    <ol>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">Only one person in the desert knew what he said with the horn blast, for he had used a very ancient binary code to spell out ¡®cannons¡¯. While the effect was suitably confusing to the enemy, it sent Golden into a frenzy both to oblige the request and to fume at being so ordered around.</li>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">The hundred men referring to the formation meant to have one hundred men in it, despite the present losses.</li>

    </ol>

 4-25 - Theft of Arms and Life

    Swearing and high on a berserker¡¯s natural frenzy, Lucius cut his way out of the blood fest, carrying the female commander¡¯s head by the hair. He had roughly sewn it off with his sword in the midst of fending off a dozen other panicked madmen. The smell of death was in the air and the concept of allies had ceased to hold meaning. After the volley of grapeshot, only chaos existed and every human cleaved to their own survival alone. Those that made the mistake of viewing my pupil as their enemy did not escape the killing field.

    ¡°Stand down, out of my way!¡± Lucius bellowed, smacking spear tips away from himself.

    The cannoneers were busy reloading the crude sabot of metal. They focused single mindedly on their duty, heedless of the approaching death and in this particular circumstance were lucky. Lucius had no interest in slaying the men who had rendered him victory among the commanders. This was of course fleeting to an extent. The armies were still nearly evenly matched, and even outmatched when it came to stigmata. Not one of the Giordanans had a stigmata worth noting in this historical record.

    The greatest force of destruction was Lucius himself, but he had a responsibility that pulled him from the battlefield. Still carrying the severed head, heedless of etiquette, he plunged into the wastelander army. He shouted for, ¡°Lupa!¡± and grabbed one man after the next. He screamed in their faces to little effect.

    The first of note to find him was the former angel. While he lacked most of his powers, he was still wholly unfazed by death, injury, blood, the wailing of thrashing life expiring about him. He strode over soon-to-be corpses with a spear propped upon his shoulder. None of the wastelanders forced him to put it to use. ¡°And so he returns!¡±

    ¡°I need Lupa, now.¡±

    Golden gestured to the sands far behind their battle line, to a pack of warriors corralling the remaining camels.

    ¡°Thanks,¡± Lucius said, tossing Golden the severed head.

    Golden frowned. ¡°Is this a gift?¡± he asked, but received no answer.

    Lucius charged through the army, passed by the cannoneers and beyond the slingers. His presence dragged a wave of confusion through the men, as though the bannermen wanted to follow after him but with no command they soon merged back into violent formation.

    Up the dune and over the buttes of stone, Lucius scrambled his way over to her with a stolen sword clutched in his hand. When half a dozen spear tips swayed at him, he snarled like a hound. ¡°Back off!¡±

    ¡°Lucius! What happened?¡± Lupa demanded, emerging from between the animals. She stayed the warriors with light touches and slipped between them.

    ¡°I need your stigmata. There¡¯s a problem in the mine. The bishop¨CJean, she¡­ it¡¯s hard to explain. Come, please!¡±

    Lupa blinked and glared and glowered. She instinctively recoiled at being expected to help some other woman, especially without an answer, but it only took a moment of judging his gaze for her to capitulate. ¡°Has the battle been won?¡±

    Lucius twisted round and swept his hand. The grapeshot had punched a hole through the enemy formation. The whole thing was unraveling and panicked wastelanders were fleeing northward, squeezed out by the dual press of his army and the Giordanans. ¡°Soon enough,¡± he said.

    ¡°Any stigmata users?¡±

    ¡°None anymore¡­ wait.¡± I hadn''t completely wasted my efforts trying to teach him languages. The man who had called himself Pontius had done so with purpose. In the common tongue, he called himself Fifth. Only four commanders were accounted for dead.

    He spun and glared at the battle, though the men were no larger than vermin at his distance. Still, a stigmata user of note can make themselves known even from a great distance, among a great many men. The right power at the right time can shake the world in fact.

    Primarus had been the one to rally the men north. Lucius wouldn¡¯t learn his name for some time, but the leader¡¯s presence was immediately felt. Far more potent than mere blasts of lightning or claps of thunder, he had feasted upon the heart of the godling and took from it the most nuanced control of electromagnetics.

    He cast out his will, pushing it through the crowd like hurtling wind. Confused warriors had to grasp their weapons and plant their feets and unseen forces pulled upon every bit of metal and rust. The weapons of the fallen shot across the carnage like leaves in a current, ripping at legs and feet. More blood was shed, but not nearly enough to sate the dead, if that were Primarus¡¯ intent.

    The crux of the forces twisted and manifested at the ley cannons, the two constructs of iron-bound wood. They shot into the sky, tumbling and twirling as ley rods tumbled free. The cannoneers gawped until one of the cannons tumbled out of the magical grasp and fell back to the sand. It crushed two of the men, sending up a geyser of bloody sand as it shattered.

    This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

    The other did not fall. It danced and floated, wobbled and slipped away. It was carried upon a sea of magnetic forces, far above any human¡¯s grasp. Primarus stole it away with the full might of his focus and exertion, surrounded by hundreds of slavishly loyal soldiers.

    Lucius roared. He took half a dozen steps to charge north. Brutish instinct told him to abandon all strategy, to forsake allies, and to slaughter the enemy thief. But, if he did that, Jeanne would be lost. No one would be able to bring Lupa through the battle.

    He was not without allies however. He was not the only warrior able to retaliate. It was Nikolai who brandished his sword and rallied troops to a fresh formation. Without a word exchanged between the two men, the northerner threw himself into the battle because it was Lucius who could bring safety to the angel of Jeamaeux. The clash between forces drew it tight, pressing bodies against shields until the magnetic warrior had no hope of sorting friend from foe with his stigmata.

    Lucius saw no more of the fight than that. Taking Lupa¡¯s hand in his own bloody grip, he took off running with her. Down sand dunes and over exposed rock, the two of them ran wide around the combat. They kept friendly forces to their side, jumping over the corpses of the fallen.

    He put the war out of his mind the moment they were passed the battle. He trudged one foot in front of the other as his lungs burned. The exhaustion of battle dragged down his pace so much he wasn¡¯t even dragging Lupa behind him. While there may have been some disgruntlement, some accusations of desertion, he did not allow such ideas to pass through his mind.

    As the two of them bounded down ramps and ladders, he bellowed, ¡°Bring her out, bring her out!¡±

    Not one of the guards obeyed, but none stopped him. His unexpected arrival had only been planned among the commanders. The guards simply didn¡¯t impede his progress back to the secure room of the mine.

    The Giordanan guarded the door paled when Lucius appeared. He gripped his spear and almost leveled it at him. ¡°The battle is still going! I can hear it. Do not fool me!¡± he shrieked.

    ¡°I came early,¡± Lucius snapped back. ¡°Open the door.¡±

    Gulping down his fear, the guard pounded his fist open the door and bolts were pulled free. ¡°Who¡¯s this?¡±

    Lucius glanced back at Lupa and shook his head. ¡°She¡¯s the doctor,¡± he said, pushing past the guard as soon as the door had been pulled open.

    Oil lamps had burned low. The two men still in the room with her had jumped to their feet, holded the curved blades common to eastern Giordana, a diffusion of Aillesterran culture. They were something akin to lesser nobility. It meant nothing at all of their material wealth, but implied they were polyglots at the least.

    Lucius snarled when he didn¡¯t immediately see the bishop. ¡°Where is she?¡±

    ¡°Resting,¡± one of the swordsman said. ¡°Who is she?¡± he asked, lifting the tip of his blade toward Lupa.

    Lucius stepped forward and grabbed the steel. He squeezed and twisted, driving the man back as blood trickled down his forearm. Nearly wrenching the weapon from the guard¡¯s hand, he said, ¡°Bring me to her.¡±

    Lupa snarled. ¡°Just what is going on? Would it kill you to explain?¡±

    Lucius released the sword and picked up one of the oil lamps as the inner door was opened up. ¡°See for yourself,¡± he said, casting light upon her fevered body. The markings of the cursed stigmata had returned in full, etched upon her body as though by living paint.

    He clicked his tongue. ¡°I couldn¡¯t disrupt the spell. I don''t know how it¡¯s working. Ma¨C Amurabi might be able to do it, or Anubi, but we don¡¯t have either of them at the moment. I was able to slow it down but it looks like it¡¯s attacking her body to restore itself. The spell has some kind of stabilization effect. If it didn¡¯t, just the casual brush of clothes might have destroyed it. Lupa, I need you to destroy the spell on her like it¡¯s a stigmata before it kills her.¡±

    The wastelander woman hesitated and knelt beside the angel of Jeamaeux. She put her hands to Jean¡¯s arm and lifted it up. ¡°How do you even recognize this?¡±

    ¡°There are libraries in the north where they¡¯ve cataloged stigmata for centuries. The scholars barely understand them, but, for something this crude?¡±

    ¡°This isn¡¯t crude at all. I don¡¯t even know where to begin.¡±

    ¡°Does it matter?¡±

    ¡°Lu, this isn¡¯t one stigmata! I can¡¯t just bite it off like I bit off yours. The effects aren¡¯t in one spot. Look, here¨C¡± she pulled the bishop¡¯s thin shirt up, exposing the marks spiraling out from her navel. ¡°This is the core, though I¡¯ve never seen a sigil this far from the heart. I have to work my way to it, undoing the¡­ it¡¯s like it¡¯s growing across her. Lu, I don¡¯t think I can break this.¡±

    Lucuis got on his knees beside her. ¡°You have to try, or the war in the middle kingdoms will be hell.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s what you need her for? War?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m a war leader, aren¡¯t I?¡±

    Lupa huffed and lifted Jean¡¯s arm up further, running her tongue across the woman¡¯s wrist and lapping off the furthest reaches of the curse''s spread. The mark writhed and dissipated wherever her saliva reached, dissolving like ink in water. ¡°This will take a while.¡±

    Lucius rose and gave her space. Before she had accomplished much of anything however, a cry came from outside. ¡°The battle is over, they are routed!¡±

    Lucius spun, then hissed orders at the guards, ¡°Give her the space she needs. Your angel needs to be fully seen to.¡± The men understood his implication and shut the door between them and the so-called doctor. Neither strayed from it, each practically pressing their ear to the wood.

    The herald of victory was a young boy, anxiously shifting his weight from one foot to the other. He shrank back when Lucius spotted him. ¡°They said to get you and the bishop.¡±

    ¡°You have me, what happened?¡±

    ¡°They¡¯re retreating!¡± the messenger said as Lucius scrambled back up ladders to the rim of the mine. From his vantage, the entire battlefield looked like nothing more than a massacre.

    ¡°Who is routing them?¡±

    ¡°Nobody, sir¡­ Master Nikolai, he¡¯s fallen.¡±

    Lucius almost fell off the ladder as the news took the strength out of him. ¡°He what?¡±

    ¡°He¡¯s been killed.¡±

 4-26 - Blank Names

    The funeral bordered on insubstantial. Burying bodies in the desert never works. In the best scenario, the corpse is mu mmified until scavengers find it decades later. As Anubi noted to my pupil, there are almost no microorganisms where the sun doesn¡¯t shine. Nothing is capable of decomposing the body, so it just stays there. Thus, it must be burned.

    Even ordering the hundreds of thralls to scrounge up every bit of wood and dry rag that could be found hardly piled up enough to create one man. Still, Lucius had a wealth of human resources to throw at the problem, and the mine had salvageable wood. While the common Giordanan men could only be piled up like cordwood in one of the abandoned mine shafts, with a solemn promise to return with sufficient oil to cremate them, the commander was given proper honors. Laid across a hundred shafts of wood, mostly clubs and spears taken from the enemy, Lucius lit the pyre in silence.

    With it burning behind him, he turned to the weary men who had fought beside Nikolai Tolzi. ¡°I am not a priest, nor was I his com mander. I have little right to speak at this moment. I know no rites, no proper prayers. If we were in civilized lands, I would call in a dozen of the priestly class and put them all to work honoring this man as well as those that fell today. We are in a foreign land however. Their ways are simpler than ours.¡±

    Many of the men sneered. In the distance and not even under the courtesy of darkness, the thralls feasted. They ate muscles and picked at bones. Many fornicated in the blood, reveling in the accumulated life while others laughed and sang with no tunes and melodies like children unwrapping holiday presents.

    ¡°May I?¡± Golden said as he strolled up beside Lucius.

    The boy nodded, giving way before he thought better of it and added, ¡°He will be avenged. It¡¯s good that those craven shits went north. We can smash them against the sea.¡±

    The crowd threw up their fists and shouted in support while Golden politely made some statements of his qualifications. He claimed to be ordained as a priest of Shepherd, which he technically was. Using soft words, he drew the men in closer to the fire. None of them knew him, so he did not rely on appealing to Nikolai¡¯s memory. The former angel sang. In somber and ancient melodies, he sang of tiresome wars and welcome homes. He sang of longing for family and marching home. The tune was familiar to all present, even if they didn¡¯t know the words themselves.

    It was a song of dying and he soon had the whole crowd fighting back tears.

    Lucius listened to it from a short distance, sitting upon the remnants of the dropped ley cannon. He brooded until one of the thralls walked up to him and fastened his gaze to him.

    There was light in his eyes.

    ¡°Leader,¡± the man said.

    ¡°Eat well?¡± Lucius asked.

    ¡°What are they doing?¡± the man asked, gesturing to the funeral.

    Lucius scanned the battlefield, seeing dozens of other wastelanders with new postures to the way they wandered the carnage. ¡°Those men,¡± he said with a gesture to the Giordanans, ¡°are honoring a hero who died fighting. You¡¯ll learn soon enough it¡¯s normal. It¡¯s the proper way to behave.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s wasteful.¡±

    Lucius stood up. He was a few inches shorter than the pale-skinned desert dweller. He was stockier though, by virtue of years of tutelage at least in part under Nikolai. The northman had helped beat my pupil¡¯s body into a warrior¡¯s shape and more often than not had been the one to craft our feasts upon the road. When he punched the uplifted savage, he struck hard enough to crack the man¡¯s jaw and his own knuckles.

    The man flew back, tumbling across sand and rock. The blow didn¡¯t kill him. The affliction was almost entirely surprise, until he stood back up and tried to speak. Nothing but a wet slur came out of his mouth as he tried to understand.

    Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

    ¡°There are plenty of cultures to the north, where the sun shines,¡± Lucius said, shaking his hand out as his stigmata sealed the fractures in his bones. ¡°Some people would define them as two types, cultures of honor and more civilized places, or so they claim. Where law holds hands back from violence. Nikolai Tolzi came from Skaldheim. Those men there came from Giordana. North and south respectively, and yet very, very similar. Both live in almost inhospitable lands. Neither really relies on peacekeepers. They don¡¯t run to the law for help settling disputes. They do it themselves. Reputation is paramount. An insult to reputation is an attack on that person. They respond to attacks as such. It wouldn''t be strange for a comment like that to get you gutted and left for dogs to rip apart. Do you understand?¡±

    The man nodded, head down but eyes on Lucius.

    ¡°What¡¯s your name?¡±

    The man shook his head.

    ¡°What does that mean? You don¡¯t have one?¡±

    He nodded.

    ¡°What did your parents call you?¡± Lucius asked, but all he got was sullen silence. ¡°You people don¡¯t have names then, do you? Did Anubi name those that awoke?¡±

    The man nodded.

    Lucius grunted. ¡°How many of you are there?¡± When the man meekly started scanning the group, Lucius said, ¡°Go find out how many can hold a conversation now and report back to me. I want all of you people, intelligent or not, in line and ready to march faster than the Giordanans. Understood?¡±

    The activity of the wastelanders disturbed the funeral procession merely by proximity. A few more speeches were made but people began to lose interest when the pyre was lit. Not anyone front and center, but those with tasks they had been ignoring. They side-eyed the foreigners and retreated to the protection of their own kin.

    Soon though, sixty-two confused folk of the desert had lined up in batches of ten, forming a small contingent along the trampled road that Primarus had left in his retreat. Lucius paced in front of them as he took count, then demanded of them, ¡°How strong are your memories? Do you remember the city?¡±

    Those in front shifted from foot to foot and one said, ¡°I do.¡± Most others nodded agreement.

    ¡°So you remember your god? Anubi?¡± Again, they nodded. ¡°Did he give you names before you left? I didn¡¯t exactly have the pleasure of speaking with many of you.¡±

    The man Lucius had struck shook his head. ¡°No, he only gave names to those of us¡­ like us.¡±

    Lucius scowled, his mind hazy with anger but he knew better than to take it out on subordinates needlessly. The thought of coming up with so many names seemed more monumental than marching a hundred miles though. Naming a newborn, and these people certainly could be compared to newborns, was the task of parents.

    Which made him begin to reflect on the fact that soon, he would be a father. Aisha was still to the north, waiting for him with full confidence that he would be there for her.

    Standing before a newborn army, at least the seed of one, he realized just how many reasons he had to charge north. As per Anubi¡¯s and Luigi¡¯s requests though, he knew he should take all of them with him. They would be devout warriors if nothing else.

    Before he sidetracked himself imagining what he¡¯d have to do to properly outfit them, to make them true warriors of Vassermark, he made a decision. ¡°Listen up, proper people have two names at the least. Normally, that would be a family name and a given name, but I imagine most of you have no idea who begat you. And even if you do, they didn¡¯t do a good job raising you. What really raised you up was the blood of the fallen. This battlefield was your place of birth. From here out, your family name will be this, Leyfield. As for a given name, you¡¯ll have to earn that.¡±

    The warriors stirred and whispered to one another. They repeated the name, each giving it a slightly different inflection as they turned it around in their mouths and committed it to their souls.

    The first Leyfield asked, ¡°What do you mean by earn?¡±

    Lucius pointed to the north. ¡°After we kill those brigands, we¡¯ll be going to the lands in the north, where the sun rises and sets. Once there, every one of you and those still picking over bones will have ample opportunity to take a name for yourselves. You see that funeral? That man was a good man. A respect man and a hero. His name was Nikolai Tolzi. His name will be remembered though his body is ash. Not everyone who dies in war will be remembered like that, no matter what the people in charge say¡­¡±

    He centered himself before the cadre of warriors and swept his gaze across them. ¡°If you want a given name for yourself, you¡¯ll have to take it in single combat from an enemy. Find them in the battlefield, learn their name, then kill them. That is how you will earn your names. If you follow me, I¡¯ll make that happen.¡±

 4-27 - On The March North

    Armies march. It¡¯s a statement as timeless as water is wet. There have been certain cavalry units that act as though they ride rather than march, but even they keep a train of camp followers, squires, trainees, prostitutes, looters, and so on. The nature of war is of subjugating your enemies, and to do that you almost necessarily must move violent men to where they are.

    Some merchants think war can be fought on ledgers and in law, but true war is about men(1) and violence. Historians like to talk about battlefield brilliance but that only makes for good stories. Almost all of the real work is done on the march and this fact should be obvious. Most of a war is spent marching or sieging or wintering. Very little fighting at all.

    And yet casualties can mount.

    Foot injuries. Hunger. Typhus. Desertion. Some of these were more prevalent than others in the wasteland, but the challenge remained. The fire of retribution became a smoldering frustration as Lucius led the surviving army north. There was no doubt that they were on the right trail, but there was little they could do against half-mindless thralls that could abuse their bodies.

    The time passed quickly for Lucius, almost too quickly. He moved up and down the column constantly, using up the strength of their dromedaries but not without purpose. He scrutinized every man and tried to catch every issue. When camp had to be called, he had a list of orders already given out. Men had to repair sandals, or salvage metal from equipment too damaged to justify.

    Doctors were press-ganged into medical service and given the task of nursing injuries. They had almost no training of course, but all that was needed was judgment on their part. This medical cabal was used as a filter between the soldiers and their squad commanders to judge the proper severity of bleeding wounds, of blistered feet and parched mouths. Fevers had to be quarantined to their own marching groups and meat rations given carefully.

    The work proved to be tedious, but it was such effort that kept small problems from festering. What¡¯s more, it brought Lucius into contact with almost every soldier under his de facto command in the mere few days they marched north. It imprinted on them that he was their leader and they had better be grateful for it.

    Thus, one can imagine the shocking relief the men felt when their march north proved to be north. That the sky changed. Dusk intruded over the sky and brought darkness to them. Stars could be seen and plants once again adorned the rocks. They were in the interstice of realities and normality could be seen once more. Though their march had not been to exhaustion, camp had to be called. There was no other way to control the men who finally felt they could breathe the air of their homes.

    With Primarus still ahead of them, possibly already on the coast, tents were staked and fires kindled. The men made merry with their rations while the leaders sat in conference with one another.

    The white tent, the largest construct that Jeanne had brought south, housed Abdul, Golden, the bishop, Lupa, Sacerdote, and of course Lucius. The former angel had a lethargic trait about him as he continued to adjust to mortality, and it drew his mind toward ancient memories. With a flute recovered from a fallen soldier, he sprawled along one wall and let melodies flutter from his lips so old that most couldn¡¯t even be recognized.

    With the flaps closed, they had between them a single oil lamp and the same meager food as the lowest soldiers. Rations were slim, even for the commanders, but they kept it quiet. After a time of simple and tired conversation speculating what the wastelanders might be doing on the coast with but a single stolen cannon, Abdul excused himself to make rounds through the camp.

    ¡°You¡¯re a fickle god,¡± Sacerdote said, scraping his fingernails against the inside of his bowl for the last vestiges.

    Jeanne sipped a mere tea cup worth of wine and said, ¡°He is not a god.¡±

    The priest scoffed. ¡°To the newborns he is. They went to him for naming¨Cfor purpose¨Cand he gave them only war.¡±

    ¡°What else should I have done?¡±

    Lupa yawned and laid down, propping her head up as she lounged closer to Lucius. ¡°Named them, freed them,¡± she said.

    Lucius put his hand on her shoulder and shook his head. ¡°And sent them where? To the wild places? The lawless valleys between Giordana and Aillesterra? Or do you think I can just give anyone citizenship in Vassermark? I¡¯m sorry but they have to join my army like any foreign legion. They must earn citizenship if they want to have freedom beneath the sun.¡±

    Jeanne asked, ¡°How many will survive if you force that on them?¡±

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    ¡°If they fight for me?¡± he asked with a cocky grin. ¡°Most of them.¡±

    Golden laughed and Luigi cast his bowl aside. ¡°How high do you aim, northman?¡±

    Lucius fixed his gaze on the bishop. She stared back at him. He sighed. ¡°I suppose I can say it here, so far beyond the ears of the gods. The way my teacher explained it is like this. Our world, Lumisgard, is not a closed system. It¡¯s more like a walled city and we¡¯re not at peace either. The walls are constantly under attack by monsters from outside the walls, even if nobody but the city guard are aware. The gods have grown negligent and something else must be done to patch the cracks. That will require manpower, magic, relics, and control.¡±

    Jeanne gasped. ¡°It¡¯s not often I hear heresy, you know.¡±

    Lupa laughed and Lucius smirked. ¡°I suppose that must sting, eh? Your god is the one that made the wall.¡±

    Jeane pouted. ¡°And what exactly do you know about daemons?¡±

    ¡°Godlings, mostly,¡± Lucius corrected. ¡°And they¡¯re no different from angels, really. Except in alliance. The problem is, we have no way of knowing what angels and emissaries around Lumisgard have cut deals with godlings. They might not like the fact that we¡¯re trying to secure the borders. So, we have to be careful, secure, and forceful.¡±

    Sacerdote, who was no stranger to such facts, said, ¡°You haven¡¯t answered the question.¡±

    Lucius shrugged. ¡°I mean to take over Vassermark, and to do that, I need to secure our alliances with smaller kingdoms like Jeaumeax.¡±

    Jeanne wilted and shook her head. ¡°I knew Master Amurabi had mentored you, but I didn¡¯t think you were this ambitious.¡±

    My pupil said, ¡°Without strength, you can only be the victim of those who have it.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s not true,¡± Lupa declared. She looked up at Lucius with a coy smile. ¡°A strong man can be controlled by what he desires.¡±

    ¡°A strong man can take what he desires.¡±

    She rolled over. ¡°And here we see natural intuition beat out ambition. Despite me growing up in a wasteland I know something you do not.¡±

    The bishop cleared her throat, but no regard was given to her. Lupa got on all fours, stretching her back like a cat before grinning at Lucius. ¡°Some things can only be freely given. How else would a wife control her husband.¡±

    ¡°Settle down,¡± Lucius commanded, threatening to flick her nose. Lupa balked, then grinned and earned the flick. ¡°I already have someone.¡±

    Lupa rubbed her nose and said, ¡°A conqueror will have many wives.¡±

    ¡°Indeed I will, or so Amurabi says. But that is because I will have to forge alliances.¡±

    Lupa sighed and rolled back onto the tent floor. ¡°Woe is me, a girl of no background and unable to woo the man I watched attempt to wipe his ass with sand while cuffed.¡±

    My pupil¡¯s face went scarlet as the others laughed. ¡°Are you blackmailing me or something? I already can¡¯t get rid of you.¡± Despite Lupa¡¯s best efforts, the spell had not been broken, only stopped. After taking revenge upon Primarus, their best plan was to bring the bishop to me for treatment.

    ¡°Please,¡± Lupa said as she swung herself around and sat cross-legged, facing him. ¡°I¡¯m waiting for you to grow up a little.¡±

    ¡°I am an adult.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m older than you, you know.¡±

    ¡°Oh yeah? And how many of those years were you awake?¡±

    She recoiled at being caught immediately. ¡°You were more receptive in the bath¡­¡±

    Lucius¡¯s gaze dropped back to the little fire, taking the mood in the tent with it. ¡°I had other things to think about then. Now, there isn¡¯t time. We have to get back to the coast, crush those wastelanders, get back to Giordana and back to Master Amurabi. If we do that fast enough, we might be able to avoid rebellion in Jeaumaex. If we don¡¯t, that will have to be put down before the harvest festival.¡±

    Golden stopped playing on his flute to say, ¡°And by then, you¡¯ll be a father. I guess we¡¯ll have to pick up Aisha during all of that, won¡¯t we?¡±

    The bishop¡¯s face lit up. ¡°You didn¡¯t tell me about that!¡±

    ¡°She¡¯s back in Rackvidd right now, under Raymi¡¯s protection. Obviously I couldn¡¯t bring her with me to here.¡±

    Lupa pouted. ¡°Who is this Aisha anyway? Is she a princess or something?¡±

    Jean laughed. ¡°Just the daughter of a merchant who can sing well.¡±

    ¡°She¡¯s a bit more than that, just not politically,¡± Lucius said.

    Lupa groaned and rose to her feet. ¡°I can¡¯t believe your mind is hundreds of miles away!¡± she declared before leaving the tent.

    Golden said, ¡°I can¡¯t believe you aren¡¯t doing anything when she¡¯s throwing herself at you.¡±

    Lucius shrugged. ¡°I simply realized I¡¯d have to deal with rumors the rest of my life if I brought back a mistress. Besides, she doesn¡¯t know enough of the world to know better. I¡¯ll take her north and things will change. You¡¯ll see.¡±

    Jean reached over and put her hand to his knee. ¡°You¡¯re growing up quickly, Lucius.¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t suppose the praise of the living angel comes with some kind of blessing?¡±

    ¡°How about I formalize your relationship with Aisha? It would only be proper, before you have a child with her.¡±

    Lucius had to clear his throat and he rose, fidgeting. ¡°Proper, yes I suppose it would be. I should make the rounds though. Can¡¯t foist that off on everyone else, now can I?¡± he said, excusing himself from the tent.

    Their ship home would arrive the next day.

    <hr>

    <ol>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">Some women have always served in armies, depending on their stigmata. However, they are rarely sent on a march. The preference the world over is to keep them for defensive action.</li>

    </ol>

 4-28 - Titans In A Corner

    The archaeological study of the wastelands is confused at best. Cartographers have it little better. Even if I say that the harbor the final battle took at is called Ley Port, every kingdom in Lumisgard thinks Ley Port sits somewhere else. Of course, it doesn¡¯t help the matter that the only discernible landmark was destroyed.

    Even still, it can be found to this day and I would recommend looking for it to the adventurous spirit. The beaches are of the softest sand and the fish are so docile you can pluck them out of tide pools with your bare hands. No nasty parasites to worry about either. If I were to tell the exact location, it would be ruined by excess people. The common man will have to make do with his imagination.

    Ley Port welcomed Lucius with all its glory, granting him a splendid view from atop the protective cliffs, almost as buried as Mandible Bay but a hundred times more majestic. Once there had been a city of two million upon these shores. They built their city by stone and by plaster. They gilded it in gold and coated every wall in mosaics. All these beauties were lost to the centuries, not by the cruel passage of time but to pilferers and looters.

    After the grand fire, the city was no longer seen as habitable and the sand encroached. Primarus only found his way to it through the whispers of ancient memory. He trekked his army across riverbeds and forgotten. They followed millenia old mercantile routes that still kept a memory in their firmament bones.

    Their feet stirred up the past as much as they stirred up the sand. It revitalized the land in a way no one could perceive but perhaps the former angel. In truth, these kinds of ancient things often determine the tide of battle, the choices of leaders and the morale of troops. Such effects go unnoticed however, and can only be speculated about in hindsight.

    In some regards, it matters little.

    To bother less with the artistic, Ley Port has been ransacked and flattened. Once great mansions and temples are now little more than manmade caves. Sand-shredded tent fluttered in the sea breeze, giving bursts of shade to the wandering thralls. Only those with keen minds and fine fingers had been put to work when Primarus arrived at Ley Port, but busy they had been.

    Lucius understood what was happening the moment he saw the spread of diffuse wastelanders surrounding an armored fort of piled stone. There was no hiding their approach, no means of stealthy approach. The tricks he had used in the Misty Isles could merely taunt him with memory as Lucius examined the rubble strewn field.

    ¡°They¡¯re building more cannons,¡± Lucius said as his army marshaled into formation behind him.

    Abdul grunted. ¡°You should not have brought your strange weapons to this land.¡±

    ¡°We have to attack swiftly, before they produce another. They can¡¯t have been here more than a day. While they might have forcibly fashioned another cannon, I don¡¯t care how skilled they are at crafting you can¡¯t use a ley rod the day you shape it. We¡¯ll make a three part encirclement. Two layers of soldiers. In the front, shield bearers in formation, spears. Behind them, equip all of our artillery men with something to defend themselves with. As we march, they¡¯ll have to sweep the buildings.¡±

    Abdul grunted and blew air through his mustache. ¡°That will have to be a slow march.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s that, or risk rabble encircling us. At least we know there¡¯s only one stigmata user. Unless you have a better idea, spread the word.¡±

    The Giordanan shook his head then pulled himself back upon his camel. With a snap of his reins he took off to gather his men.

    Sacerdote remained placidly behind Lucius, until he received his order to gather the nameless soldiers into the western block. They would sweep the flank.

    ¡°An auspicious fort location, is it not?¡± the former priest said, gesturing to the harbor colossus that still bestrode the sea. A giant made of brass, missing only the lantern hand overhead, it stood in the gleam of day or the gloom of night.

    Lucius glowered at it. ¡°It¡¯s hollow, isn¡¯t it?¡±

    ¡°Almost certainly.¡±

    ¡°They could retreat into it.¡±

    ¡°I doubt they have any supplies for a siege.¡±

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    ¡°Except each other.¡±

    Neither man laughed. Sacerdote asked, ¡°If he proves craven, how would you approach it?¡±

    ¡°Fire.¡±

    ¡°With what wood?¡±

    ¡°Sap it.¡±

    ¡°And destroy the relic?¡±

    Lucius shook his head and mounted his own camel. ¡°Whose relic? Is it of your people? I wasn¡¯t aware anyone other than Anubi kept records.¡±

    ¡°It is older than us.¡±

    ¡°Then what do you care? We¡¯ll do what we must.¡±

    As the fighters were assembled into their new formation, a stir went through Ley Port, but without a proper chain of command the scattered thralls did little to coalesce. By the time the city was surrounded, Primarus had been alerted of course, but there was little he could do to force his troops back into line. He of course knew this, and Lucius knew that he knew this. The wastelander had allowed himself to be pinned against a shore with no shi to take him away.

    This left Lucius uneasy and before he gave the order to march, he circled round to the back of the army where an honor guard kept the bishop, and her temporary handmaiden, safe. ¡°Do you do wartime blessings?¡±

    The living angel gave a wan smile and shook her head. ¡°I¡¯m afraid not. I never did have the knack for wide scale effects.¡±

    Golden scoffed, seated above the little retinue on an exposed rock. ¡°Only the gods were ever able to do that.¡±

    ¡°I can do something for you, though I don¡¯t know if it will be a blessing or a curse. There are five ships sailing toward us, with the flag of Vassermark flying on all of them. They¡¯ll be here in a few hours.¡±

    Lucius shaded his eyes and stared where she pointed but saw nothing more than mist upon the sea. ¡°You have better eyesight than me.¡±

    ¡°Better than most, Gambling Lion.¡±

    ¡°Oh, now you¡¯re calling me that too?¡±

    She laughed. ¡°It¡¯s endearing, isn¡¯t it?¡±

    ¡°So long as I¡¯m winning. Stay safe,¡± he said, and left their rearguard position. He descended the slopes and rallied his men. With swift orders, he divvied them up into the new formation, even designating exactly which men would be responsible for flowing around obstacles and then rejoining the line. The blanks formed up swiftly, soon creating a wall of flesh and shield.

    ¡°Slow march,¡± Lucius ordered, standing center of the formation like any other soldier. His force was not so large that he couldn¡¯t command it from the front. Only in future wars would he need a system of couriers and criers and bugellers.

    Indeed, at this time, he was an angry man most accustomed to the art of killing. He had enemies in front of him, and a time limit to slaughter them. Even in that moment as he mechanically advanced upon confused and scared warriors he had in his mind the hazy complexities of the world about him. He had been ordered to the southern continent for another¡¯s gain. My own machinations had tied up loose ends he had left behind. And almost all of it was for naught due to elements outside even Lumisgard itself.

    Through the blood work of the battle he marched. He stabbed. He battered men back and cut them down. He had the body of a man and knew he had to consciously step beyond the anguish stricken boy he had been on the day Sir Patrocles was hung in front of him so many years ago.

    This was all according to my plan of course. What a waste of potential he had let himself become after one insignificant victory in the Misty Isles. Complacency is the death of ambition but for him it was even worse. He wanted to live with his head in the sand and refuse to accept his future all because he put a child in the woman he was infatuated with. Alas, my efforts to stir him up were not without cost.

    He certainly strode out of the adolescent shadow, but I had not expected Nikolai to die in such a useless battle.  It seems he let himself get swept up in the grand plan just like Lucius had been, and that death was like a wound on my pupil. It festered anger, he certainly intended to smash Primarus¡¯ skull upon the stones and scatter his blood to the sea.

    It also put a seed of doubt into the boy.

    He knew I had asked Nikolai to keep an eye on Jean for me, to assist her as necessary and to make her an ally. That task was not done, could not be done until her self-afflicted curse was lifted. That meant Nikolai¡¯s role was not over and yet he had died, pierced by a dozen steel blades.

    Part of my plan had failed, which meant that I was not infallible. Perhaps I had made other mistakes. Perhaps he should not always trust my judgment.

    I do not know how well formed these doubts were at the time. I was upon one of the five ships sent to ferry the army back to the north. In body at least. My awareness soared above Ley Port in the body of an osprey. I flitted above the heads of soldiers seeking out my accomplices and finding only Lucius.

    When my bird landed upon a wall beside him, he was draining a stolen wineskin into his gullet, covered in blood. After an hour of pushing into the city and countless surprise skirmishes, he had pulled his formation tighter, had rotated the troops for fatigue and injury, and done nothing short of excellence at commanding.

    He glared at me without saying a word.

    At the time, I thought it was nothing more than battle rage, surmising that Nikolai had been killed. More likely than in battle, I thought the Skaldheimer had been poisoned or otherwise cut down in camp for being a foreigner during hard times. Then, I was given a wholly new proposal for what had been the demise of my mercenary friend.

    The colossus of Ley Port creaked and groaned. Ancient seams of brass split, shedding a millennia of dirt and corrosion as it seemingly came to life. With footsteps that shook the entire city, the metal titan descended from its stone plinth and turned upon the army.

 4-29 - Master and Pupil Reunited

    I have taken it under advisement that I should break character, or I think the term is kayfabe. To anyone reading this document, it is of course a matter of historical record. I am penning it much after the fact and it is my duty as historian to prune the information available. However, I do not do this task alone. I have with me some of the laity who look over my texts as test subjects.

    Upon their reaction, I have made the difficult decision to prune down this chapter for, as they call it, brevity. The history of the colossus of Ley Port isn¡¯t strictly necessary to understand the story of Lucius von Solhart. Technically, it suffices to know that the brass sculpture stood upon a frame of steel, encased perfectly to prevent rust. Anyone with a lodestone can confirm that magnetic forces have no effect upon brass. This is how Primarus moved it.

    Perhaps I will write an appendix entry.

    Alas, the battle was fought with only a functional understanding. Anyone who looked upon it understood that the enemy could move the mass of metal. No shield wall could stop it. Keeping their distance didn¡¯t work either, for the stolen cannon was at their disposal. Thralls ran about the fresh-built fort, moving it here and there before blasting gravel into the ranks of men and cutting them down by the score. Three times the cannon fired as Lucius struggled to maintain a hold upon the army formation.

    The reveal of the giant was nearly decisive. It twisted morale and made men think that their success had been but a trap, and in a sense it was. Acceptable sacrifices can be like that, in the hands of a callous commander.

    Often, the only way to combat an overwhelming stigmata is with another, and Lucius was forced to rely on himself. The fundamental problem of fighting such an enemy hadn¡¯t been solved however. The image of Nikolai¡¯s pincushion body still burned in his mind but that also fueled his anger. With no armor and no weapon, Lucius leapt upon the arm of the colossus.

    Primarus had made many sweeping gouges through the city, brutalizing the once great statue by hammering it into jutting ruins. The men had quickly learned how to shelter from the lumbering swats. The damage also provided ample handholds for Lucius to grab onto. He scrambled like a monkey, clambering up the sweeping limb as wastelanders shouted and flung missiles at him.

    Had he been alone, I would have seen no fault in his strategy. It leveraged the strengths of his stigmata against Primarus¡¯. The only issue was the indignity of the act and like many winning strategies; what matters first is victory. I have no doubt that Lucius would have been able to dart across the body of the colossus. The cumbersome, self-attracting movements of the metal behemoth gave him ample opportunity to scamper away from attacks and search out the gaping maw of the monstrosity. From there, he could have gotten inside and attacked the magic user directly.

    This is not how history proceeded however. While the two entrenched forces attacked one another, the blue flags of Vassermark sailed into port and my seeing-eye crow returned to me.

    As I previously noted, I had a personal attachment to the art piece the wastelander had defiled and destroyed. While previously, particularly in this document, I have kept my capabilities subdued because of the potential ramifications from other entities, I admit I took the affront somewhat personally.

    I don¡¯t mean to diminish the potential power of mastery over magnetics, though I think this particular stigmata would not have granted particularly useful controls. Had Primarus been a secret weapon, he could have disarmed entire armies in a storm of stolen blades and allowed for catastrophic routs. Trying to use his ability as the lynchpin of a defense was an improper use.

    There are simply far more effective means of attack.

    Both armies witnessed the white dragon as they termed it, but all I did was suck up a froth of water and apply cyclic compression. Water is treated as an incompressible fluid for good reason. When I opened a spigot in the spell, the so-called white dragon breathed.

    A jet stream of salt water cut through the air and carved open the colossus. Ancient patina evaporated, then the plating split. Pressurized water exploded within the body of the giant, bludgeoning the stigmata user until my searching beam ripped his guts out. I only stopped my meager attack when the colossus faltered and collapsed like so much scrap metal upon the fort.

    Lucius eventually found Nikolai¡¯s killer trying to pull his intestines back into his belly. My pupil lifted the man off the ground by his hair then slid his blade in through the wastelander¡¯s mouth and out through the spine.

    Stolen novel; please report.

    Naturally, the battle was an enormous victory for the men of the north. I had even conspired to bring barrels upon barrels of wine and ale for the victory that I knew would come. The ensuing revelry cemented a good opinion of Lucius among the men but the most critical member of the party did not drink. He did not toast or congratulate minor accolades.

    Lucius barely even acknowledged the necessary performance. I could even go so far as to say he completely neglected his duties in favor of tracking me down amid the dismal ruins. Perhaps he thought of assaulting me. He nearly grabbed me by the scruff of my robe. Too many years of obedience kept his hand stayed, but he had enough frustration to speak to me like the surly boy he was.

    ¡°You didn¡¯t tell me what you were doing.¡±

    There was no question. He knew he was right. I could only respond, ¡°When have I ever?¡±

    Then he did get into my face. His nostrils flared and his breathing grew strained as he nearly grabbed hold of me. Then he said to me, ¡°Let me make myself very clear, if I find out anything has happened to Aisha while I was away then I will stop at nothing to destroy you.¡±

    ¡°Nothing has happened to the bard, nor what will be your firstborn,¡± I promised him. ¡°Except that she has met your sister, but they¡¯re getting on fabulously. You have nothing to worry about.¡±

    ¡°The entire reason I swore myself to you was to have the strength to protect the people close to me. So I think you can see the problem here if you start endangering them.¡±

    ¡°Of course, of course. My boy, what happened to you while you were gone?¡±

    Then he told me. ¡°Nikolai died.¡±

    I was at a loss for words. My impression of perfection broke. ¡°How? From that wretch?¡±

    Rather than answer me, he snarled. ¡°When we get back, release Kajsa¡¯s memories.¡±

    I made a hasty inspection of the revelry, spotting dozens of soldiers and thralls that were watching us but perhaps too far to listen. In the name of caution, I put my arm around the boy¡¯s shoulders to guide him further away. The tensing of his muscles was as clear a sign as if I had opened up his brain for inspection, but he followed along.

    ¡°My boy, my boy, you know as well as I what is about to happen to Vassermark. These forces have been in motion since before you were born. They¡¯re coming to a head. Soon the secrecy won¡¯t matter.¡±

    As we trekked out to the shore, where the wash of the ocean would muffle our voices, Lucius said, ¡°I may not have lived even a fraction of your lifespan, Master, but don¡¯t you think that makes me a better judge of people than you? You are too different. You see everyone as replaceable.¡±

    ¡°Not everyone,¡± I said, keeping my hand on his shoulder. ¡°My boy, you are not replaceable.¡±

    Finally, his body softened and he met my gaze again. ¡°You didn¡¯t say you¡¯d release her memories.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s dangerous! At least until your history will no longer be a threat to the plan.¡±

    ¡°You still haven¡¯t said you¡¯ll do it!¡±

    ¡°She¡¯s just an acquaintance from long ago¡­¡±

    He snarled and pulled his shoulder from my grasp. ¡°She is my friend. She, and Aisha too, are irreplaceable.¡±

    Relationships and attachments are a gamble in these sorts of affairs. They can provide great motivation to act, but also a great fear of what can be lost. I had several plans about how to secure political alliances, the most obvious of which was Kassandra vi Arandall. For him to be emperor of the world, he would of course have to start with the royal line of Vassermark, or at least one of the great kingdoms. I needed his affection there, in the advantageous realm.

    But, the very thing that made him so valuable to me also hindered me. His stigmata, [Undying], relied entirely on his self-image, and that included his mind. No oath, binding, geas, or illusion could be forced upon him and not slowly erode. I could not force him to love someone because of political advantage, and I could not force him to stop loving another. And, of course, a crude method such as murder would never be forgiven.

    ¡°I promise,¡± I said, and gestured to the north where his future awaited. ¡°The moment we return to Puerto Vida, I will have word sent to Rackvidd and from there to the Misty Isles. She will be recalled and set to Podrest to await your arrival. There, she will be restored. But, you cannot ask for more. You have too many duties and responsibilities that must be attended first and foremost. The middle kingdoms are in fractured revolt. It is only a matter of time before it is declared war and you must be the one to bring Jumeaux back into alliance. There will be hardly time to rest after Puerto Vida. Just enough to furnish your army with proper weapons and supplies. Then you will have to march north and she cannot be brought to a warzone.¡±

    ¡°What about Aisha?¡±

    ¡°She is already in Puerto Vida, waiting for you to arrive and surrounded by a garrison loyal to Lord Raymi.¡±

    He turned away from me, eyes set upon the sea. Perhaps he could see the glimmer of Giordanan sand across the horizon. It at least existed within his mind. At last, he nodded. ¡°Fine.¡±

    My relief was palpable, and I ventured to ask, ¡°Did you preserve Nikolai¡¯s body?¡±

    ¡°Cremated. Get your answers from the killer¡¯s corpse. Have you seen to Jean yet? She needs help only you can give.¡±

    My scowl was so fierce it made Lucius step back and nearly grab his sword. ¡°I can save her, but first I will need the book.¡±

 4-30 - Bargaining With The Other

    While historical annals say the battle was won during the day, that is not the truth. I believe I may have caused some confusion among readers by my pithy treatment of Primarus in the battle beneath the colossus. Many a bardic tale has been spun about the brass giant, but that is not where I lay my stress. The battle was nothing special.

    The magic is what mattered.

    We relocated to a wine cellar, partially submerged by salt water diffusing through the land. Over our heads were still elegant arches, and mosaics surrounded us, but our feet slogged through ankle-deep mud. I didn¡¯t pay attention to what lies were told from Jean to her attendants, but the body of Primarus was transported in whole to the cellar with us. I recall how much dismay that caused among the awakened thralls, for they wanted to eat his enchanted flesh and claim his stigmata for their own.

    The blanks were forced off, and rumors allowed to swirl as me, my pupil, and the living angel locked ourselves into the dank chamber with a corpse and a book. We had no choice but to let them whisper and worry and make their superstitious claims. Perhaps some of them weren¡¯t even far off the mark. We were, in fact, summoning a demon. The only difference was that we were not summoning it to parley and request aid, but to banish it.

    Once I sealed the cellar door and made the basement into a candlelit dungeon, Jean gave me a pained smile. ¡°Looks like I wasn¡¯t a very good student.¡±

    She had been a fine student for the few months I taught her how to control the immense power she was born with. In fact, her only shortcoming was that she was fundamentally kind. No one traumatized her to put in her a wound I could nurture into ambition. So, I had cut my tutelage short and continued elsewhere.

    ¡°Show me the book, girl,¡± I said. ¡°There is a difference between a foolish student, and a cunning adversary.¡±

    She took the eldritch tome out from a carrying sack, laden with belts to keep it shut. Lucius dumped the body of Primarus at the center of the chamber while I undid the bindings. Even before I opened the text I recognized the intent. I knew who had cursed the young bishop.

    Because he yet lives, let me call him here Hector.

    To omit the technical details, I broke the binding on the book, which could most easily be compared to kicking in Hector¡¯s door. The will of the book became nearly uncontained and I had to twist the cover around as pages spewed forth like a hurricane. Ink pulsed through the sheets, writhing as living things.

    Before they even congealed, Hector¡¯s voice echoed through the chamber. ¡°You have no right, Amurabi.¡±

    The bishop grabbed the holy symbol hung about her neck. ¡°He knows you?¡±

    ¡°And I him. Take your form, Hector. Here a sacrifice is given. Bind yourself manifest. We¡¯re civilized beings, aren¡¯t we?¡± I commanded, pointing my finger to the proffered corpse.

    The demon snarled, but the mayhem fixed itself upon the corpse of Primarus. Page after page plastered itself to the bloodied body. It covered over every wound, every piece of flesh, every trace of humanity. Hector reached through and took hold of the puppet. Hector had to flex open his broken jaw, ripping through the pages of flesh until it opened like a viper¡¯s maw. ¡°You are not better than  me, Amurabi.¡±

    I scoffed. ¡°You¡¯re out of touch, Hector, but that is neither here nor there. Release your hold upon the girl. You are overreaching your rights.¡±

    The demon approached, and Lucius interceded. ¡°I have all the right in the world!¡±

    Jean¡¯s voice cut through the darkness. ¡°You lied to me.¡±

    ¡°Silence,¡± the demon ordered, and with a flick of his hand, Jean¡¯s words were gone. Nothing more than the rasp of breath could leave her throat. He sneered at me.

    ¡°Always with the theatrics,¡± I said.

    ¡°You¡¯re one to talk. You¡¯re the most circuitous of all!¡±

    ¡°I do not have to justify myself to you, nor you to me. All that matters is that you have wronged me.¡±

    Hector laughed. ¡°Are you going to summon a moot?¡±

    ¡°I have no need, unless you force my hand. This can be settled between us. Let natural law decide who is in the right.¡±

    ¡°In this body? You would ask for a duel?¡±

    I shrugged. ¡°It seems close enough to pass as a champion, does it not?¡± I made the offer because I knew he would think that an advantage. He had direct control of a body bearing a stigmata. Arrogance was ever Hector¡¯s problem. Like many of the daemonia beyond Lumisgard, he thought little of the less magical. When I gestured toward Lucius, he saw the boy as nothing more than my pawn.

    Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.

    ¡°What would be the terms?¡±

    ¡°I already stated my demand. Release your hold on the girl. Find some other corner of the world to work in.¡±

    Hector laughed. ¡°Then, if I win you¡¯ll give me his firstborn to do with as I see fit.¡±

    I grabbed Lucius by the shoulder and held him back. My pupil was ready to tear Hector apart, but negotiations were not complete. ¡°That is not mine to give.¡±

    ¡°What nonsense.¡±

    ¡°It is not mine to give.¡±

    The demon snarled. ¡°Fine then. You have a godling on you, do you not? An imprint of a spider. Give it to me if I win.¡±

    He asked much. I had been nurturing that monster almost as long as I had been nurturing Lucius. Indeed, just a few days different. ¡°If that is what you want, then you will have to also give me the print of the [Cthonic Body] stigmata.¡±

    Hector laughed. ¡°You always did want that. Unfortunately, I bartered that off about two years prior.¡± If only I had known at the time what an ill omen that was to be. I had no idea he had given it to someone in Lumisgard.

    ¡°[Air Compression] then.¡±

    ¡°Too much. You¡¯ll have to add whatever technique you used to reshape the boy¡¯s face. Such a feat is always in demand.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s a deal then,¡± I said, not feeling the slightest urge to clarify that I had done nothing at all to the boy¡¯s face. That had entirely been the work of the snake. ¡°To the death of the champion then.¡±

    ¡°To submission,¡± Hector said. ¡°I¡¯ve already seen how hard the boy is to kill. We¡¯d be here for ages if it¡¯s to the death.¡±

    ¡°As you wish,¡± I said, and released the boy.

    Lucius marched forward as Hector hunkered down and pulled in his power. The chamber crackled with electricity until hair stood on end. The demon had far greater control over it than the wastelander, enough that the comparison would be akin to a child slapping at clay compared to a grandmaster sculptor. Thus, it can be no surprise that it only took him an instant of expanding his subjugated magnetic field for him to realize that not one ounce of metal existed within the chamber. Not so much as a counterfeit coin could be pushed against.

    Obviously, that meant Lucius was once again without a sword. The battle between champions would be with natural weapons only. When Lucius put his fist through the daemon¡¯s mouth did Hector realize just how I had duped him. It was nothing to be upset over. Lying in negotiations is common practice with such creatures of shadow.

    The ankle deep water made movement dangerous. Neither combatant could jump, lunge, or dash. They had no choice but to take careful, steady moves. All subtlety of their pankration had to be done from the hips up. Each man threw himself about, letting fists dart and fly, quickly turning their opponents blow aside. Whenever one was forced to retreat, the other redoubled during the splash of water.

    My pupil¡¯s fists rained down harder. He struck like a blacksmith¡¯s hammer upon the paper-clad daemon¡¯s face until every vestige of bone within was broken. Blood seeped down the creature¡¯s front but not without cost. The bones in Lucius¡¯ hands shattered as well. His stigmata knitted them back together, but there was a certain error to the healing. We learned about it while the lad sparred against the Tolzi brothers years ago.

    If not articulated properly, the small bones of his palm had a tendency to fuse instead of healing properly. It made his fists into fearsome bludgeons, but were excruciating to break apart afterward.

    Lucius wasn¡¯t an ignorant boy however.

    The moment he felt the shards of pain, signaling the healing, his hands opened. Transitioning completely from the Vassish art of boxing to Aillesterran martial arts, he tried to grapple with the daemon. Lucius was no expert at the art, but against any other opponent, the changeup in tactics nearly guaranteed victory.

    Amidst the keening screech of the daemon, Lucius caught a crossing jab and pulled it across his body. He forced his opponent in a step before delivering a crippling palm strike across the daemon¡¯s temple. Any human would have been downed, unable to coordinate their motions. The habitual followup was to twist the captured arm into a pin and slam the foe to the ground. In this case, to drown them in the water.

    Hector¡¯s arm snapped at the joint, without any loss of strength. It doubled around and grabbed Lucius by the throat, overturning the grapple. Both men fell to the water.

    The ensuing sight nearly made the bishop faint. She staggered back and had to grip the stone for support as she struggled to keep her gaze on the melee. Indeed, the entire chamber vibrated with their anger. Every broken bone, every ruptured organ, drove out growls of pain.

    Hector had misjudged his foe. He lacked the empathy to realize how much grit and fury was inside the boy for having lost his friend and mentor. No amount of pain would have made Lucius stop, especially as the healing of his stigmata was so enhanced by the glut of deaths around him, by the surging power of the daemon within his grasp. He dared to even break his own joints to escape grapples, just as Hector did, and rely on his stigmata to put himself back together in time.

    When the water of the chamber at last stood still it was as red ink about our feet. Every major bone and joint in the daemon¡¯s body had been destroyed. The only movement was the labored breathing that gurgled through blood. Even worse injuries had befallen Lucius, but we could already see his body restoring itself.

    ¡°Do you submit?¡± I asked.

    The daemon was incapable of speech, but a sharp pain made Jean cry out. She panicked for but a moment before realizing the curse put upon her had been ripped free by the root. The lasting effect would be akin to internal bruising but of the soul rather than the flesh. When she realized her foolishness had been averted, she wept.

    The other aspects of the bargain were easily secured between me and the daemon. While I exchanged the goods, Lucius and the bishop left. I found him later that night, but did not make my presence known. He had found a secluded cove down the beach from the city harbor, where none of the soldiers could see him weep. Lupa sat with him, their backs pressed against one another as she glared at me like a watchdog.

    To this day I still wonder if Anubi had intended for that living weapon to be beautiful, or if some other force had a hand in her making.

 4-31 - Struggling With Mortality

    The story of Lucius¡¯ journey to the southern desert is now almost at a close. Indeed, the morning after defeating the demon, he returned to the deck of the Blazen Arrow. Lady Raine Bellafont greeted him like a long lost friend and promised to bring him and his army north to Puerto Vida even faster than the winds would allow. The two of them exchanged every cordiality that could be expected between a victorious noble and a captain of a ship, but for Lucius the trip was nothing more than a necessary delay.

    His mind had already flown north and dwelt in the future with Aisha. If I were to write this tale strictly about him, I confess I would have next to nothing to say of the sea journey north, but this biography is not quite so limited.

    This was also a time of re-experience for Golden, once an angel then a mortal once more. His mind had shrank from the domineering will of the magical to the limited scope of what his hands could grasp and the urges of the flesh. Hunger, both of the stomach and of the loins found a fresh grip on the reins of his will and he came to realize this when he beheld Lady Bellafont once more.

    At first, the whole day, he didn¡¯t know what had come over him. His heart fluttered and his blood burned. To the unaccustomed, he at first thought himself sick. Aboard an overcrowded ship, sticking to the gills with homesick soldiers, hardly anything could be done to aid his health.

    There was a doctor aboard, but the poor fellow was nothing more than a carpenter handed the tools of bone breaking. The merest question of medicine made the man blanche in terror and begin to babble about what wonderful apothecaries he knew the world over, every port in fact.

    Golden tried to content himself with mild food and a draft of spirits. This did nothing for him at all. The idea that certain foods excites a heat in one¡¯s appetites is nonsense(1). It was Lupa that identified the issue, and she spoke without tact about it. Boldly, she asked, ¡°And here I thought you were some kind of eunuch after the lord got through with you. Is it the oarsmen that have you in a stir?¡±

    Golden scowled, pressing himself to the one spot of railing where he had room to spread his elbows. ¡°What nonsense are you accusing me of? You think I have such base desires?¡±

    The hungry wolf of the desert planted her hands on her hips, handling the sway of waves with grace as she examined him. ¡°You¡¯ve got it bad, don¡¯t you? I¡¯d think it was the lady captain but she is a small fire beside the bishop.¡±

    ¡°I have no interest in that child!¡±

    ¡°Oh? So it is the lady captain then?¡±

    Golden¡¯s retort caught in his throat as he realized it was her that kept his gaze. ¡°Nonsense,¡± he declared, but as soon as she quitted him with a smirk, he fled below deck. Lucius was asleep, his body still recovering in the minute ways after his fight with the daemon-infused Primarus. ¡°Boy, waken!¡±

    Lucius grumbled, rousing against his will to find golden wild eyed within inches of his face. ¡°Is someone dying?¡± he asked.

    ¡°Mayhaps,¡± the former angel said, before trying to explain what had become of his body.

    Lucius stirred not an inch from his hammock. When golden stopped speaking, the boy said, ¡°Fuck off.¡± Then he rolled over and buried his face into his hammock once more.

    Golden didn¡¯t trust me enough to ask, knowing rightly that I would give him a not-quite false answer that would lead him down the wrong path. That left him no recourse but to confront his being himself. For several hours, he kept himself wedged into a corner of the cargo hold without a scrap of light. He let the ocean rock him and the din of sailing dull his ears. The meditation was far worse than a temple cloister, but it eventually let him gird himself to confront the source of his agony.

    Captain Bellafont seemed to embody the vitality and exuberance of a victorious army finally returning home. Her golden skin glowed in the sunlight, further reminding him of his return to his homeland. Her stride across the deck was catlike, her voice a cheerful goading whenever she needed a sail trimmed or a line pulled. Every remark from her was returned with a smile from her crew, wry at the worst.

    This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

    To Golden, it made his heart race. Every pound of wet flesh became a clammy shell about his soul. There was a phantom urge through his spine to his fingers that tried to draw them forth and grasp onto her, to feel the warmth of her skin. It made him stare at his own flesh, barely able to control his breathing.

    Until then, he had thought the spell Anubi had given him meant he was still essentially a divine beast, that he was more than mortal. When Lady Bellafont approached him, he learned that he had become a slave to the chemicals. He was mortal.

    Her silken words shook him as she asked, ¡°Is everything alright, Priest?¡±

    His lip trembled before he resolved himself with the fact that even the lowliest mouse still could exercise its might of will. His flesh could urge, could reward and punish, but it could not control. ¡°It will be shortly,¡± he answered, before picking up a spare mooring line and tying it around his body. Without answering anyone what he was doing, he leapt into the ocean.

    The cold salt doused the fires of his body and I intervened to stop them from turning the ship about. I told them to let the fool soak. He never heard my description, which meant he thanked me when he finally dragged himself back aboard like a wet dog. Indeed, he had a serene expression as he sat upon the aft railing and stared at the approaching port.

    Deferring to her first mate, Lady Bellafont cornered him. ¡°Do you intend to explain that madness?¡±

    ¡°¡®Twas not madness! Nothing more than a rational recourse to tame my unruly flesh that yearned for your touch. I could not stay upon the ship in sight of you and not feel such tremors through my core that it would have driven me close to breaking to not throw myself upon my knees before you. Such is the effect you have upon me, but I am a man of will you see.¡±

    The captain took no offense to his words and grinned at him, sizing him up anew. ¡°Are all priests as silver tongued as you?¡±

    Pride flared and he turned up his nose. ¡°Nay! Hardly any. They listen to songs and stories but their minds can only recreate. They have no soul to innovate. That is left to the bards.¡±

    ¡°A man of will and wit, aboard my ship. Relaxing still, all sit as port comes quick, save those I put to test with amor-jest, But I confess I¡¯d not you obsess, rather alleviate my stress.¡±

    Her words were careful and tonal, enough to squirm through his defenses and not his mind. There they fluttered about between his ears until a sinister idea rooted. He had already demonstrated that he could deny such urges. Surely, true conquest of them would be to willfully indulge.

    Port was soon made and all attention centered around Lucius as well as the wastelanders he brought with him. Panic swept through the harbor and city guards were marshaled. The suzerainty of Vassermark was challenged and Jean¡¯s identity denied. Every moment, more officials arrived to swing their political weight. Before the sun set, every man of means save for the city lord had transformed the harbor into a forum.

    At last, I had to bring an end to it alongside Lucius with a simple pronouncement. ¡°There are hundreds of armed men and women waiting patiently for you as the sun drops. A sun which they have hardly beheld in their lives and they certainly have never suffered darkness. I suggest a warehouse be found to barracks them with plenty of lamps and fires or things will become chaotic.¡±

    Fear proved to be an astounding motivator, and the blanks were ushered into a warehouse of a defunct trading company. Some decaying goods were still there, but the city surrendered them as amusements for the foreigners.

    Here, our party split with Lucius seeking out the absentee city lord and Captain Bellefont securing herself a comfortable room. Her task to the army had been completed and she was at leisure to act in the name of the king. The next day she meant to sail east to disrupt supply lines from Aillesterra as it was said, licensed piracy by another name.

    Golden stole off from us, moving through a familiar city in an unfamiliar body. He dabbled in food and wine until the stench of pepperleaf candles perfumed the cobblestones. Then he challenged the limits of his mortal body and met the captain in her inn. They drank. He boasted. She took him upstairs.

    I found the poor wretch the next day abhorring his own body in the nearest temple to Shepherd. The priestesses thought him a raving lunatic. The reverend mother shut herself into the cloister to pray as she was the only one there to recognize the language he wailed and muttered in, ancient as it was.

    I doused him in well water and drummed him upside the head before shoving clothes into his grasp. The one upside in my opinion was that it convinced Lucius he had not made a mistake by keeping himself away from her, though her perhaps misunderstood Golden¡¯s anguish. In later years, I confirmed he had not one shred of negative memory from that night, save that the flush of enjoyment proved to him how much he had changed from the elegant beast of will he had once been. The choice had been his own however, and he resolved to live with it.

    <hr>

    <ol>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">For clarity¡¯s sake, I shall specify that the regular food of common people does nothing for the mind¡¯s inclinations. Plenty of medicines, poisons, and arcane elixirs can stir up the imbiber.</li>

    </ol>

 4-32 - Scouts From The North

    Aside from the aforementioned developments with Golden, the journey back to Giordana was a simple affair. No Aillesterran pirates attacked the sizeable fleet, though encumbered by soldiers as they were the battle might have proved disastrous. Neither did we have poor weather, fast tides, or sea monsters.

    Indeed, the greatest danger to the journey was from the passengers themselves. The blanks were still not acquainted with the meaning of night, but their bodies were. It is a matter of human nature, left in their bones from their primordial creation. They were blessed by a god they had never worshiped, dead centuries before their birth, but still they understood the light of day to be their domain. When the sun set, the reflection of the moon was little comfort.

    They huddled in the bellies of ships, squeezing their emaciated forms between barrels and nets. They tucked her skulls between their knees and sought for prayers they did not know and no priest was available to teach them.

    The alternative was to face the night, but they didn¡¯t even have ground to stand on. There were no foes to face, no fire to thrust at the darkness. The only other life on the face of the ocean were strangers who sang at one another, working in commands, orders, and insults, with a cacophony of unknown words. The melody didn¡¯t change, but no meaning ever passed from the sailors to the soldiers.

    Afterward one of them described the experience as akin to finding herself in some abyssal prison, ran by demons. The hold of most ships in this time was a cold, wet chamber that rolled on every wave. That would have been bad enough, but one of the unconscious soldiers lost his stomach. It spewed out of him where he sat, splattering the wood and filling the room with the stench of sickness.

    As is common with such transports, the symptom proved contagious. Not a soul aboard the ship managed to get a wink of sleep and by the time the sun rose, it was limping along the back of the convoy.

    As such, Lucius¡¯ band of fighters had few friends when they were finally able to throw themselves upon the docks of Puerto Vida. They surrendered themselves to the earth, weeping with relief and ignorant of the workmen trampling over them. Some of the locals looked on with pity, but most saw them as strange savages from the south.

    I had anticipated this problem, however, and already arranged to move Lord Raymi¡¯s garrison into accommodations within the city, in exchange for surrendering their tents to the newcomers. Such friviolities of war were new to the blanks, and it took many weeks to eventually school them in the ways of comfort. Teachers could have been requisitioned but they would have been merely yelling at stones, for the southerners had no concept of needing fire for warmth, or where to lay that would keep them dry from water in the ground.

    There were some things that they understood however.

    If I may indulge a history lesson. I know that in recent years, fueled by the very advent of mass-market literature I created for the sake of this text, there is a certain romanticization of the art of spyfare, or information warfare. While history does contain a few daring escapades of deceit and sleight of hand, the most common application of spies was astonishingly uninteresting. Without walls, checkpoints, recorded identification(1), and other such controls over movement, scouts could easily move through the wilderness to watch armies and study camps. Traveling back in time to report useful information could be a problem, but the garrison forces at Puerto Vida were sat in their tents.

    Those that would do violence upon the Vassish had great ease. Some even dared to walk right up to the camp and talk to the men. Giordana was ostensibly subjugated at this time. With a need to project power, the Vassish had no need to expel all locals from their enterprises.

    And so it was that a troupe of traveling blacksmiths strolled right into the camp. Several town guard had spoken with the lads and understood them to be skilled blacksmiths without the funds to keep their smithies in operation. A great deal of iron ore and of charcoal or coke was needed, which they had not the funds to keep in stock. That brought them to the city where they could sell suits of armor as well as odds and ends. Their cart of goods was certainly evidence enough to corroborate their story, but it turned out the truth was something else.

    The lads were working on mostly-peaceful orders to scout the Vassish and report back to Jeamaeux. The conflict began when the man in charge of scouting errantly said, ¡°Are these women fighters or concubines?¡±

    The Leyfield man, who at this time hadn¡¯t earned a given name, confronted the foreigners. ¡°Concubine? What is word?

    Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

    The scout sized up the southerner, mistaking him for a Vassish because of his pale skin. ¡°Are they your wives then?¡±

    ¡°What is word? I do not know what wife is.¡±

    Another of the scouts laughed. ¡°If they¡¯re not wives then they must be free!¡±

    One of the female blanks approached, understanding the conversation as little as Leyfield did. ¡°Free, I know this word. Nothing in the city is free they say. The Lion says we are free though.¡±

    Leyfield nodded. ¡°We are free, he says. But nothing is free. The Lion confuses us.¡±

    The scouts lost a bit of their courage when they realized that the soldiers surrounding them spoke neither Giordanan nor Vassish. In fact, they had never heard the words they used among each other. One of the younger scouts got ahead of himself and put his hand on the woman¡¯s shoulder.

    That made the blanks realize the meaning behind the men¡¯s stares. The woman sneered and knocked his arm back. ¡°Weak,¡± she said, one of the few Giordanan words she understood at the time.

    Leyfield laughed and put his arm around the woman¡¯s shoulders, also sneering at the foreigners. ¡°They must find it strange that we travel with women. Does that mean they travel with only men?¡± he asked, speaking his own tongue for his own people¡ªwhat dozens had awoken to life.

    The woman squared her shoulders to the young man, easily matching him in weight of muscle. ¡°Must be repugnant to women.¡±

    Her expression translated to the scouts, if not her words. The young one snarled, taking his hands back. ¡°You some kind of hillbillies?¡±

    The leader tried to restrain his colleague, eyeing the camp once more as other blanks started to gather. ¡°Judging by their skin, I¡¯d actually guess Skaldheim, but I¡¯ve heard skaldish singing. ¡°Where are you from?¡±

    Relief nearly came to the scouts when one of the Giordanans found the commotion and answered, ¡°They¡¯re from the sunless desert.¡±

    ¡°Cannibals!?¡±

    Leyfield stepped forward, hunching his shoulders to loom over the man from the middle kingdoms. ¡°What¡¯s your name?¡±

    ¡°Aaron,¡± the man in charge said, and he stopped his comrades from answering as well.

    Leyfield drew out a dagger. ¡°I like that name. The Lion said I had to win a name for myself. I want your name.¡±

    The Giordanan laughed, for he understood what the wastelander wanted. What was more, he understood what the man could do in a fight. ¡°He¡¯s challenging you to a duel. If he wins, he gets your name. And if he loses, I¡¯ll toss you my week¡¯s pay.¡±

    Better judgment would have sent the men running, but they were there to ascertain the fighting capacity of the Vassish, and the alleged blacksmith was confident of his skills. To everyone¡¯s surprise, a duel was agreed to and the Giordanan translating found himself surrounded by the other men from Jeamaeux as assurance.

    Alas, the very qualities that make a man a good soldier also make him predisposed to certain kinds of foolishness. In this instance, it was to our benefit. The scout was brave, strong, and stupid enough to follow orders(2).

    A spot within the camp was made clear, and the arena soon ringed with bodies both from the wastelands and from Giordana. Many locals to Puerto Vida, giving an abundance of witnesses as the two men faced one another with knives whose blades were no longer than their thumbs. This was a measure of safety as the locals believed it. It also made any duels to the death far more of a spectacle for those watching. More time to intervene, but more time to sate a vendetta.

    No blood oath had been sworn on the duel, so the locals assumed it would be until first blood. However, first blood was made while Leyfield maintained direct eye contact with the scout. He didn¡¯t even make a particular movement. No tension was in his body that belied an attack. He merely darted his hand out and poked the blade tip into the scout¡¯s arm.

    The man flinched like a horse fly had bit him, not breaking contact until hot blood dribbled off his elbow.

    Leyfield laughed, passing the little knife from hand to hand. The scout lunged at him, stabbing and slashing but never catching more than the wastelander¡¯s beard.

    Insults were exchanged on both sides, neither comprehending the others. The man from the middle kingdoms had no concept of a Lion Worm¡¯s snap, nor did Leyfield understand what a merchant boy tit-sucker was.

    Then the wastelander ducked under a stab and threw himself shoulder first. Their bodies slapped together and toppled as blood spewed into the air. Two stories emerged from the fight. The Giordanans said the man¡¯s throat had been slit first, his life lost painlessly. The men from Jeamaeux said their leader was held fast to the ground and disemboweled like an animal. That the savage from the south stuck his hand up through his ribcage and cut out his beating heart for a trophy.

    The Giordanans never denied that Leyfield had cut out the man¡¯s heart. They simply insisted it had been done posthumously. The struggle of removing organs from a living creature is obviously not worth the effort, but such a rational explanation did not keep up in the whispering rumors of the man now called Aaron Leyfield.

    <hr>

    <ol>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">To this day, accurate visual descriptions of even the nobility has proved elusive. A problem for the future to solve.</li>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">It is almost always more to a kingdom¡¯s benefit to send the truly intelligent off to their own devices rather than attempting to coerce them into some arbitrary action. If they are truly smart, then they can outwit the man who should be in charge.</li>

    </ol>

 4-33 - Forty Days In The Desert

    The day had dragged long by the time Lucius retired to the White Halls villa. There had been much commotion at the docks and while many of his comrades could enjoy swiftly retiring to their respective barracks or inns, the duties of a nobleman demanded his time. He was young and perhaps could have been forgiven for postponing certain things, but I did not allow him to escape the temple of light.

    The bishop was returned to the gaze of her church, which had a more literal meaning than most people would have suspected. While many of the faithful sang praises and wept for her safe return, consternation kept Jean¡¯s face firm. Partly, this was my fault. While her goal had been a noble one, her ulterior motive was not permitted. Hopes of plundering Anubi¡¯s library had to be crushed.

    Jean returned with nothing to show for her danger but a few hundred savages yet to be brought to the light and, indeed, less knowledge than before. She had brought Hector¡¯s malicious tome south and returned without it. The one thing she thought to advocate, that perhaps would make her trip worthwhile in the eyes of her superiors, was the potential she now possessed of an alliance to Lucius, and in a greater sense to Vassermark itself. Not on the grounds of political friendship¨Ca term more closely translated as suzerainty and tribute¨Cbut of faith locked into the kingdom¡¯s army.

    The angel she spoke to was far to the north, communing through the gaze of his own icon within the temple. Such ancient magic had been so laden with centuries of misunderstandings that even I could not disentangle the spell short of destroying the statue, which I could not do without rousing a mob against myself. Not even the priests understood that the image of the angel had no significance of worship except that it made the connection to his will. And it was through this remote mind that he studied all that stood within the walls of the temple and he examined Lucius.

    He saw into the boy enough to know that he had the mark of Vita muddled into his flesh from the year prior. He saw also the strength of his blessing from the gods. He saw all the markings that I had cultivated in the lad from such a young age; the potential within him.

    Of course, he also saw me standing within the temple with hands clasped behind my back as I stared through the walls to gaze back into his eyes.

    Jean spoke a phrase I had asked her to. ¡°A great war is coming to this world. If we do not have friends, then we will be swept aside and destroyed.¡±

    She was merely my messenger and did not truly understand the meaning of her words. Perhaps she would have kept her mouth sealed instead, if she had thought it would lead to a schism between clergy and crusader. Regardless, the gears had begun to move when Lucius at last left the temple.

    He was reunited with Aisha in a library of the White Halls villa that she had transformed into a practice room for her work with a lyre. It would be embellishing to say that she was in the midst of a melodic crescendo when Lucius stepped through the doorway, her simple practice was just as beautiful to the boy¡¯s ears.

    When they locked eyes, the music stopped. She looked him then thrust aside her instrument. ¡°Who¡¯d have thought you¡¯d come back from a desert pale.¡±

    ¡°Not much sun,¡± he said as the two of them met and embraced.

    ¡°You kept me waiting.¡±

    ¡°For far too long. I have an army now. My own, loyal enough. I¡¯ll have to bring them victories, spoils, but it¡¯s a proper start.¡±

    ¡°And the bishop?¡±

    ¡°Saved. I think we¡¯ll be going north, next. This time, I can bring you with me.¡±

    She pulled away enough to look at him but not so far that she didn¡¯t grip his tunic. ¡°You¡¯re wading into that rebellion?¡±

    The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

    ¡°Bringing Jean back to the mainland isn¡¯t enough. I need to take her back to Jeamaeux. This time, at least, it will be a gentleman¡¯s war I think.¡±

    Her lips curled down. ¡°How could there be honor in a war like this? Your price caused it.¡±

    Lucius turned her around like a dancer and walked her to the window overlooking the sea. ¡°By being a peacemaker. When I leave, people will fall to their knees and cry that I have left because this is going to be a war that helps people. Then, we will return to the capital to be rewarded. With any luck, the three of us will winter in comfort.¡±

    The redheaded songstress laughed as Lucius wrapped his arms around her. ¡°Is that how you¡¯re trying to take me on a march? By promising me a warm bed in the distant future?¡±

    ¡°What else should I promise you? If I want to protect you, I¡¯ll have to be close to you.¡±

    ¡°Protect me from who?¡±

    ¡°The enemy.¡±

    ¡°You seem to be running to meet your enemies.¡±

    ¡°Some of them,¡± he agreed. ¡°Others are by my side, I think. I will have to protect you from those as well.¡±

    ¡°Can you?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll have to find a way to. But, for now, you¡¯re too valuable to be in danger.¡±

    ¡°And in a few moons?¡±

    ¡°In a few moons I will have found a way to protect you. Aisha, my journey to the south did more than give me an army, than give me an ally. It reminded me why I began this journey. This is a dangerous world. Lives are lost or thrown away carelessly and the gods, the demons, none of them care about the weak. I must become strong. By wit. By connections. By steel. And, I think, by magic.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re already the strongest there is, aren¡¯t you?¡±

    He laughed and pulled her onto a couch. The two of them sprawled together, bodies pressed tight. ¡°I love you, Aisha. But, I¡¯ll need your help.¡±

    Laying atop him, she brushed her hair back and grinned. ¡°My help? I thought you would ask me for my forgiveness.¡±

    ¡°For what?¡±

    ¡°You make too many promises.¡±

    ¡°I only promise what I can do.¡±

    She sighed. ¡°Spoken like a Vassish. You have your eyes on too many women.¡±

    He grinned and teased out her hair, twisting it between his fingers. ¡°Spoken not like a Giordanan. Isn¡¯t it a conqueror¡¯s right to have a harem?¡±

    ¡°But do you want it to be a happy one or not?¡±

    ¡°Please, I will have enough fighting on the battlefield.¡±

    She sighed and rested her head against this chest. ¡°This help you need, it had better not be in picking out wives.¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t think that will be an issue. Circumstances are bringing them to me.¡±

    She picked her head up and pouted. ¡°Like who?¡±

    ¡°Kajsa.¡±

    ¡°I thought you would say Felicia.¡±

    Lucius grimaced. ¡°That is an artifact of the original Lucius. I do have certain obligations to her, however.¡±

    ¡°Do you think Lord Raymi has told her?¡±

    ¡°I think he will, eventually. He¡¯s in danger and will use me if he can. Time will tell. But, Aisha, you speak languages I don¡¯t. At least, you can translate older texts, can¡¯t you?¡±

    ¡°Some, not all.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s more than I can. There¡¯s a woman, somewhere in eastern Giordana. Possibly Tavina. I will have to seek her out and strike a deal with her to teach you what Amurabi never taught me.¡±

    She pulled back, rising up and straddling his chest. ¡°There is no one in Tavina who can do what that man can.¡±

    He grinned. ¡°There wasn¡¯t while you were there. She arrived just before your brother¡¯s revolt. She can be bargained with, and if she can¡¯t then I can kill her. I certainly trust her more than the demon that nearly killed Jean.¡±

    ¡°The what?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll tell you everything in the morning, I promise.¡±

    ¡°No,¡± Aisha commanded. ¡°You¡¯ll tell me tonight. I won¡¯t let you sleep until you do.¡± The two of them laughed. When the noise died away, she said, ¡°You¡¯re scared of him, aren¡¯t you?¡±

    ¡°You should have seen what he did in Leyport, Aisha. No human could stand up to that. Even the cannons he made. They are going to destroy warfare as we know it. Even if I had an army of ten thousand at my back, I doubt I could even make him bleed a single drop.¡±

    Aisha sighed. ¡°I should have stayed a merchant¡¯s daughter¡­ it¡¯s far, far too late to go back though.¡±

    Lucius sat up. ¡°Aisha, I need your help to kill Amurabi.¡±

 4 - Discussion Chapter

    You might have guessed but the last chapter was the end of act 4. Next week I will begin Act 5.

    Was Act 4 perfect? Eh probably not. I probably would have done better to insert a set of chapters from Primarus'' perspective and truly brought him to life to demonstrate the tragedy of the circumstances of his birth, but that would have prolonged the impression that it was a slave arc and even then, I didn''t give as much attention to Lucius'' self-reflection as would have been ideal.

    These past few months have been utter turmoil for me as a creative. My day job situation changed completely. I started a youtube channel (youtube.com/@jameskrake</a> you should sub, I''m trying to get it monetized so I can expand operations). I published my 5th book over on Amazon. Started a book club through my youtube channel (I''ve got a guilded server linked through my youtube).

    I think at this point I can conclusively say that the spark of inspration for that sci-fi tower climber is gone. Like if a ton of people piled onto it, I still think it''s a fun story, it just isn''t as good as the other stuff I''m writing at the moment. Speaking of other stuff, I am actively recruiting beta readers, for all manuscripts I''m working on. That includes Undying Emperor, but also my cyberpunk series, one-offs, and a YA action series I''m trying to submit to a contest at the end of January. If anyone wants to volunteer, find your way over to my guilded server (https://www.guilded.gg/r/zzrRpJJ06E?i=dJr30KMd</a>).

    Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

    Rather than abandon UE and start over like I previously thought about, I''ve got a new idea. Because UE continues to be part of my creative life and I don''t want to ditch it, in 2024 what I plan to do is write a stand alone novel in the world of UE that I will self-pub to Amazon et al. It won''t be required reading for this story but it will be supplementary, so my plan is to write a top notch story and hope to bridge this gap between people who know me here and people who think I just self-pub sci-fi. The general premise is that I''m going to write this world''s equivalent to Shakespeare''s plays, to create a bit of tie in while also writing a fundamentally solid story people will enjoy.

    Next week will be the act 5 foreword and I''ve already got a backlog going for the new plot arc. I''m enjoying it a lot. I hope you''ll indulge the same kind of stuff that I did in Act 2.

    What do you all think of the new cover?

    And of course, this is the post where I encourage you to let me know how you''re feeling about the story and I certainly encourage you to begin speculating about where the story is going. I''ve had quite a few people talk to me about Fallen Crest Abbey and learned that the ending eludes most people. I actually plan to upload a video discussing the issues with writing epistolery to my youtube channel and dissect the side-story there. It is quite possibly my favorite writing as a creator, even though I know it''s not the most marketable or enjoyable to the average reader.

    Regardless, I want to continue expanding my reach. I want to sell more good stories to people (and I think I''m getting a hell of a lot better at certain key aspects). I''ve got ideas for merch, for game show live streams, and eventually I want to get into comics, board games even.

    Thank you for reading this far. The comments and engagement really mean a lot to me.

 Act 5 - The Forsaken Paladin

    Foreword,

    Some readers may find the following time jump disconcerting, if they have been reading sequentially. Thus far I have created the illusion that all facts and knowledge have been available to me but here it is unavoidable that I provide the context of understanding. While the following tome will indeed cover the Jeameaux Rebellion, I have elected to tell it through the framing device that all of Vassermark learned of it.

    Namely, it will be told¨Cwith footnotes, annotations, clarifications, and so on¨Cas it was told on the most auspicious night of the Harvest Festival, 755 CC, Hearth¡¯s Bay.

    I have chosen this because it, in effect, is more real than reality. Few even at the time remembered the specifics of this action or that. Who lived and who died where was being lost to time for all but the highest nobility, the key players as they were. To the people of Vassermark, the foreign wars were nothing more than the reports sent back, authenticated or not. At times, trophies and prisoners arrived in the capital to be paraded around fo morale, but it was not as if the people could sit in their homes and watch the bloody melees play out. Indeed, even if they could have, I doubt they would have. War in real time is a terribly boring affair and the common people are easily distracted.

    Stolen novel; please report.

    The Harvest Festival was in effect the night that the consequences of the war were made real. It was the report from the army to the merchants, to the home nobility, and to the foreign nationals present.

    History is a tale told by the survivors, which has one meaning in the context of war but another in the context of economics. Hundreds of accounts, both private and public, were transcribed after that night and sent to the far corners of the world. Each had their own perspective, their own misunderstandings and lies. In aggregate, many facts can be reconciled with each other, but there is an even more interesting way to analyze the accounts.

    Those that survived 756 and those that did not. What were the opinions of the men of action and how did they change? Did they act in full embrace of the truth or did they have their eyes blinded by ideology?

    Given the immense complexity of the events of 756, I must take lengths to introduce the new actors before they play their part. For the curious, I will endeavor to include a genealogy that escaped the fires as an appendix.

    But, this is still the story of the Jeameaux Rebellion, of the greatest knight the middle kingdoms ever produced. A forsaken paladin that turned his blade against the future emperor.

 5-1 - Unwanted Gifts, Unwanted Company

    The Harvest Celebration of Vassermark might seem like an odd holiday for a maritime civilization to so prize, but they face the same challenges that any pocket of humanity has faced. Indeed, until recently the icing of the sea was akin to walling them into their cities, a siege by nature upon life itself. While much of their diet was harvested from the sea, taken as the blessings of their goddess, that changes when it is too dangerous for immature fishermen to take to the waves. They too must rely on their stores of food and those primarily come from the earth.

    This makes the harvest festival a frenzy of farmers. They bring their crops in by the wagonful, piled to the point of bursting with cereals and gourds, with bunds of dried herbs the size of haystacks. They enter into an economic orgy with the brewers and bakers. They render down the least edible foodstuffs and nearly shove it into the throats of their livestocks. The streets, for a time, flow with the perfumes of cooking and preserving as the season¡¯s first beer and wine kegs are tapped.

    This of course is soon to end. It only takes a week for the canals and gutters to be clogged with waste both from kitchens and from bodies as the serfs flock into the city for the holiday. They celebrate until their filth spews from their body and the guards have to throw them into stinking heaps where the good people of the city don¡¯t have to set eyes upon them. Nothing can be done for the smell. That is what attracts the vermin.

    It is for this reason that I think of the Harvest Festival not as a celebration of food or survival, or some co-opted religious ceremony. It is a euphoria of cats. The rat hunters are brought into the city in cages and unleashed. The furry critters spread out, claiming households for their own and devouring mice and birds alike. The people think little of how important to their health this is, that the spread of plague be kept in check by their feline protectors. They only understand that to be visited by a cat during the Harvest Festival is a sign of good luck.

    So, when dozens of people had gathered about the grounds and walls of the castle training grounds, it was fair to say that the most prestigious viewer was the ivory-furred cat sitting upon the princesses lap. It was a gift to her from the angel, Acheliah, and just about the only creature that wasn¡¯t watching the repeated melees that had drawn so much attention.(1)

    Lucius and Prince Gabriel had begun a queer sort of sparring, each taking advantage of their stigmata while the feast was cooked. When minds should have been enraptured with smoking meats and sneaking wine, there was instead a most unnatural melee keeping the attention of the young nobles.

    Each fought with no armor, not even shirts, which undoubtedly brought less than moral intentions up in the minds of the myriad women watching. To wear anything upon their chests would have been a waste however, because they fought with true steel and the drew real blood. Or rather, Lucius bled real blood. Prince Gabriel¡¯s doppelganger shattered whenever his flesh was parted, but he had stripped down perhaps out of a sort of chivalry, or perhaps to not be outdone for the attention of the women.

    Princess Kassandra watched with one hand stroking her feline, her head askew and frowning. ¡°This doesn¡¯t seem fair, but I can¡¯t tell who it favors.¡±

    Aisha reclined beside her, struggling to find a comfortable way to sit despite her belly. Her distress was quite offset by the platter of chocolate coated fruits shared between them, even if Lupa kept sneaking a hand in to filch the best pieces. ¡°The one it favors is over there. Next to Friedrich who has made himself into a betting bookie apparently. That northman is guessing right on nearly every bout between them.¡± Leomund Tolzi had a better eye than any present, and was putting it to good use.

    ¡°And good for him,¡± Lupa said, leaning on the back of Aisha¡¯s chair. ¡°I¡¯ll have to tell him that he¡¯s taking me out to dinner after this whole festival mess.¡±

    Aisha laughed. ¡°Lu would never take you as a mistress if you did that.¡±

    ¡°Does he¡­¡± Kassie trailed off as her cat bristled. Then there was a roar as swords caught one another. Lucius pivoted, grabbing the tip of his blade in one hand and swinging the pommel around to break the face of the fake Gabriel. The princess whispered beneath the crowd, covering her mouth with a paper fan imported from Aillesterra. ¡°Take many mistresses?¡±

    ¡°No,¡± Lupa said. ¡°I swear, he acts like a grandfather, but that¡¯s what makes me want him.¡±

    Lupa was positioned behind the two women because she was officially Aisha¡¯s bodyguard. That meant she stood beside Kassie¡¯s trollkin bodyguard. The giant woman¡¯s patience reached its end as Lupa stood there, bent over and swaying her hips without paying any attention to the crowds. The trollkin grabbed the wastelander by the neck and pulled her back into position. ¡°You are here to protect. Be a mistress of your own blade, not of a man¡¯s lance.¡±

    Aisha laughed. ¡°With you here, I¡¯m sure we¡¯re quite alright.¡±

    The trollkin grunted and let go of Lupa, who darted around the shadowed viewing box to get out of her grasp. ¡°The Lynnfield girl was better.¡±

    ¡°Not very womanly though,¡± Kassie noted as Sera darted out of the sidelines to speak with Lucius. If Leomund had not been so busy making money, he would have raised a fuss that she was consulting with his student, but if he had said a single word to the boy, he would have been blacklisted from any gambling for the rest of the holiday.

    ¡°Don¡¯t let Sammy hear that. He¡¯s quite defensive of her,¡± Aisha said.

    ¡°The doctor lad?¡± Kassie asked. ¡°Did he really amputate Lucius¡¯ foot?¡±

    ¡°Everything below the knee,¡± Aisha said, and everyone looked back to the fight, where my pupil was expertly dancing upon two healthy legs. ¡°We never did find the poisoner.¡±

    If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

    <hr>

    The preparations to leave Puerto Vida and march north were allowed seven days after the order came from Lord Raymi. This was largely spent organizing the troops and combining them with auxiliary forces lent by the southern lord. They provided indispensable, because he provided Lucius with a core of officers that could all read and writing Vassish, as well as supplementary scribes. This revolutionized his ability to manage supplies, as well as have the Giordanan recruits sign official enlistment contracts. These papers were made in triplicate, notarized by the local temple to Shepherd. Most of the soldiers couldn¡¯t read Vassish, even if they had a passing fluency when spoken, so the priestesses gave the men confidence that the terms and pay were translated accurately. After thumbprints were used for signatures¨Cusing ink, as a blood print would have caused a riot¨Cone copy was given to the soldier, one to the temple, and one sent back to Rackvidd.

    This made Lucius the commander of a foreign legion, rather than the leader of a rabble. Very important for maintaining one¡¯s noble status.

    Necessarily, however, the process was tedious and more than one man had to be caught in the middle of the night by the Blanks for desertion after initial pay. The deserters were crucified, and the silver they had absconded with given to the wastelanders publicly.

    While there was much occurring in this time that could only interest a military scholar, as well as another matter I shall return to, it provided time for certain countermeasures to be attempted against my pupil. This was entirely expected. One does not point a knife at a lion and expect it to cow away like a beaten dog. One expects it to swipe back, for it is a lion and lions do not understand when they have been bested by wisdom.

    One of the many provisions given to Lucius for his campaign to the north, officially to bring peace to the allied city of Jeameaux, was a herd of one hundred horses in addition to necessary pack animals. This was his first proper cavalry, and he had to refamiliarize himself with the art of riding. All this was entirely mundane and would barely have been worth mentioning except to explain that a local cobbler had been called upon to fashion the boy a proper pair of riding boots(2).

    It was the three days prior to his departure when, in the morning, he quietly slipped his boots on. The sun had only barely risen and Aisha still slumbered in the bed behind him. He moved with the grace of an upperstory burglar until his bare toe pushed against something hard and sharp within the boot. Then the stinger bit into the flesh of his largest knuckle.

    His howl woke the entire villa. Guards scrambled. Maids fainted. Aisha fell out of the bed and it was Lupa her threw open the door. She found Lucius sat on the ground, face boiling red as he gritted his teeth against the pain. He only screamed the one time, and bottled everything else up so as to keep his body under control.

    ¡°What happened?¡± Lupa asked, scanning the room but finding no intruders. The windows had but a crack open to circulate air that barely even stirred the curtains.

    ¡°Is someone dead?¡± Aisha asked.

    Lucius could provide no answer. All of his attention was focused on the trembling in his hands as venom ate through his leg. Carefully, he turned over the boot and out dropped a scorpion no larger than his thumb. It tried to dart away, but one of its legs had been crushed by his foot, and it could only hobble. Lucius snagged it by the tail, pinching hard enough that he broke the shell. He held it up to Lupa.

    Her face drained of color. ¡°Redhead, get the doctor,¡± she ordered as she dropped to her knees beside Lucius. She pulled out her dagger(3) and motioned for Lucius to set the creature down. The moment it was against the tiles, she pierced it through the back then set the blade aside.

    ¡°What has happened?¡± Aisha demanded as she gathered her night gown around herself and ran over.

    Lupa¡¯s head flashed up at her, snarling. ¡°Get the doctor!¡± she roared.

    Aisha didn¡¯t press the issue and ran past the two of them, where guards were already swarming to the hall. Sammy and Sera had been given a guest room in the villa, but there wasn¡¯t even time for that short run.

    Lupa had to apply what knowledge she had of treatment. She stripped off her belt and cinched it around Lucius¡¯ leg. Then she fetched his own dagger from his dressing table and turned it toward the wound. Already the venom had necrotized his toe. Swelling made the digit double in size, turning purple with every passing moment. ¡°You might want to bite onto something.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s just pain,¡± he said, but when the steel cut into what had been his toe, he howled. The agony sped Sammy¡¯s arrival a moment, while Lupa treated the wound like she was digging to find a prize.

    The consolation, ¡°It¡¯ll grow back,¡± did little to assuage Lucius as she bled him like an animal for slaughter out through his toe. Despite her attempts to contain and bleed it, no matter how much venom she spilled upon the tiles she could still see tendrils of black necrosis creeping up his calf.

    ¡°Oh, joy,¡± Sammy said as he dumped his medical bag beside the two of them. ¡°It¡¯s been months since I¡¯ve done one of these.¡±

    Lucius asked, ¡°One what?¡± before the bone saw came out. A bottle of purified spirits came out of the bag as well, strong enough to disinfect, as well as to dull Lucius¡¯ mind. The ensuing screaming gave no less than a dozen servants nightmares for the next week, particularly those poor maids that had to mop up the blood of a field amputation.

    Half a day later, Lucius was still coming to his senses while Leomund tracked down the would-be assassin. Here, I shall insert my first of many historical addendums. While the people of the time accepted that it was a fluke accident that a wild, venomous scorpion made it into the White Halls Villa, the fact was that the scorpion was indigenous to Aillesterra. Nothing in Giordana was venomous enough to threaten Lucius, given his stigmata [Undying]. The beast had to be brought in and put there.

    We had a number of potential suspects, and after confirming by prying apart their memories¨Cthe second person we apprehended was confirmed to be the culprit¨Cwe cut off their head. There was quite a stir in the temple of Helios, but I felt it important to let the angel know that we knew who had tried to kill Lucius.

    The truly unfortunate matter was that the assassin was a handmaiden of the other problem I alluded to earlier. Our unwanted guest arrived to check on Lucius¡¯ recovery and tutted her tongue. She shook her head. And she asked, ¡°How will we ever explain to Mother how you lost a leg?¡±

    Aria vi Solhart, heir of the Solhart family and the younger sister of the true Lucius von Solhart, had slipped free of the Raymis and forced herself into my pupil¡¯s company.

    <hr>

    <ol>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">The cat was in fact enchanted with certain magics of remote viewing. I had the thing killed as soon as it was in my posession.</li>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">At this time, the primary purpose of the boot was to interface with the stirrup. There is a new fashion spreading around the countrysides now that has the leg of the boot flare out widely, for any of a variety of dubious reasons, but despite the alleged age of this new design, Lucius wore a laced boot.</li>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">She had a gorgeous dagger meant as an oath blade and given to her by an unsuccessful suitor. She only learned the intended importance of the gift much later.</li>

    </ol>

 5-2 - Hobbling Along

    ¡°So he¡¯s healed, is he?¡± Petrard Grimes, one of the King¡¯s Engineers, asked.

    ¡°Afraid so. He does that quite a bit,¡± Sammy answered.

    Both men frowned down at the contraption of leather and steel that laid between them. They were in a dismal little drawing room within the castle, the kind that could barely crack open a window to stir the air and consequently was allowed to be used by visitors and workers, such as Petrard. The invention had seemed inconsequential to Lucius, and I didn¡¯t have the time to waste on one man¡¯s claims, so the polite task of responding to the inquiry fell to Dr. Samson.

    For his credit, the engineer tried to keep a stiff upper lip about it. ¡°You see this part here? It would clamp onto a stirrup through a locking cam system, yes? I couldn¡¯t decide if the release mechanism should be manual or gravity based so I added both. There¡¯s a flip selector here. He could have stamped it onto the stirrup and held on with ease. Then still walked on it when off horse.¡±

    ¡°It does seem very impressive. Did you study anatomy to make this?¡± Sammy asked as he picked up the prosthetic custom designed for Lucius¡¯ missing leg, which he of course was no longer missing.

    Petrard nodded. ¡°Yes, sir. But I didn¡¯t do no grave spelunking as it were. At first I thought I should just, you know, give a good squeeze to my collaborators, but I figured that the shape of a human¡¯s leg is meant to control a human¡¯s foot and that¡¯s not quite what I made here, you see? I actually based it upon a crane, sir. Narrow, elegant, houses steel cables to pull the graspers shut. For birds, that would be on fish. For this, it would be the stirrup. I made it with riding in mind.¡±

    ¡°Most would just adjust the saddle to grab onto the leg.¡±

    Petrard grinned. ¡°But then he wouldn¡¯t be able to get off and fight, now would he?¡±

    ¡°True. Honestly, the craftsmanship here is some of the best I¡¯ve seen. You treated steel like gold.¡±

    ¡°Gift of the gods, Sir.¡±

    ¡°You have a stigmata?¡±

    ¡°Oh, not me. One of the students at the university. These are all my designs, but it was him that formed them. Not that this couldn¡¯t be made by a mundane craftsman, but it¡¯s all in the speed, you see. A regular blacksmith would need fixtures and jigs, you see, yes?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ve had a few lessons in prototyping,¡± Sammy said as he put it down. ¡°Do you have a design you could propose for mass manufacturing?¡±

    Petrard stared back at him. ¡°Beg your pardon?¡±

    Gesturing at the device, Sammy said, ¡°The reason they sent me wasn¡¯t because Young Solhart was simply too busy. I¡¯m his doctor. I¡¯m the one that amputated his leg and I did a fair deal more than that during the rebellion. Infection robs men of feet regularly during war and if they survive, at the moment, they are reduced to either hopeless cripples living on charity or, if they¡¯re lucky, they manage to fit a cup to their stump and wobble around on a peg. If we could return veterans to the battlefield by merely paying money and fitting them with a device like this¡­ well, surely you can see the advantage. This would be akin to vision correcting glasses for fine craftsmen.¡±

    ¡°A mass produced version¡­ one that could be outsourced, could be given to apprentices¡­¡±

    I had given the boy some instruction on how to handle the negotiations if they seemed profitable. ¡°Do you work with the ley cannon production?¡±

    Petrard blustered and turned up his hands. ¡°Not directly, sir. But, I know them.¡±

    ¡°They¡¯re using a step-wise production method. If that could be adapted to this device¡­¡±

    ¡°We¡¯ve barely created a methodology for¡­ but, yes, I see¡­ that would require, well, the scale would depend on the need, you see.¡±

    Sammy grinned and drummed his fingers on the prosthetic. ¡°Why don¡¯t you put some work into estimates? Lay out what would be needed to produce a thousand of these a year and how much that would cost, but also cost out ten thousand a year. I¡¯ll bring the proposal to Solhart and he can bring it to the king.¡±

    Petrard fell into a chair, his eyes seeing nothing but figures and diagrams within his mind. ¡°Ten thousand,¡± he mumbled.

    ¡°How sturdy is it, by the way?¡± Sammy asked, picking it up once more and giving the main shaft a flex.

    ¡°Pardon?¡±

    ¡°Could it bludgeon a man to death?¡±

    Petrard blew air through his mustache and shrugged. ¡°It wasn¡¯t designed for that, but it is made of steel. We could even make them sturdier, but it would weigh it down. I would think it easier to put a blade on it than to make it a club. A spike perhaps, like a mining tool.¡±

    Sammy nodded. ¡°I suppose that would have worked better than what Lucius had to make do with.¡±

    <hr>

    Now, when Aria arrived at the White Halls Villa, it was the day after Lucius arrived. As it turned out, she had surreptitiously joined Aisha¡¯s caravan and masqueraded as a mere merchant¡¯s daughter. An unsuspecting Aisha had welcomed the company and while she hadn¡¯t done anything intentional to betray Lucius¡¯ identity, her tongue betrayed us yet. To this day, I don¡¯t quite know what sowed the seeds of doubt, or what line of questioning Aria used to deduce what had occurred. Doubtless, it was some method of knowledge only siblings could have for one another.

    Regardless, she confronted my pupil before he had gotten his armor on to see to the men. Many a lesser historian assumed that she simply used a false name and gauged his reaction. Surely a false brother would fail to recognize his sister appropriately. This is not what happened. I had thoroughly educated Lucius in such obvious pitfalls. Unfortunately, the true event is far less credible.

    She walked through the door. He saw her and greeted her. Within less than six seconds, she told the servants to leave. The moment they were alone, she planted her hands on her hips. ¡°Who the hell are you?¡±

    A flabbergasted Lucius, already feeling the cold sweat, tried to deflect.

    ¡°You aren¡¯t my brother,¡± Aria declared. ¡°My brother was terrified of women. He was ever since he was fourteen. I cannot believe my brother successfully impregnated somebody.¡±

    We had prepared for this, although the best plan had always been to simply never encounter the girl. There were a thousand small pieces of memory that could be tested and could not have been planted into my pupil¡¯s brain. At least, not without undoing so many years of training I had put him through. ¡°Look, a good deal of alcohol was involved at first. I¡¯d appreciate if you kept your voice down.¡±

    You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

    Aria sniffed. ¡°My maid will have chased off the locals. Do not worry, Imposter. Now, who are you?¡±

    ¡°Aria, this isn¡¯t funny.¡±

    She marched up to him, mustering every inch of her modest height. ¡°Drop the act or tell me what happened on your fourteenth birthday.¡±

    He took a gamble and glared. ¡°If you talk about that one more time, I will make you regret it, dear sister. War is no place for gossip.¡± He of course had no idea what had happened on the original Lucius¡¯ fourteenth birthday. When he was turning fourteen, I had abandoned him(1) and Ezra in the wilderness to hone their survival skills.

    Aria spun away in apparent triumph. ¡°And caught you. Nothing at all happened on my brother¡¯s fourteenth birthday. It was a few months after when he was traumatized. Now, enough with this game. I don¡¯t care if you killed my brother. I want to know why you took his name. He was worthless. A drunk left in a meaningless garrison. How did you end up invited to dine at the king¡¯s table? If nothing else convinced me you were a fake it would be that accomplishment. Seriously, I swear on my name, if you mean no harm to the family your secret is safe with me, Imposter.¡±

    A moment later, the door flew open again and Aria¡¯s maid was forced to stumble through. Lupa had the woman gripped by the hair and her knife to the maid¡¯s throat. Not to say that the maid was in some way weak or small, but she was fundamentally a woman of etiquette and courtly conduct. Being confronted by what amounted to a savage with a knife proved too much.

    ¡°Don¡¯t kill her,¡± Lucius ordered, turning his back on the affair to finish getting himself dressed.

    ¡°Lu, who is this woman? She got in my way and said I wasn¡¯t allowed to come see you. You never told me that somebody else might order me away.¡±

    Aria¡¯s voice cracked as she shouted, ¡°What is the meaning of this?¡±

    ¡°Lupa, meet my sister, Aria. Aria, meet the woman who saved my life in the desert.¡±

    Without letting go of the trembling maid, Lupa smiled at Aria. ¡°How do you do, sister-in-law?¡±

    ¡°Sister-in-law!?¡±

    ¡°Ignore her,¡± Lucius said as he cinched his belt. ¡°She¡¯s still getting ahead of herself. And Lupa, let go of the maid while she can still walk. She¡¯s about to faint.¡±

    Lupa sighed and released Aria¡¯s maid, sheathing her blade. ¡°And you still say that even after we bathed together, after all that time we spent tied at the hip to one another.¡±

    ¡°Oh, come now. Apparently I¡¯m deathly afraid of women, so says my sister who hasn¡¯t seen me in years now. Can¡¯t be having you spreading any rumors about us bathing together, now can we?¡±

    Lupa crossed her arms. ¡°You didn¡¯t even make a move on me. Maybe you are afraid of women.¡±

    ¡°Regardless,¡± Lucius said as he strode to the door. He turned at the portal. ¡°Sister, I would appreciate greatly you not running your mouth so foolishly? And next time, come announced so that I can actually make time for you. I have an army to attend to.¡±

    Aria¡¯s mouth was left quivering over words until he had turned his back on her and walked off. When Lupa followed along, sticking her tongue out at her, Aria shouted, ¡°That¡¯s another reason I know!¡±

    At this time, Lucius didn¡¯t simply abandon his alleged sister to her own devices. That would have presented far too much danger. Instead, he sent for Sammy and quickly explained the situation to him and the good doctor was assigned to be her companion for the day. That began an arduous and awkward handoff from person to person to person, each getting privately grilled about Lucius for days. She established nothing except that he didn¡¯t talk about his past much. which , of course, was a lie.

    Fortunately for her, this was when we learned that Golden¡¯s ability to seal memories had been part of what he had traded to Anubi, which caused me the greatest headache I¡¯d experienced in years. I wasn¡¯t worried about the girl. She wasn¡¯t actually my pupil¡¯s sister. Poisoning her and removing her would be trivial. The problem was that I had promised to restore Kajsa and my ability to do so had debased himself into a mortal and still smelled like a sea captain carnal house.

    And so it came, that the day after Lucius lost his foot to an attempted assassination, she forced herself into his company as he headed to the mercantile district of Puerto Vida. The boy, outfitted with a peg leg, had dozens of meetings to attend to among the food distributors. He had an army to take north and that meant provisions. Much of the work was tedious, but he had no officers he could trust on financial matters. Bribery would be expected and while he could accept a certain amount of corruption if it came at the price of feeding his army then it could not be allowed.

    Thus, after many hours of negotiating deals, signing papers until his hands turned blue, and assuring everyone that he would be hale and hearty before they knew it. By the time the sun was setting, the two of them took a simple meal upon the marble steps of the grand fountain in Puerto Vida(2). While he coyly chided Aria about whether or not he really was her brother¨Ca verbal game of cat and mouse he used to tease out more details about how he should be acting¨Ca trio of Giordanan men walked up to them.

    The one in front had no armor and his silken shirt was but loosely tucked. ¡°Lucius Von Solhart, I take it.¡± The man in the lead spoke loud enough for an arena, gathering attention to them. ¡°A brave nobleman to travel without guards. For that, you have my respect.¡±

    Lucius had nothing more than the crust of his bread remaining, and tossed it into the fountain behind him. He recognized where the act was going and rose to face the local. ¡°There are two types of men that can travel without guards, and neither are brave. There are those that have the love of the people around them¡­¡± He trailed off and examined the crowd. None spoke against him, but few returned his gaze. Most cleared their throats or shuffled away, as there were no Vassish in the crowd. He grinned nevertheless. ¡°And there are those who do not need guards.¡±

    The man nodded. ¡°My name is Nasir Khalil. Earlier this year, you crucified my blood brother, a man of your own kin. His name was Carlyle Widders and he saved my life. Now, I have come to avenge him.¡± And so, he pulled open his shirt and revealed the jagged scars, both from dog teeth, and the rough line common to brash men of violence. Before Lucius, he drew his oath blade once more and cut the scar open. ¡°Today, I renew my vendetta, Lucius von Solhart.¡±

    First, Lucius gave Aria a look to say, ¡°See? He thinks I¡¯m Lucius.¡± That did nothing at all to assuage the fresh fear that she would be taken by such thugs after they had ganged up and killed Lucius. Then he addressed the men. ¡°I delivered nothing but justice. I take it you mean to kill me regardless?¡±

    ¡°As I understand it, you can¡¯t be killed. I will be satisfied with your heart.¡±

    Lucius nodded and drew his sword. ¡°You might want something better than a kitchen utensil.¡±

    The man¡¯s face colored. His nostrils flared as he gestured to Lucius¡¯ missing leg. ¡°A suitable handicap.¡±

    ¡°You think so? I won¡¯t protest. You two, on your honor you are here as witnesses. I¡¯ll have no false stories. I, Lucius Von Solhart, accept this duel request,¡± he said as he took his sword in a backhanded grip. He held it before him like a knife fighter, his forearms twice the size of Nasir¡¯s.

    Before the crowd grew too large, the Giordanan let out a whoop and hacked at Lucius. He moved with a deft control of his body, his estimation of reach perfect. What he underestimated was the boy¡¯s tip control. He hooked the back end of Nasir¡¯s dagger and pulled it aside. The blades did not bind, but it opened Nasir¡¯s side for an instant. While the Giordanan pulled himself back, ripping his blade back around to lunge it forward, Lucius spun his leg around. With his right foot planted like a pillar to the earth, his peg leg whipped around. Wood struck Nasir¡¯s ribs hard enough to shatter bone and to break the leather straps holding the cup to Lucius¡¯ limb. The tool flew away, broken and Lucius was nearly helpless.

    Nasir fell to the ground, sucking air and spitting up blood as a shard of his own ribs ripped through his lung.

    Lucius, standing poised like a heron, declared, ¡°Consider honor satisfied.¡±

    With heads bowed, Nasir¡¯s companions rushed him to a surgeon and the crowd dissipated with their rumors to spread. Lucius had little choice but to turn back to Aria. ¡°Sister, dear sister, you¡¯ll help your brother get back to the villa, won¡¯t you?¡±

    Aria¡¯s color returned with an irritated pout. ¡°I¡¯ll hail you a taxi cart, dear Imposter. Where did you learn something like that? Certainly not in Vassermark.¡±

    ¡°I was kidnapped by Aillesterran pirates for a time, didn¡¯t you hear? They have strange martial arts. Some of them are useful.¡±

    ¡°I cannot believe Lord Raymi is vouching for you.¡±

    ¡°He vouches for me because my capacity is more important than my identity, dear sister. When you come on campaign with me, you¡¯ll see. And you will be coming.¡±

    <hr>

    <ol>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">He was not truly abandoned. I watched him at all times through a crow. There was no way I could simply risk such a lengthy investment.</li>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">The fountain is the same as the grand fountain still there today.</li>

    </ol>

 5-3 - The Paladin, The Prince, And The Cyclops

    The unfortunate timing of Prince Gabriel¡¯s political marauding through the central kingdoms was such that it began precisely after the good bishop left Jeameaux. Thus, the political turmoil fell on the secular government. Sir Rodrick The Holy Blade was nominated as her steward because he was already the chief of the city guard, which constituted the city-state¡¯s entire armed forces. He was universally acknowledged as a man of competency, even temperament, and careful wisdom.

    That was why he was able to hold his tongue, even on a withering summer day as he listened to a local lord, who didn¡¯t even have a proper title of nobility, whine at him about the dangers to the grain harvest that Prince Gabriel, and by extension all of Vassermark, presented to the people of Jeameaux. Of course, he really meant to his own estate. This could not entirely be faulted on the local lord, for his wealth was predicated on feeding the people. If he couldn¡¯t make money, that meant people weren¡¯t being fed

    Sir Rodrick was all too aware that the man had already signed contracts of sale with various merchant groups out of Vassermark that were costed out to send the grain south through Puerto Vida and up the Vassish coast, a relatively costly method of transport that had been agreed to as a gamble when they expected so safe transit could be made through Giordana and the lord would have to pay the bill of of physical transport across land. Now that Vassermark had put down the rebellion, it was Jeameaux that would profit from the gamble.

    Thus, the merchants that supplied the Vassish armies were pushing for war to wipe their contracts away and simply seize the grain plus whatever other plunder could be had.

    Such is often the cause of wars. The legends love to retell stories of love and valor, of how spurned kings might lead their men across the world to win back a beautiful woman no matter the cost. The conflict in the central kingdoms was of no such wonder. It was the kind of penny pinching conflict fought across maps with little toys completely disconnected from the human lives being wagered and thrown away.

    To put it simply, it was the kind of war brewing that made Sir Rodrick want to cut off the head of every merchant involved.

    People would starve if he did that though. He saw no alternative but to listen to the entreatments of the half-corrupt merchant lord while single-handedly downing an entire amphora of wine by himself.

    Rescue came in the form of his cupbearer, an orphaned girl taken in by the church who he had earlier sent away to play with the other children rather than listen to grown men argue. She poked her head through the doorway and tried to clear her throat, but it was nothing more than an awkward imitation.

    The merchant lord grimaced. ¡°More wine, is it?¡±

    ¡°I didn¡¯t send for any,¡± Sir Rodrick said and waved the girl in. ¡°What is it?¡±

    She closed the door behind her. ¡°You¡¯ve been requested at the cathedral, Sir. The angel wants to speak with you.¡±

    ¡°The angel? Which angel? Is Jean back?¡± Hope warmed his chest for a moment and he allowed himself to dream of spending his nights with his wife once more.

    The girl blushed and fidgeted with her dress. ¡°No, it¡¯s not Lady Jean, sir. It¡¯s the one in the stone. The statue angel. He said his name was¨C¡±

    ¡°Aurum,¡± he finished for her. He rose to his feet, somber faced. ¡°We¡¯ll have to finish our discussion another time.¡±

    The merchant lord sighed. ¡°Of course, sir. Of course. Can¡¯t leave an angel waiting.¡±

    Sir Rodrick lifted his goblet to his lips, but stopped and put it down half-finished. Thanking the girl, he strode out of the meeting room. His honor guard fell in behind him and the trio left the palace of the twins for the city¡¯s grand cathedral.

    The city of Jeameaux is a beautiful thing of graceful age. Courtesy of a stoneshaper several centuries prior, it straddles the land between the two namesake lakes, not on a bed of wet silt but on upraised bedrock, as though the city sat upon castle walls fit for a siege. One would have to travel all the way to Drachenreach to see an equivalent monolith. For generations, this proved to be ample space to live and prosper. There is even a grand network of sewers and flood tunnels to service the city, but the city grew and no new stoneshaper was found.

    They tried to service the tunnels with traditional masonry, to ill-effect. Several areas had to be forsaken completely and were taken over by vagabonds. The city cannibalized the greenery around the city until getting wood for a cook fire became so burdensome that most citizens couldn¡¯t afford to cook their food. Over half of the population ended up living off the stone bulwarks, their shanties sinking into the mud, giving new meaning to the city of the twins.

    Half lived in wet squalor and half lived in the old city, and it was at the heart of the old city that the cathedral tolled out the hours. This made it a focus point for discontent that I must say was largely misplaced. The people of Jeameaux were able to see the inherent wealth disparity and that made them more sensitive to it despite the fact that it was one of the most egalitarian cities in the world.

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    To make matters worse, there was a seventy percent correlation between ethnicity in the city and whether one lived on stone or upon mud, and it was the descendents of Giordanan refugees that lived on mud(1).

    Sir Rodrick couldn¡¯t pass a single day without looking upon the lakeside docks, at the workers running between ships and warehouses, and not wonder how he could keep the city from ripping itself apart. He was painfully aware that the city guard proper could never recruit from the lower classes, no matter what wages were offered. They simply didn¡¯t trust the pale skinned men from on stone. Instead they organized local militias throughout the city reaches and confounded the attempts to build new city walls.

    If Jeameaux were to go to war, it would have a choice to make. The army could stay behind what walls it did have, and in doing so abandon hundreds of thousands of people. Or, the army could take to the field and be outnumbered, possibly out maneuvered.

    If a proper diplomatic envoy from Vassermark had arrived with reasonable terms, he would have happily avoided war.

    Unfortunately, he knew that Aurum would only bother to attend to him in the most extreme of circumstances. Sir Rodrick found the angel, or at least the dispatched incarnation, in the private living quarters of the cathedral. While the marble vaults, the murals and frescos, were a wonderful way to capture the awe of the worshippers, the work of the cathedral was done in rather dismal stone rooms decorated by faded tapestries and soot stained from too many centuries. There was no private garden, barely any fresh air, and servants were needed to bring food in and waste out.

    Sir Rodrick had to duck through the stooped doorway to enter the library that Aurum had commandeered, where at least there were windows and no candles were needed until dusk. While he showed no outward sign of it, he was disgusted by what he saw inside.

    Aurum was a divine beast, a more true one than even Golden. His relationship with mortality was perverse and private, something barely even gossiped about in the churches. Those that knew, kept their mouths shut. Not because of divine retribution but through very simple methods of bureaucratic punishment. Volunteers were always needed to staff religious schools on the theological frontiers, and the voluntary aspect was negotiable.

    Sir Rodrick shut the door.

    Aurum, temporarily clad in the body of the temple prostitute, sat open legged and sprawled across a reading sofa. The woman whose body he inhabited had a certain stigmata inscribed upon her face that marked her as such, written not by the gods but by Aurum. When activated, it transferred his will to her body, suppressing her mind as well as her memories of the events. The effect was less convenient than it sounded, because it also interfered with Aurum¡¯s ability to create short term memories. Weeks would pass like days if he were not careful, or in most cases: chided.

    ¡°Put some damn clothes on.¡±

    Aurum reclined on the couch, twisting the book he was reading sideways. I still wonder if such behavior was merely to show off, or if it aided comprehension in some way. ¡°It¡¯s hot in here. Do not order me like a child.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re in a woman¡¯s body, Aurum.¡±

    The divine beast tossed the book aside. ¡°What of it? Is our great paladin unable to control his lust?¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re acting like your brother,¡± Sir Rodrick said, crossing his arms.

    Aurum leapt to his feet. ¡°Do not bring him into this.¡±

    ¡°Then put some clothes on. It¡¯s not your body that¡¯s being disgraced, it¡¯s your unwitting servant. Do what¡¯s right and then tell me what brought you here.¡±

    The angel stifled further complaint and pulled down a dressing gown barely fit for walking through halls. Wrapping it around the prostitute¡¯s body, he spoke as though no cross words at all had been exchanged. ¡°What do you think about the situation with Vassermark?¡±

    ¡°We¡¯ve always been their friend. A few rising powers making trouble won¡¯t bring us to war. Even if some in the city want proper independence, it won¡¯t happen.¡±

    ¡°The crown prince of Giordana is one calling for independence,¡± Aurum said, turning back to the paladin.

    ¡°He was,¡± Sir Rodrick corrected. ¡°Until the Canta boy¡¯s rebellion was crucified up and down the coast for miles. Vassermark is big enough to devour a city like us and come out stronger for it. We¡¯re a granary for them as they focus on Skaldheim.¡±

    Aurum said, ¡°Find the lout. You¡¯ll need him on your side. War is coming, I assure you of that. Sir Rodrick, in the name of my father, Helios, I am ordering you into independent action, on your own initiative. Take whatever resources you need, leave nothing untapped. Vassermark is bringing an army north from Puerto Vida to put down any rebellious forces in the area and I need you to rebel. Draw out the men leading the army and kill them. The official commander is a noble named Lucius von Solhart. I think you¡¯ll struggle, but will ultimately be able to best him. I care little for his fate. With him is an old man¨Cyou¡¯ll recognize the demon when you see him¨Cknown as Amurabi.¡±

    The paladin scowled. ¡°You expect me to kill an old man?¡±

    Sir Rodrick, you are hereby excommunicated from the church until such time as you deliver me his head. If you cannot, then the world will burn.¡±

    The paladin staggered back at the words, but resisted the urge to ease himself into one of the reading chairs. ¡°Excommunicated?¡±

    Aurum turned away from him. ¡°Unfortunately, to protect the church, we must denounce you, or Vassermark will have standing to root us out entirely and spread their own faith. While they are but one army of a few thousand we have the best chance of killing him. You¡¯re the strongest knight we have, Rodrick. What¡¯s more, I¡¯ve hired a mercenary for Aillesterra to help you.¡±

    ¡°A jungle savage?¡±

    Aurum laughed. ¡°The Cyclops is from the central kingdoms actually.¡±

    <hr>

    <ol>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">A deeper population analysis would reveal that almost every refugee from the age of the King In Yellow had married into the local population. Their ethnic stock was diluted into the city and most had found employment in the old city. Those living in the outer reaches were primarily recent arrivals creating a fiction of centuries long oppression to explain the obvious disparity between generational wealth and poor wanderers.</li>

    </ol>

 5-4 - Tolzis Promises

    There was one person amongst the many thousands who found the idea of arriving at Hearth¡¯s Bay for the harvest festival almost unbearable. She had been commanded to appear by a man she barely knew. Barely any explanation was given. The letter gave a meager promise that her expenses would be taken care of. It is likely that she would not have gone at all if not for the fact that working for the young son of Duke Feugard bordered on unbearable.

    The Misty Isles were rapidly collapsing under his watch, with growing discontent in the main city. He had tried to repeat Lucius¡¯ gambit with the gold mine, only to learn that releasing prisoners into essentially a foreign land fomented nothing but trouble. In just a few months of management, everything Lucius had built up stood on the verge of collapse, save for the plantations. Those survived his management simply by relative independence. The ignorance of youth struggled to cross from one island to the next and the follies were contained to the port.

    Which unfortunately included the gold processing factory.

    Thus, Kajsa found herself standing upon the deck of a mercantile ship, gripping her little parchment and staring at the milling crowd. Bodies flowed like a churning mudslide, shoving crates of goods deeper into the city. Somewhere in the walls beyond was her previous employer. With her childhood memories still sealed, she found herself holding nothing more than the hope that his second summons would go as well as his first, that she would find a future with him, after having left her notes for her successors.

    It did little to bolster her courage to march into the very seat of her former faith, until a skaldish man cupped his hands around his mouth. ¡°Kajsa! Girl!¡± Leomund Tolzi hollered as he waved from atop a mooring post. One of the dockmasters tried to push his way over to scold him, but struggled as much with the crowd as any visitor to the city.

    The alchemist picked up her little trunk of luggage and hurried down the gangplank. The grain merchants had acquainted her with some of the latest fashion, and prompted her to travel light, abandoning the southern clothes that wouldn¡¯t suit the looming winter. ¡°A familiar face, you couldn¡¯t imagine my relief!¡± she said as he hopped from one railing post to the next before landing on the pier beside her.

    The northern berserker grinned. ¡°Somebody had to fetch you. The city has gone mad. If something were to happen to you, the young lion would rip the city apart in a rage.¡±

    Kajsa assumed that was a joke and laughed as he took her luggage and threw it over his shoulder. ¡°I hear he has quite a reputation for war now.¡±

    ¡°He should have a reputation for theatrics. Come along now. We¡¯ll get you to the inn in time to change and do your womanly things to be pretty. You¡¯ve a part to play tonight!¡±

    Struggling to keep up beside Leomund, she asked, ¡°What do you mean? What am I to do? The letter said nothing!¡±

    ¡°Little enough, little enough!¡± Leomund said as he clapped a free hand around her shoulder to pull her against his side. ¡°The king plans to hear the boy¡¯s story tonight at the feast. You¡¯re to corroborate events, you see?¡±

    ¡°Yes,¡± she said, although she did not.

    Leomond laughed and pulled her onto a sidestreet. It was the kind maneuver that could get a vulnerable girl killed, but it was also the kind of place that made a sneaktheif think twice when sizing up Leomund. He was a true Grendel at this time, and would have welcomed a backalley murder to slake his throat.

    That impulse he kept hidden. ¡°Your hair is different.¡±

    Kajsa hung her head. Some of her hair had fallen from the tight bun and draped down to her cheek. She twisted it around her finger, looking at the transition from black to blonde. ¡°I can¡¯t imagine what happened. Maybe something in the food? I certainly didn¡¯t mean for this to happen. It¡¯s not dyed or bleached.¡±

    ¡°It looks good on you. Did you know Lucius made his girl dye her hair?¡±

    Kajsa perked up, her mind leaving the danger of the city. ¡°Miss Canta?¡±

    The grendel laughed. ¡°Soon to be Misses Solhart, you know? They¡¯re set to make it official this winter. But yes, her scarlet had to be hidden. You should have seen her. She was ready to rip the boy¡¯s scalp off.¡±

    <hr>

    ¡°I am literally surrounded by people able to protect me. It¡¯s you that should dye your hair! You¡¯re the one they already tried to assassinate!¡± Aisha shouted as she backed herself into a corner of the bathhouse. They were a day¡¯s march north of Puerto Vida. Lucius had determined that taking a barge against the current wasn¡¯t fast enough to justify the danger of so many troops being unable to maneuver. The key reason was of course the chronic seasickness of the wastelanders.

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    Lucius snarled, but he could make little progress toward her. The inlaid marble of the ancient bathhouse was polished smooth by the centuries and he could find few places to plant his wooden leg for traction. They had put the army down for the night in the sandy park outside the ostensible abbey of the Shepherd, but the place had little religious aspect to it. In fact, the connection was originally urban legend. One of the Yellow King¡¯s grandfathers had slipped in that very bathhouse and snapped his neck. It might have been a successful assassination attempt for all I know. No serious historian looked into Giordanan politics and survived long.

    His ghost most certainly did not haunt the place however.

    ¡°You¡¯re carrying our child. You¡¯re a bit more vulnerable than I am.¡±

    She scoffed. ¡°Peg leg.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s regrowing!¡±

    The two of them were in naught but small clothes, a privilege of leadership, but they weren¡¯t quite alone. Lupa was the first to stick her head in, striding through the steam with naked confidence that could only be born of a life among the thoughtless.(1) ¡°Shall I grab her?¡±

    ¡°Please,¡± Lucius said.

    ¡°That¡¯s not fair! And come on, there are non-permanent hair dyes you know! Why not mix up some fire ash. That washes out you know!¡±

    Lucius scoffed back at her. ¡°So that when spies see a woman with black hair but red roots they wont¡¯ immediately realize you¡¯re someone being kept hidden? This is temporary too, in a sense.¡±

    ¡°You got it from Amurabi! I¡¯d sooner trust coal soot, thank you.¡±

    Lucius paused as he signaled Lupa to close in along the opposite wall. Doubt assailed him. His hesitation was like a gap in military formation.

    Aisha darted between him and Lupa, diving head first into the bath. She surfaced like a river crocodile, pacing away.

    Lucius took Lupa by the arm and stopped her from following suit. ¡°Fine. Fine, we¡¯ll do it your way,¡± he said. ¡°Help her dry off, would you?¡± he asked, leaving the two women for the moment. He exited the bath with naught but a towel around his body, wobbling on his peg leg. The stump had regenerated more since it had been sized for him, and he was wondering if he needed a carpenter to hack off the bottom when someone joined him in the dressing room of the bath.

    The building had guards stationed around it, but they had been instructed to allow Leomund through. What caught the boy most off guard was that the northman didn¡¯t make a quip about the antics. The shouts had surely echoed enough for the berserker to hear, but the Skaldheimer approached somberly.

    ¡°What is it?¡±

    ¡°Was it worth it? Going to the desert.¡±

    The boy turned his gaze away, maintaining a stoic composure as he dressed. ¡°We¡¯ll know when we reach the city, with the bishop in tow.¡±

    ¡°It cost my brother his life.¡±

    ¡°He lost it fighting. It could happen to any of us.¡±

    ¡°Not to you,¡± Leomund said.

    Lucius made a point of smacking his prosthetic leg on the stone as he turned around, wet clothes stuck to his flesh. ¡°I¡¯m aware, or would you like me to remind you of the various ways I can fail to die?¡±

    Leomund crossed his arms as he said, ¡°I understand that you weren¡¯t given much time to prepare for the battles down south. This will be different. Diplomacy is even an option. You¡¯ll be the one picking the fields of battle and how.¡±

    ¡°Ambushes aside,¡± Lucius said.

    ¡°Aye, ambushes aside. But what that means is the decisions you make will be getting people killed by your command.¡±

    Lucius understood the northman was testing his resolve, checking what cracks had formed if any. The damage had not been to his resolve, only in his confidence with me. ¡°Come with me. I have something to show you.¡± The two of them left the bathhouse and strode through the complex to the sturdy building he had taken as his temporary residence. Along the way, he gave a few orders to prepare the materials that would be needed for disguises, but soon had brought Leomund back to privacy, to where his one trunk of personal belongings lay.

    He fetched from it the vial that Anubi had given him, the mind-opening drug of grieving he called a birra da cimitero. ¡°Should be as potent as anything Amurabi could conjure up, if not more,¡± he said, handing the sealed vial over.

    Leomund held it to the light of the window. ¡°Poison?¡±

    ¡°Alcohol, he said. A fine material to toast Nikolai. Properly.¡±

    ¡°Then we should drink tonight!¡± the northman said and wrapped his mighty hand around the stopper.

    ¡°No,¡± Lucius said. ¡°I¡¯m offering that as payment. It¡¯s very rare. I need you to do something for me. I¡¯ve asked Aisha to slip away and she¡¯ll need someone to keep her safe.¡±

    ¡°Safe from what, boy?¡± Leomund asked, returning the vial.

    ¡°Everything. And let me ask you something. Do you work for Amurabi? Or do you work for yourself? Is there still anything he can offer you?¡±

    Leomund put his finger to his lips. Years had taught him to always assume I was listening, only recently had he begun to worry about that. They couldn¡¯t forge a contract between one another, but each could act in their own personal interest, could make assumptions about the other after years of shared history.

    ¡°I¡¯ll keep your girl safe, boy.¡±

    <hr>

    <ol>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">While she did her best to hide it over the following days, the steam of the bathhouse waged war upon her immune system and laid her low with illness. She was but one of many minor victims as the wastelanders experienced common, filthy life.</li>

    </ol>

 5-5 - The Looting Of An Abbey

    Mustering an army in a few days is a monumental task, especially when it has to be done under false pretenses and with false aims. Because of the concerns that Vassermark would invade, much of the city¡¯s armed forces had already been called up from reserves. This gave Sir Rodrick a trained force to work with, but the provisions were set for a siege instead of a marching campaign.

    His first lie was that the army would go south to act as an escort for the bishop.

    This gave him a pretext to sort the army between those that would most likely stick with him and those that would desert. The faint of heart were left to protect the city as a police force. He made every show that it was an honorable task to go out on foot, to sleep beneath flimsy tents and chew on hardtack rations, because it served the church.

    This was the hand that distracts, as a stage magician would put it. The night before his coalition of duped soldiers were set to ride south, Sir Rodrick called upon his closest friends. Ten of them all together, in the dead of night and clad in mottled black like the vagabonds they hunted, stalked through the lower city.

    The Crown Prince of Giordana, legally speaking, was a known agitator and kept on a short leash by the government of Jeameaux. While he made grand overtures about restoring the beauty of his homeland, the only thing he was actually interested in was the establishment of a private museum of Giordana¡¯s cultural past and present. His name gave authority to more ambitious men beneath him, but the central kingdoms had little to worry about when they were the ones controlling the prince¡¯s vices.

    The private fact of Jeameaux was that the prince lived upon a stipend given by the city council after accruing insurmountable debt. They let him speak, but he stalled any real action by his companions. The situation wasn¡¯t perfect, but it meant that when Sir Rodrick sought him out, he knew exactly where the gluttonous lout could be found.

    A dozen underpaid courtesans were sent running into the night as they dragged Ismail al-Farouq into a waiting carriage along with three of his friends. The man howled and his gambling friends made legal threats until one of Sir Rodrick¡¯s friends crushed the man¡¯s nose by pinching it.

    The paladin felt no remorse for the action. The Giordanan men were a sorry excuse for exiled nobles and as he told them that night, ¡°Your people have need of your services. This is not an option.¡±

    Ismail proved thoroughly weak to coercion and so it was that the next day, he sat upon a draft horse beside Sir Rodrick, waving to men and spreading the word that he was joining the diplomatic contingent. Great things would come, he was sure.

    That first night, Sir Rodrick led his army off the river road. He detoured them an hour east with the explanation that they would make camp upon a friendly estate rather than putting out the farmers. This estate proved to be East Cross Abbey, a religious institute of little note except that it had been prepared by Aurum for Sir Rodrick to bloodlessly ransack.

    And so, that night, the three heads of the Jeameaux Rebellion came together. Ismail kept up the polite airs exactly until the moment the oaken door shut and sealed the candlelit study with him and Sir Rodrick inside. Then he swelled up with indignation, his ruddy cheeks darkening as he threw his hands at the paladin. ¡°Absurd! Rotten. Horrible! I cannot believe you did this to me. I don¡¯t even know how to ride a horse, you know that? My ass hurts so much I can barely stand. You make a fool out of me! I demand, utterly demand, you explain yourself.¡±

    ¡°In due time,¡± the paladin said, giving the prince a shove toward the only seat in the study that could support Ismail¡¯s girth. His attention was on the woman already seated in the room. She was sipping wine beside the fire, her booted feet kicked up upon a desk. There was no mistaking her identity, not with the jagged scar across her face, barely covered by a leather eyepatch. ¡°Cyclops.¡±

    ¡°Paladin,¡± the Aillesterran commander said with a grin that bordered on a sneer. She had shorn off all femininity from her body save the basic gifts of womanhood. Her hair was short cut, barely long enough to tie together behind her head, forming a brunette flower.

    ¡°And who¡¯s this?¡± Ismail demanded.

    Cyclops laughed. ¡°You haven¡¯t told him much, have you?¡±

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    Rodrick ignored the offer of wine and sat down across the fire from the Aillesterran. ¡°Ismail, Vasermark is in the process of absorbing half the world. Not just Jeameaux but Giordana too.¡±

    Cyclops said, ¡°And there¡¯s no reason they wouldn¡¯t sweep across Aillesterra, too. They¡¯d have the place almost completely cut off.¡±

    The crown prince had no compunction against drinking, quickly filling himself a goblet as he asked, ¡°So? What do you expect me to do about it?¡±

    ¡°Be a prince, for starters. Your people rally around you, whether you want them to or not.¡±

    Ismail scoffed. ¡°I¡¯m nobody, you know that.¡±

    ¡°Two thousand fighting men, plus followers, are marching north as we speak,¡± Cyclops said. She took her boots off the table and rose. Through a combination of her own height and Ismail¡¯s lacking stature, she just managed to loom over him. ¡°One third of their number are your countrymen that just maybe can be stolen off of the Gambling Lion if it¡¯s you standing across from them.¡±

    ¡°The butcher of Rackvidd?¡±

    Rodrick snorted. ¡°That rebellion was no butchery, and it was what the mountain folk deserved.¡±

    Cyclops stepped back. ¡°Are you a religious man?¡±

    ¡°As much as any other,¡± Ismail answered, dancing around the fact that he hadn¡¯t seen the inside of a temple in years.

    ¡°Would you like to meet one of the Shepherd¡¯s angels? They¡¯ve ensorceled one of them into serving them.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s impossible!¡± Ismail quailed.

    Rodrick frowned. ¡°The world is filled with sleeping angels, forgotten beasts. They¡¯re dangerous. And any that would try to command such creatures are both crazed and dangerous. Dealing with that threat is the holy task we¡¯ve been given.¡±

    ¡°By whom?¡±

    ¡°Aurum himself,¡± Rodrick answered.

    ¡°Relax,¡± Cyclops said, leaning on his shoulder with a smirk. ¡°All you have to do is peel off some of their army. The paladin here will have to do the real work.¡±

    Rodrick grunted. ¡°And what will you be doing? I didn¡¯t see any army waiting to join us.¡±

    ¡°I brought a half dozen of my best men. Trust me, they¡¯ll be the most valuable men in your entire army, dear paladin. Their stigmata are unmatched. It¡¯s the wizard Amurabi that should concern you. Tell me, if I said you had to kill Aurum, how would you do it?¡±

    ¡°Blasphemy.¡±

    She sneered. ¡°It¡¯s a hypothetical. Come on now, put your mind to it. Do you think stabbing him with a sword would be enough?¡±

    ¡°If I got to his true body, perhaps. I wouldn¡¯t expect to reach it, however. That would be like charging at the sun. I¡¯d be destroyed.¡±

    Cyclops drank her wine and nodded. ¡°An apt comparison. At least on the question of his true body we don¡¯t have to worry. The man walks around like any other. You make a good point, however. You would be killed before even getting close enough to threaten him, much less injure him. That¡¯s why we¡¯ll need another.¡±

    ¡°Who?¡±

    She laughed. ¡°Patience, patience. That question doesn¡¯t even matter so long as he has an entire army around him. The Gambling Lion will march north. We¡¯ll escape east. They¡¯ll plant the cute little bishop back on her throne and although she¡¯ll ostensibly side with Vassermark, there are only so many resources that can be given to a foreign army. That is the time we have to prepare, to make sure we can force him into a conflict on our terms. We¡¯ll have to hit the westerners where it hurts.¡±

    ¡°Yes, I was thinking about that on the ride. It wouldn¡¯t do much if we simply became a group of bandits. The army would collapse. Sieging the city is also no good. They¡¯d just retreat to the old city walls. We must draw them out, and there¡¯s only one good way I could think of.¡±

    ¡°And that would be?¡±

    ¡°The grain,¡± he said. ¡°It¡¯s the whole reason they¡¯re invading. If they don¡¯t secure our harvest, there won¡¯t be enough food for their people come winter. They¡¯d be too vulnerable to Skaldheim. We take the grain, and they must deal with us.¡±

    Ismail had retreated to the window, clutching his drink. ¡°Wouldn''t they try to barter first? Diplomacy always comes before war.¡±

    ¡°So what if they do?¡± Cyclops responded as she returned to her seat. ¡°We can just reject their diplomacy. The point is to force a fight, isn¡¯t it?¡±

    Rodrick stroked his chin, eyes to the floor. ¡°It will slow us down, make it hard to maneuver. I don¡¯t suppose one of your stigmatas could help with that?¡±

    ¡°Sorry, pally. I didn¡¯t bring that kind of help.¡±

    Ismail scoffed. ¡°Then how are we supposed to fight a war?¡±

    ¡°Carefully and proactively. Now, Cyclops, tell us. How are we supposed to kill this wizard? Who is it that we need?¡±

    Cyclops grinned and entwined her fingers beneath her chin. ¡°Come now, you can guess, can¡¯t you? You would get killed before you could get close enough so we just need somebody that can¡¯t get killed. The man we need to turn against Amurabi is none other than the Gambling Lion himself?¡±

    ¡°Impossible.¡±

    ¡°Not impossible. It¡¯s just a matter of incentives, offering him something the wizard can¡¯t, and then turning the two against each other. You just worry about the war and I¡¯ll worry about that, okay?¡±

 5-6 - A Political Dance

    Hidden away in an empty bedroom within the castle, Aisha clapped her hands in rhythm, barking out orders to her dance pupils. Lucius had learned the steps long ago, but thought it prudent to remind himself. His partner was lacking.

    Lupa misstepped constantly, throwing her feet wide and sturdy. Her instincts revolted at being led through a dance, at having her weight tossed and spun by Lucius¡¯ whims. Every time she resisted the movement, the boy faltered, the dance careened, and the redhead snarled. ¡°Stop acting like a man!¡±

    The wastelander snapped back, ¡°This is a stupid dance. Why would a man want such a flimsy waif of a woman that flutters in his grasp? Such a woman is worthless!¡±

    Lucius rolled his eyes. ¡°Do I need to remind you about my own preferences? Come on, this isn¡¯t a mating ritual for us, it¡¯s for politics.¡±

    The redhead rolled her eyes. ¡°Do you have to be so blunt about it? It¡¯s bad enough you asked me to help you impress other women.¡±

    ¡°Other women like Felicia, whom last I checked you thought of as a friend.¡±

    ¡°If it was just Felicia, I wouldn¡¯t mind. Don¡¯t act like you aren¡¯t trying to dance with the princess.¡±

    Lucius spun his back to the women, walking to get a flagon of water. ¡°That will be a matter for her brother. Her older brother, Fredrich. Gabriel sees me as something like competition, but he¡¯s just the spare. It¡¯s Fredrich I¡¯m worried about. He still hasn¡¯t chosen allegiance between Ashe and Feugard. But¡­¡±

    Lupa huffed, tying her blouse up tight around her breasts, in the way she was accustomed to. ¡°But, if the airhead asked you, you wouldn¡¯t say no, would you?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯d be quite the faux pas,¡± Lucius said with a smirk as he toasted his water to the ladies. I hadn¡¯t told the boy at this time, but the chances of her asking him to a dance were minimal. He was still, officially, not even the heir of his own family, less than a count. The difference in their stations prevented anything more than friendship.

    There were other ladies I expected to reach out to him.

    Someone knocked on the door before Aisha could resume the lesson, then the handle rattled. As Lucius was interposing himself between the doorway and the women, a man said, ¡°Hello, announcing myself if you please. Tis I, your one time traveling companion and possibly your guide to the festival. Once more at your service, Matteo Montisferro.¡±

    The man had cleaned up well in the last year, and put on some muscle. The disparity between him and Lucius remained, but the nobleman had no reason for shame in his brazen yet friendly attitude. Aisha recognized him at once, though her small talk barely kept his attention off Lupa. Eventually, he had to clear his throat, ¡°I¡¯m glad I caught you early enough in the day, Lucius. Preparing for the dance, I see. In truth, I was sent here on behalf of my lovely fiancee to extend an invitation to our table tonight.¡±

    With diplomacy thrust at him unexpectedly, Lucius gave up on the dance practice. He gestured to Lupa and she set about getting herself water and taking a place beside Aisha, where her weapon rested on the open window sill. The boy turned his attention on Matteo. He grinned.

    ¡°A welcome invitation. I was hesitant to lay my fate at the feet of the usher.¡±

    Matteo bowed. ¡°Pleased to offer you such salvation. But, of course, if the king calls upon you, it would be your duty to attend. You will not be disappointed in dining with us, though. I  assure you upon my honor. There is simply one little matter I must confirm.¡±

    Lucius cocked an eyebrow. ¡°And what would that be?¡±

    Matteo straightened up and cleared his throat. ¡°Two of the table guests would be my older brother and his wife. You may not realize this, but they are wed in the fashion of the central kingdoms. This has given her a certain set of prejudices and concerns, you understand yes?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ve been all over the world, Montisferro. I¡¯m well aware that we are the unusual ones along the edge of the world.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s not quite the polyamory that is the problem, Lucius. If you don¡¯t mind me calling you that of course¡­ The concern is certain rumors that I need to hear from your own mouth are false.¡±

    Lucius crossed his arms and narrowed his gaze. ¡°And what rumors would those be?¡±

    ¡°It wasn¡¯t actually you that plundered East Cross Abbey was it? That is nothing more than the fog of war, a misdirection spread by enemies, yes?¡±

    ¡°Of course not,¡± Lucius said, shaking his head as Matteo visibly relaxed.

    ¡°Wonderful! Wonderful, it¡¯s just that yous ee, there would be quite the tense situation if you had committed such a blasphemy. You understand don¡¯t you? I just had to hear from you what actually happened. I know my brother would have understood. Even the worst interpretation was that you took supplies from the enemy during wartime!¡±

    Lucius scoffed as Aisha and Lupa gathered their effects. He said, ¡°The abbey was already looted dry when I got there.¡±

    ~~~

    There is a subtle difference to a holy place when it becomes unhallowed. Most don¡¯t notice it. Lucius only noticed it after it was pointed out to him, but that was because he was distracted by the creeping sense of ambush. The bishop was the one to recognize it at once.

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    Only a single day¡¯s march from the city, the escort army had elected to stop at the abbey so that a rider could be sent ahead with the news. Events had to be planned, spectacles to be built. The living angel was returning to her seat of power, alive and well with success of a sort to be shared. They were not under a pressed march to secure military fortifications, the journey was as yet diplomatic.

    Even though Lucius knew the ultimate fate would be conflict.

    ¡°Shouldn¡¯t there be more people?¡± Aria asked as she walked up beside Lucius. She traveled along with the doctor and Miss Lynnfield, for she had at this point been completely deprived of her own handmaidens. Not that all of them had been corrupted, but those that were still loyal I had sent back to the Solhart family estate. False memories implanted. The isolation had affected her demeanor less than expected.

    ¡°I¡¯ve never been here before, but the problem is the women,¡± Lucius said, eyes crawling over the network of hamlets that supported the abbey. Field upon field of vegetables spread between the hills and far too many were fallow feedstock for old animals. Those signs pointed to poverty, but the condition of the houses was too good. Roofs were all freshly thatched and wood supplies plentiful.

    ¡°Excuse me?¡± Aria asked, thrusting her face before him. ¡°What is this about women?¡±

    Lucius pushed her aside. ¡°There¡¯s too many of them. I¡¯m counting three women to every man. It looks like a very zealous conscription passed through here. Men who would leave their wives behind? Knowing that an army of foreigners is on its way? That¡¯s wrong.¡±

    ¡°So the problem is the men, then!¡±

    He rolled his eyes. ¡°The lack of them, yes. Now, I suggest you behave and get yourself a proper room or you¡¯re going to be sleeping in a tent again. Or would you rather argue with me about semantics?¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t tempt me to claim sanctuary here,¡± Aria said.

    He swept his arm around the place. ¡°And who would be here to protect you? I¡¯m going to find whoever is in charge,¡± he said before heading to the main temple. He found Golden bickering with a priest old and hard of hearing who was refusing him entrance to the private cloyster. The former angel couldn¡¯t prove his identity for the obvious reason that he no longer was an angel. In fact, I would have preferred that he stay in the camp. He was running the risk that somebody might recognize the body he had assumed.

    ¡°Are you the Gambling Lion?¡± a lad of less than ten years asked. He was dressed in the simple garb of an acolyte, either an orphan or a son of one of the clergy.

    ¡°What gave that away?¡± Lucius asked.

    He had meant the question to be rhetorical, but the lad answered. ¡°Muscular, blond, never bows his head, acts like the world is going to stab him in the back. She also said you like to stare at women¡¯s breasts but there being no women here I don¡¯t know about that.¡±

    Lucius knelt down and grimaced. He grabbed the boy by the collar and crushed the fabric in his fist. ¡°Now just who is this woman who described me like that?¡±

    The boy paled and stammered. ¡°I don¡¯t know, Mister Gambling Lion Lord Sir. Nobody used her name. Just called her a monster.¡±

    He didn¡¯t hurt the boy, but he didn¡¯t release him either. ¡°She was here to meet with the head priest, I take it?¡±

    The lad¡¯s head bobbled. ¡°That¡¯s who I¡¯m supposed to take you to. He just went with the lady bishop.¡±

    ¡°Next time, make up a lie that flatters the person, kid. You¡¯ll go farther in life,¡± Lucius said as he released the lad.

    ¡°Father says lying¡¯s no good, sir.¡±

    ¡°Ask your father if he would have said what you said, but do that on your own time. Take me to the head priest.¡±

    The man in charge of East Cross Abbey was originally a goldsmith. Decades ago, he found employment gilding the holy texts and immaculate copies of various religious works with the abbey and his secular life transformed into a proper vocation. His skill working with gold came from his stigmata. The effect had many incarnations and his was notably limited, given that it could only help restore the former shape of elemental gold, so it was rather unremarkable for me at the time.

    Priest Forgeron was in effect a direct report to Jean, her being the local bishop. When Lucius was shown into the old man¡¯s office, he found the living angel at his desk with her head bowed.

    ¡°What did I miss?¡± Lucius asked.

    The priest gave a weak smile. ¡°You must be young Solhart.¡±

    ¡°People keep recognizing me,¡± he said, but his attention was on Jean. She appeared lost in shock. ¡°Enlighten me?¡±

    She opened her hands and shook her head. ¡°I never would have thought he would do something like this?¡± She lifted her head and met his questioning gaze. ¡°The Abbey has been stripped bare. Provisions. Men. They even took some of the books from the library. I just can¡¯t believe he¨CSorry, Rodrick¨Cwould do this. It¡¯s an act of open rebellion. Not even a pretense of defensive war. He skipped the channels. He simply marshaled an army and set out with it like he¡¯s some conquering king.¡±

    The boy had an idea what kind of man would be pitted against him. He chose his words delicately. ¡°This Rodrick, I think I recognize the name.¡±

    ¡°He¡¯s the one I left in charge of the city.¡±

    ¡°Is he a priest?¡±

    Forgeron winced. ¡°He¡¯s a paladin. I imagine you know relatively little of the church structure. Surrounded as we are on all sides by different faiths, it came to be critical that we have certain defenses of a military sort. The Truth-Seekers, and the Shields. Inquisitors and Paladins respectively.¡±

    Jean leaned back in the chair and stared at the ceiling. ¡°He¡¯s a good man, but perhaps sitting behind the walls was too much for him. He must think that it¡¯s better to ride out and fight off your countrymen at the border than to let them plunder the fields.¡±

    ¡°If you think he¡¯s doing this at behest of the people¡­ surely you can summon him back as soon as you return to the city?¡±

    The bishop nodded. ¡°I hope so. I want to believe he¡¯s a good man. We come for peace between Jeameux and Vassermark. I don¡¯t understand why he would come south to meet us and then flee west though.¡±

    I could have told them exactly what the man was planning, for it was obvious enough to me. However, I had taken myself away from the war to see to other matters of preparation. My pupil had to deduce it for himself. ¡°Priest, I presume you¡¯ll cooperate?¡±

    ¡°With all that I may,¡± the old man said. I still wonder how he managed such calm deception. Sometimes the old simply care little for their own lives and may play with them as a skilled gambler plays with someone else¡¯s money.

    ¡°I need a map and I need answers. If I¡¯m to understand Rodrick¡¯s actions, I¡¯ll need to understand Jeameaux.¡±

    The old man nodded. ¡°That will be in the library. I imagine you¡¯ll be able to help me with another matter. A trifling thing really. Before the lady bishop arrived, one of your subordinates rode on ahead. He¡¯s lodged himself at the door to the library demanding access to it and making himself quite the nuisance¡­¡±

    Lucius'' grin vanished. ¡°Sacerdote¡­¡±

 5-7 - Sibling Plunging Into Sibling

    The arrival of the army to Jeameax came with much affair. Parades and minor feasting, as well as courtiers come for the young bishop¡¯s favor much like any noble lady returning after long to her domain. At this day, the paladin¡¯s betrayal was not yet known to the public, so his absence merely caused confusion. Many speculated that he had been dispatched to respond to Vassermark, but there was no good explanation for Lucius¡¯ presence in the city.

    Tension drew across Jeameaux. While it was true that the paladin had taken away a large armed force, one must always remember that a trained army is but a small fraction of a population. The men left behind in the city subconsciously felt a duty of protection for all the mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters left behind by those in the field.

    Lucius and his army were permitted into the city by the blessing of Jean, but they knew they had not conquered the city. Even a small riot could overwhelm them. Under such threat, unspoken as it was, Lucius instigated a harsh garrison procedure. He busied his men with cleaning and preparing supplies while posting more trusted soldiers as perimeter guards to keep the army from carousing.

    When the sun set upon the city, Lucius sat on a balcony overlooking the smaller of the two namesake lakes. Lakelight Temple had a swath of rooms fit for pilgrims, many of which had been given to the army for the night. Even the premier room on the third floor of the wing had barren furnishings. Chairs were of simple wood, and the mattress of the bed was a few layers of rough fabric topped by woolen sheets. The only thing of beauty was an oil painting depicting one of the key miracles of the church, the Restoration Of The King(1).

    Lucius was no pilgrim. He did not turn to the art to contemplate the thorny relationship between duty and virtue. While his eyes stared at the waters before him, his brow knitted tight with thought. Foul ideas of bloodshed manifested within his skull. He had already seen what fragmentary cannon shot could do to loose infantry.

    He wondered what it could do if a riotous mob did rise up, untrained but violent men pressed shoulder to shoulder within tight streets.

    His portents of the future so occupied him that the opening of his chamber door did not even rouse him. The padding of feet drew his attention as his visitor approached, but he expected Aisha to steal in with him. She, along with Lupa, had thought the boarding insufficient and demanded of him enough coin to pay for a proper inn.

    The woman who joined him was Aria, now dressed in a cotton robe with a shawl wrapped around her shoulders. ¡°I can join my brother, can¡¯t I?¡± she asked as she stepped out on the little balcony with him.

    ¡°I¡¯m surprised you aren¡¯t trying to claim sanctuary,¡± he said, gesturing to the chair beside him.

    She sat down with a huff. ¡°The bishop approves of your lie, so what would that accomplish?¡±

    ¡°This is the furthest you¡¯ve ever been from home, is it not?¡±

    Aria nodded, her gaze on him rather than the twilight. ¡°I was only supposed to go as far as Rackvidd, but circumstances have pulled me halfway across the world.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re welcome, but it¡¯s not halfway. You¡¯d have to make it at least to the grand cathedral to be halfway. Unfortunately, your future travels won¡¯t be very picturesque. If Rodrick goes for the grain, we¡¯ll be chasing him through mountains and foothills. I once had to take an army through a mine shaft to outmaneuver my enemies and I can only imagine what I¡¯ll have to do now.¡±

    ¡°And then?¡± she asked.

    ¡°And then what?¡±

    ¡°When you¡¯ve defeated this rebel, what will you do then? Attend the king¡¯s festival? Going to falsely marry a princess?¡±

    Lucius smirked. ¡°Falsely? Everything I¡¯ve accomplished has been my own. What falsehood would there be?¡±

    ¡°You aren¡¯t a Solhart.¡±

    He snorted. ¡°Lineage matters less than you think it does, at least for men. And as for marrying, my first wife will be Aisha. My first child won¡¯t be a bastard. I doubt the princess would want to be a second wife, even if legally speaking we could change the order.¡±

    ¡°Would you tell me about yourself?¡±

    He cocked his head and studied her face. She had something about her expression reminiscent of an artist trying to take to memory all that they saw. ¡°No,¡± he said. ¡°I don¡¯t think I shall. I am your brother and if you don¡¯t know my history that is a fault of yours.¡±

    ¡°At least tell me why you are so driven to do all this? Money? Love? Revenge?¡±

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    ¡°None of those,¡± he said, reclining his head and closing his eyes.

    ¡°Fear then?¡±

    If he had laughed at the idea, Aria might have been but a smidgen of trouble going forward. Alas, he took her question seriously and left in her suspicion. ¡°Have you ever spoken to someone who said they could predict the weather? Perhaps someone with an old injury. ¡®Rain¡¯s coming, I can feel it in my knee,¡¯ they might say. But, they only know the subtle events that foretell a storm, not quite the when or the how, let alone the why. In some areas, the mountains for example, you might have very predictable patterns, where wet air is pushed up to the heavens and it pours out across the land. Some stretches of Giordana live by the subterranean flow of water which comes in seasons, directly causing later rains. The storms themselves are chaos, however. Influenced by a million million tiny details.¡±

    ¡°Is that what you are? A storm?¡±

    ¡°No. Storms are war. People are the raindrops. Life is even more complicated than the weather. Every life pushing and pulling on the lives around them across layers of power. When a king sneezes, the poor starve, ever heard that saying? If you had ever in your life been truly powerless, you would understand how carelessly some people treat their influence and you would be terrified of it. You would do whatever you had to in order to become the one who sneezes rather than the one who starves.¡±

    She reclined to the opposite side of her chair with a coy smile. ¡°You expect me to believe an unkillable man is afraid?¡±

    He matched her smile. ¡°Do you want to kill me? You¡¯d be doing me a favor, really.¡±

    ¡°Poor taste, when you¡¯re wearing my brother¡¯s face.¡±

    Lucius unbuttoned his linen shirt and bared his breast. He showed her the sigil upon his chest and tapped it. ¡°Right here is my heart. Here and here are the ribs. Why don¡¯t you put a knife right here? I¡¯ll give you mine even.¡±

    She stood up, eyeing him carefully as he held out a small dagger. She took it from him but glanced into the shadows of his room.

    ¡°There¡¯s nobody here but us. I won¡¯t even make a sound if you do it right.¡±

    Aria said, ¡°Normally, you would frame somebody for a lesser crime.¡±

    He laughed. ¡°Do you think I¡¯ll actually die from being stabbed? Here. How about I help you? I think you¡¯ve surmised this already, but I have your brother¡¯s face because we got him killed. I¡¯m not saying he didn¡¯t get what he deserved, or that he would have lived a long life without us, but¨C¡±

    She slid the knife through his heart in a rough stab. Not elegant, it sawed through the boy¡¯s meat and left a gushing trickle down his chest as every convulsion of his heart ripped it asunder on the blade. He let out a cough, sputtering blood through his pierced lung.

    He said, ¡°I thought you¡¯d hesitate more than that.¡±

    ¡°Maybe you should be afraid more,¡± she said, and left him on the balcony to die.

    Of course, he didn¡¯t die. I was the one that had to show up to his room in the dead of night and wrench the blade free from his heart. Then, quick as I could before his heart hammered once more, I had to cut the prosthetic off his stump leg as flesh regenerated. Life surged in him valiantly, flushing out old injuries and restoring his flesh to his image. While the one death wasn¡¯t enough to put a foot back on him, we could at least hide the wound in a boot, and another such regeneration could be done as soon as he had properly feasted.

    While Lucius was still coughing blood out, he said something most regrettable. ¡°I think I might like her.¡±

    I had to remind him, ¡°She¡¯s your sister.¡±

    ~~

    Unfortunately for him, Leandro Bauer knew nothing of their bloody tryst. He barely understood how he could have earned the king¡¯s esteem with but a single painting. In fact, he believed he was being set up, that he had somehow gotten discharged wrongly from the military after Rackvidd. The only reason he took the risk, was because he was quite penniless and in need of a patron. The poor fellow wasn¡¯t even able to afford supplies for another artwork and had spent weeks begging food off the temples to get by.

    In such extremis, even the prospect of going back to war seemed preferable.

    The interlocutor who brought him to the castle was a worm of a merchant, posturing a great relationship between him and Leandro, but he had the curious fortune of meeting a nobleman with such overwhelming intellect that no trickery of tongue could dupe him. The man had faults, but none of them left him vulnerable to platitudes, courtiers, flattery, or deceptions of status and wealth. He cut right through the merchant¡¯s propositions and arrested Leandro forthwith. He snapped the man up and handcuffed him with money.

    The nobleman acted decisively, securing from the artist a year-long contract that would take him far away from the capital and keep him well furnished and quite busy. So busy, in fact, that the pay almost wasn¡¯t worth it. Leandro signed his life away to furnish The Eastern Academy of Science with portraits of their key staff. The work would be dreary, but it gave him the resources to hone his craft in a way he could not refuse.

    Particularly with the lingering pangs of starvation gnawing at him like a pack of hounds.

    Now, allow me to reveal this nobleman, this lightning bolt of mental vigor. A wise reader may have already surmised, by his association with the academy, that he worked on behalf of the Feugard family. Indeed, he was none other than the second son. While his older brother was failing to reproduce Lucius¡¯ success in the Misty Isles, he attacked

    He was Austin Feugard, the man who failed to withdraw his support from the bloodiest disaster of Vassermark¡¯s history.

    <hr>

    <ol>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">The artist happened to be the man who instructed Leandro Bauer, who you may recall depicted Lucius at his victory in Rackvidd. The Restoration Of The King has been depicted the world over, but none so skillfully as the one available in Lakelight Temple, where they did not even dare display it prominently. Artistic genius took hold of the man and drove him to commit heresy in the eyes of the orthodoxy. He depicted the king weeping over the battlefield, for he had been denied the absolution of death. I found the work to be far more touching than the typical display of rapturous joy at grasping life once more.</li>

    </ol>

 5-8 - The Feugard Threat

    Inheritance law is one of the most important laws that a civilization can adopt, and it can be difficult to say which method is the best. In the north, possessions must be given from the living to the living. When a man dies, marriage is respected first, but when the spouse also dies, all is handed over to their chief. A good chief returns the property to the children of the deceased, but sometimes surrogate property is given. This lets them collect land for public works like defensive walls, expansions to garrisons, and so on. Of course, it also gives the chief power to assign wealth to those that support him and take it from those that would rebel.

    In Aillesterra, a similar system is used among the clans, but they take it so far as to say that only the clans themselves own property. A troublesome comparison to say the least. Closest to Vassermark are the Central Kingdoms, who pass down everything to the eldest son. For many families, the tradition in Vassermark was essentially the same except that it went to the daughter rather than the son.

    A family with multiple daughters, thus producing the curious tradition of a poly-spouse household unit, almost always produced a tangled mess of obligations. More often than not, lawyers had to sort through contradicting wills and bills of sale(1) and could only be saved by paying off the children of lesser standing to just take an amount and drop the matter.

    The Ashe family faced such a crisis, and the prevailing theory was that Jarnmark would be simply divided between the girls as a lesser and greater. This was a common problem in Vassermark, one the people could understand even if foreigners could not.

    The entire kingdom was holding its breath over the eventual death of King Arandall, the man who had inherited the crown for lack of a sister, and then taken a wife from the Central Kingdoms. By tradition, the crown would pass to his daughter, Kassandra, but rumor had it that he would favor his eldest son, Fredrich von Arandall. The reasoning had nothing to do with legal status but because there was no good marriage candidate for Kassandra.

    And that was where Austin Feugard entered, the prince of the Kingdom¡¯s Sword, as the Feugard ducal family was known. He had every hallmark of good breeding, a bright future he would surely craft by the sweat of his own brow and the might of his own intellect, and yet the king did not trust him.

    I hardly fault King Arandall for such judgment. I often came to the same conclusion. Austin had a sly habit of intruding on one¡¯s privacy. While my pupil was off preparing for the dance, I had taken an excursion to the southern lip of the city. One of my long term projects needed to be fed, and carrion was the best feed. Given the relative peace at the time, my source came from the gallows fields. I was trying to haggle with the guard captain in charge of the duties, who thought it entirely improper to talk such business on a holiday. I countered that day old corpses were just as good. The ground was cool afterall. We weren¡¯t in the heat of summer.

    I had just about convinced the man that giving murderers a proper burial was indeed too good for them(1), when Austin arrived. The son of the duke arrived in a small coach and disembarked, accompanied only by a single maid and she wasn¡¯t some form of bodyguard in disguise. She was a demure girl with glasses, who I was familiar with because of her stigmata, which I dubbed [Witness]. It gave her a perfect recollection of events so long as she took the effort to commit them to memory. This made her something akin to Austin¡¯s scribe.

    I had to choose my words carefully.

    ¡°Master Feugard!¡± the guard chief said as he dusted himself off and straightened to attention. He was a middle-aged man unfit for combat, but his body still remembered the motions. ¡°What brings you here?¡±

    ¡°Relax, relax. Today is a celebration,¡± he said, brushing sandy hair out of his eyes as he made to seem like he was looking at the pauper¡¯s field before him. His gaze struggled to stick to me, because I had woven an illusion over my appearance, but the illusion was a weak thing, no stronger than what a stigmata might produce. Austin shoved the mental influence aside and grinned at me. Then he said to the guard, ¡°I wanted to see the grave.¡±

    ¡°Of course. We stuck the sod right over here. You¡¯ll excuse me, won¡¯t you?¡± The guard¡¯s request was to me, but I wasn¡¯t given time to answer.

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    ¡°No need to excuse him. Master Amurabi is a friend,¡± Austin said as he gestured for the guard to lead on.

    Perhaps I should have left at this time, but I knew he would play a role in the future. He would be competition for Lucius if nothing else. ¡°You have a strong recollection, my boy. Last I saw you, you couldn¡¯t even grow hair on your chin.¡±

    Austin took it in good humor, for he kept his chin as clean shaven as a woman. ¡°You left quite the impression, and I¡¯ve heard what role you had to play in the creation of ley cannons. Fascinating design. I wonder how much was your inspiration.¡±

    A tricky question, because the king was traditionally given the credit. ¡°Inspiration comes from many sources, Austin. Might I ask what brings you here today?¡±

    The guard answered, pointing to a recently churned spot of dirt. ¡°Right here it is.¡±

    The grave was unmarked, but Austin did me the courtesy of saying, ¡°They hanged my sister¡¯s killer yesterday. Cynthia, if you would?¡± His maid handed him a wine skin, which he promptly uncorked and upended over the grave. The fruity scent of wine did not spill forth. Rather the acrid poison of ammonia. ¡°Horse, if you¡¯re wondering. What he deserves, I say.¡±

    I neglected to ask how he had collected a gallon of horse urine, as incredulous a claim as that was. ¡°I¡¯m sorry for your loss,¡± I said, wondering if I should feign ignorance of the fact. Her death meant there was no proper inheritor for his family but him.

    The Feugard boy smiled at me, nodded his head, and turned to the guard. ¡°Thank you. I think I shant occupy more of your time. ¡®Tis a holiday, afterall. In fact, as a token of my appreciation¡­¡± he gestured to his maid as we began walking back to the entrance. She ran ahead while I was still pondering if I could make use of the situation. When she returned from the carriage, she had an exquisite bottle of wine pressed against her bosom. The yard keeper¡¯s eyes almost fell out of their sockets when she handed it to him. I had no patience for listening to the man fall over himself kissing the nobleman¡¯s ass, and it seemed that it meant nothing to Austin as well.

    He had to excuse himself and head back to his carriage, but conspicuously paused with one foot on the step. He turned back and faced me. ¡°Master Amurabi, I almost forgot to ask. Perhaps she¡¯s with you here this holiday¡­ I¡¯d very much like to meet your pupil Ezra once more. If you can, tell her she has an invite to my table.¡±

    The Feugard boy smiled as he studied me, and the fact that I did not smile back seemed to only deepen his glee. I told him, ¡°Next I see her, I¡¯ll pass that along.¡±

    The boy bowed slightly and vanished into his carriage along with his maid. He left the guard chief in such a jubilant mood that I was able to collect my materials with ease, but I was distracted during my work.

    To this very day, I wonder if Austin Feugard had foreseen the way the war in the central kingdoms would play out. If he had some insider knowledge of forces at play. Perhaps he simply deduced what was happening through his own intellect.

    What the historical record can prove is that he sold his family¡¯s share of grain orders at a modest profit shortly after the battle of Rackvidd. He acted while lesser mercantile actors still floundered. Thus, he extricated himself from the legal mire that grew to provoke the conflict between Lucius and Rodrick.

    In fact, he pawned it off on a defunct, debt-ridden family no larger than the Solharts whom had betrayed the Feugards several generations back. For the crime of an ancestor failing to show up to war against Skaldheim, Lady Rivi discovered she had to sue Jeameux for damages when the summer-harvest grain meant for her granaries was seized by the forsaken paladin.

    To make matters even worse, the church coffers were closed to Jean, with no explanation given. The bishop was effectively left destitute and with no recourse but to cling to the vulgar force of Lucius¡¯ army. Unable to compensate the Rivi family, Jean had no grounds upon which to stop Lucius from restoring the stolen goods to their rightful owner and enforcing justice.

    The Rivi family was thus nothing more than a pawn in the game. The legal proceedings were utterly mundane and hardly worth commenting upon even in a historical text like this. There was no true conflict there, because the coming war was desired by everyone.

    Regardless, I felt the need to include this encounter because I found it most strikingly unusual. In retrospect it foreshadowed much, but at the time I could only make a few guesses. I was, after all, quite certain that he had been the one to kill his sister. The poor sod who had taken the fall was merely tying up a loose end.

    <hr>

    <ol>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">I should like to note that the purchasing of corpses, while frowned upon, is a more common practice than anyone cares to admit. While perhaps five people in the world were blessed with a stigmata able to graft cadavers to the living, the study of the dead still holds great intellectual value to surgeons, apothecaries, and so on. Less scrupulously, hangmen typically have methods of harvesting such things as silver teeth from the dead. This is why I¡¯ve never made much fuss about collecting materials from a city of any size enough to have vagabonds. As a rule of thumb, if the government had to bury them, nobody cares about them.</li>

    </ol>

 5-9 - The Lie Lucius Told Me

    While Lucius was busy securing himself a table, his companions found one another in a luncheon beer garden adjacent to the castle. Sammy was the most energetic, throwing his arms around Kajsa the moment he saw her. This caused a small degree of ire in Miss Lynnfield, but she made no complaint, which in turn only flustered the little alchemist more. She had no inkling of my pupil¡¯s attachment to her yet, so she couldn¡¯t help but suspect something more behind the doctor¡¯s embrace which she did not quite desire.

    Leomund paid no heed to the casual pleasantries. While Sammy and Kajsa caught up, exchanging shared memories and commenting about missed experiences, the northman secured them a pitcher of ale. Only when they said his name did his attention leave the wench¡¯s waist. Miss Lynnfield had said, ¡°Tolzi here is the world-trotter.¡±

    Kajsa smiled. ¡°I¡¯m still blessed to have seen as much as I have.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯ll see more,¡± the northman said. ¡°In this company, you never know when you might get woken up and sent to a different country.¡±

    Sammy snorted and waved his mug of beer. ¡°I wonder what you could possibly be referring to? Gosh, I just can¡¯t think of any examples like that.¡±

    Tolzi sneered a grin back at the doctor, but he saw the curiosity on Kajsa¡¯s face. ¡°Sending me to fetch you, lass, is far from the first time I¡¯ve been at the beck and call of Lucius.¡±

    The alchemist nodded. ¡°I must thank him for sending someone so dependable to receive me.¡±

    ¡°Dependable is one way to say it,¡± Tolzi said, his eyes glazing over the garden. ¡°I¡¯d say it¡¯s just that the boy knows I¡¯d kill for him.¡±

    Sammy leaned on the table. ¡°Not going to die for him anymore?¡±

    The northmen huffed. ¡°Doing that once was enough.¡±

    ¡°Excuse me,¡± Kajsa said, ¡°But you don¡¯t seem to be dead.¡±

    ¡°It happened while I was protecting the redhead.¡±

    ¡°Miss Canta?¡±

    Tolzi said, ¡°Incidentally, it was also the last time I was sent to protect a girl on the boy¡¯s request.¡±

    <hr>

    It was the night after a lawyer for the Rivi family sued for damages that Lucius¡¯ little cadre of betrayal were saddled up and set out of the city. They skulked through the stables with shuttered lanterns, three in total. Lemound, Aisha, and Sacerdote. The last had been assigned almost as a punishment, to get him out of the libraries of the central kingdoms. The newly-atheistic priest was one step away from committing blasphemy and Lucius decided his worth on the battlefield wasn¡¯t enough to keep him around. If he wanted to challenge the truth of the gods, with what Anubi had taught him, the man could do so in Giordana.

    In the stables, they met with the workmen as well as Lucius. He took deliberate strides, feeling out his almost-regenerated leg. The saddlebags had to be carefully packed and distributed and there was some concern over the quality of the horses. The steeds typically considered the best would be foolish to send into the desert, even the comparatively lush region surrounding Tavina.

    There was also no telling just how much supplies had to be given to the three of them, because Jeameaux might not be safe to return to. Excess money often made for a risk of bandits, but that wasn¡¯t much of a threat to Leomund. In fact, the main concern Lucius attempted to balance was how much weaponry and armor to give the trio. To not stand out, only brigandine armor was given(1).

    The task was a familiar thing for Leomund however, and he took over barking at the stableboys. This gave Lucius an opportunity to embrace Aisha in the intimate darkness.

    ¡°I thought you were keeping me close this time,¡± she whispered.

    ¡°I wish I could, but this is the only time I can surprise him. His attention is out there, on Rodrick. You can sneak away tonight. Then, I¡¯ll keep him focused on Aria instead. She¡¯s a thorn, but that makes her useful.¡±

    She pouted. ¡°You¡¯re asking me to do something impossible, you know.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re smart enough to do it.¡±

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    ¡°And you aren¡¯t?¡± she asked.

    ¡°My head is too full of problems. What I know of magic is that it requires clarity of focus. You can¡¯t be thinking about anything else. That¡¯s just not something I can do.¡±

    Years of memorization in the temples had certainly trained Aisha with enough focus, but there was another matter. ¡°I¡¯ll have to explain everything to my father, you know.¡±

    The boy smirked. ¡°Maybe not everything? If that¡¯s alright?¡±

    ¡°Of course, but that may not stop him from following us back.¡±

    ¡°A bridge I shall cross when I come to it. Now go. Get out of the city and stay safe. Leomund can protect you and I swear that if someone does hurt you there is no force in this world that will stop me.¡±

    The two of them kissed, much to Leomund¡¯s minor annoyance. Only that night had it begun to dawn on him that he wouldn¡¯t be able to carouse if he was protecting Aisha. Whoring was a typical pastime for him, and I normally paid him quite well to facilitate just that recreation. In hindsight, forcing him into celibacy of a sort was good for him. The man had taken his brother¡¯s death hard and prying him out of vice to journey north had been almost impossible. The clarity of purpose and task let him think and duty kept his cheeks dry.

    For this reason, I was rather nonplussed when I learned of the departure, which was of course that very day. The menial tasks of charing harvests and comparing points of defensible terrain had fallen to me because Lucius, that morning, had to be the great performer. I would supply him the maps through which he could form his tactics, but he was the one that had to inspire his troops and instill in them a valor pointed towards violence. Thus, I spared the boy the mental labor that I could.

    For obvious reasons, I allowed him to spend the day thinking he had duped me. It made his speech more enthusiastic. I have opted to include a transcription of his speech here as a footnote(2), in respect of the fact that the thrust of action was in fact the nighttime escape of the trio. Saddled upon young, wirey horses, they merged into the typical flow of commuting workers. Men traveling into the city to supply the bakeries or men traveling out to tend fields. With Sacerdote garbed as a pilgrim and Aisha versed in the lexicon of the mercantile trade, Leomund fell into the stoic role of bodyguard and no questions were asked.

    As it turned out, they chose just about the last time that the roads of the central kingdoms were safe to travel, for many years after. The wars that would break out smashed armies to pieces and in the wreckage of bodies, bandits germinated like mold. They scurried about the land, hiding their shame of desertion and preying upon the small folk. For that week of travel, they had peace.

    Of course, Leomund¡¯s presence did its part to deter the more opportune.

    But all this I know because I didn¡¯t need some crow or raven to spy upon them. That entire faculty had been carved into Sacerdote¡¯s mind. My agent strode beside them, rode his horse between them. He watched everything they did, and his mind recorded it all for my review when I recovered his body. What was more, I had imprinted into him certain failsafes and commands that even he was not aware of.

    As far as the wastelander was concerned, he had simply become forgetful. He had the impression that he had always just stepped away from a mighty task of memorization, even when fresh up in the morning. It weighed him down somewhat, for there is always a price to magic, but that was of little concern. Indeed, the burden was so little that neither Aisha nor Leomund noticed the change in the man.

    Thus, I was happy to let my pupil think he had duped me. I attended his speech and even rode out with the army. I made no comment about how they were fleeing from a brewing riot. I only made mention when I had to depart for the north, to ensure Prince Gabriel¡¯s war proceeded properly, conveying my wishes that the travel would not be hard on Aisha. His heir was very precious to be traveling across the land.

    That gave him a good few months of worry.

    <hr>

    <ol>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">At this time, the technique of manufacturing brigandine armor was still immature and it consisted mostly of major sheets formed to the chest around the vitals then covered up by leather. Later designs by more ambitious craftsmen would adopt the quilt-like pattern commonly known.</li>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">Lucius von Solhart¡¯s speech to his troops before leaving Jeameaux, approx. ¡°Men, when you signed on here, you were paid in silver. Some of you I hope still have some. We¡¯re a mixed company, now in a foreign land. I expect you¡¯ve all enjoyed the last days here in Jeameaux. It¡¯s a strong city with an honest culture. A friend of Vassermark and a refuge for Giordanans. It has a history of peace, protected as it is by the two lakes. Now, we have been called on to protect this city. Not from siege, or pillaging, but from a type of monetary attack. That silver you were paid with can buy many things. I bought your loyalty with it. You in turn could pay off debts, could buy a new home or start a shepherd¡¯s flock. You could offer a dowry, drink yourself silly, maybe just gamble it away for the thrill. Most of all, however, you can buy food with it. If you¡¯ll put up with it, food is cheap. Always has been¡­ in times of peace. That¡¯s because there is food to buy. Bakers have bread to sell. Butchers have meat to salt. Families have something to put on their tables. What is happening now is an attack on the harvest, because of politics. If these bandits have their way, there is no amount of silver or gold that will fill the stomachs of the people around you. That money will become worthless. The old will wither away. Babies won¡¯t have the strength to cry. Do I need to go on? I don¡¯t think I do. This isn¡¯t a future that must come to pass. The harvest hasn¡¯t been plundered yet. There is still time for us to corner these villains and put a stop to them. So we¡¯re going to march through one of the most beautiful countrysides in the world and we are going to protect the people of this city. We will hound them. We will crush them. Gather your things men, we march.¡±</li>

    </ol>

 5-10 - Motivation For The Rebels

    Around the time that Lucius was convincing a gaggle of foreigners to fight on behalf of people they hardly knew in exchange for monetary compensation, the paladin was doing much the same. He had an army he had to convince should risk their lives, and certainly endanger their personal comfort, to fight a war against an enemy they barely understood. Of course, he largely had the benefit that the men following him all knew and respected him. They were a collection of men assigned to him, nor were they recently acquired mercenaries.

    They were the kinds of soldiers that would quietly stand at attention when their commander walked out in front of them with a gagged bureaucrat. A platform had been erected in the small farming community that Rodrick had marched his army into, and when the two men stood upon it everyone realized it had the look of a gallows. This was the intent, and the intent did a good deal of the definition the same way that the difference between a man¡¯s table and a troll¡¯s bench comes down to what cheek last pressed against it.

    Rodrick was a stoic man. It let him keep his composure as he braced himself to commit a crime under the auspices of justice. The man beside him was old, frail, and shaking. The man, whose name history has now forgotten, knew he had transgressed against his countrymen but didn¡¯t know what he should have done. He had made promises of food to foreigners, and worse had do so at extortion rates to the local peasantry. That is one of the curious facets of economics often forgotten. For all the nobility can be at one another¡¯s throats because of a few percentages, they typically expect the lower classes to not say a word against even one thousand percent mark-ups in price, as though even the lowest of blue bloods conveyed some magic touch of value.

    But, what he had done was nothing that hadn¡¯t been done for generations. If the men who had seized him from his home in the early hours of the morning had been a union of uneducated workers, he would have soiled himself and prepared to die, but he knew Sir Rodrick. And yet, the paladin had restrained him and taken him out before the rabble as though he were one of the brutes with ideas about the freedoms of men and civic liberties.

    Unfortunately, Rodrick had spent the last few days getting a crash course in the proper lies and platitudes. He held no particular opinion about the philosophical musings of the inteligencia, but he fully understood that the idea had been percolating through the taverns and drink halls the world over.

    With sweat beading across his brow and positioned for the rising sun to strike upon his features, he addressed his men. ¡°This man collected bushels of wheat by the copper and sold them for silver. That processed wheat is then sold to merchants to parcel it out to bakers. The people of Jeaumeax live off that bread, offering up their earnings so they can live within the walls. This is a system of exploitation where the profits of labor are taken by those lucky enough to be born a landowner. And worse! Now those profits aren¡¯t even staying in our own city.¡±

    The speech was a sensitive one. Any Giordanan among his army might think too hard and realize that their goal was to return to their own kingdom, liberated. Over the course of the day, it would be Ismail¡¯s task to smooth over such concerns.

    ¡°Our city,¡± Rodrick continued, his fist shaking as though with pent up rage. ¡°Through no vote. Through no will of the temples or even the joint knowledge of the citizenry! Has become ensnared by contract to become impoverished. Merchants from Vassermark have walked among us, in numbers unthinkable. Each in the darkness of accounting rooms(1) they convinced one merchant or another to sell his portion of contracted grain not to the people of Jeameaux, but to foreigners! Each thought that it was but a small betrayal, one that would be forgotten if it was noticed at all. But every one of them made the same bet! Now there isn¡¯t enough to feed us, even though our countrymen were the ones to grow it. And can we renege on the deals? Vassermark won¡¯t hear of it. Already they send their armies. That is their ultimatum. Submit to poverty, or fight. And to think they called Jeameaux their friend!(2)¡±

    By now, he had clued in enough of the malcontents in his force that they dared to support him. As with all brewing revolutions, only a small minority actually believed in what he said, fewer still were educated on the matter. Some realized that those with power had suddenly become an ally and they seized the moment. They threw up their fists and cheered, goading on their fellows.

    The din of support relieved Rodrick and he cut his speech short. While the soldiers grumbled about money and status, he turned his attention to a very confused bureaucrat. The gallows stage had been cleared for the two of them, though no hangman¡¯s noose existed. That wasn¡¯t Rodrick¡¯s style. He pulled the gag from the man¡¯s mouth, getting instant protests of confusion. The paladin said, ¡°I challenge.¡±

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    Generally speaking, no magic phrase of code is needed to activate a stigmata. This is due to the simple fact that the magic language doesn¡¯t translate to the common tongue, generally speaking. The complexity of interpreting the spoken language would be the majority of the spell. In the case of Rodrick however, the spell was able to detect a certain intent of will, a kind of primordial spell within humans. Thus, the stigmata would have activated for any language the man happened to speak.

    [Trial By Duel] activated, sealing the two men in a prison of magic.

    While I am partial to the effect of Lucius¡¯ [Undying], the elegance of Rodrick¡¯s stigmata still evokes awe and respect in me. It detects who the user is intending to fight and blocks off the physical space around them. From there, it is removed from his direct control, because even he cannot break through the barrier it forms. Only the submission or death of one of the fighters can release the other. Of course, the barrier doesn¡¯t only prevent them from fleeing, but it prevents outside interference of nearly all sorts. There were ways to penetrate the arena, but I shant spoil those now. Certainly however, no human could push through. Arrows could not fly into the midst. No normal interference at all could be managed.

    For Rodrick¡¯s purposes, it was also visually dramatic, and it muffled his voice. Thus, he could somberly whisper, ¡°I¡¯m sorry. I¡¯ll bear this guilt, but it must be done. When you reach the Shepherd, apologize to her for me, for what I¡¯m about to do.¡±

    This surely did little to put the man at ease before the paladin separated his head from his shoulders. Again, the historical record has been muddied here, but most agree the local merchant tried to flee, and Rodrick had to cut him down from behind. This was one of his many crimes to perpetuate a war attempted to kill Lucius and myself.

    After the theatrics, there was hours of mundane work to be done, pillaging the early grain harvest to sustain the army. It was all taken under the auspices of liberating it for the people, but none of it ever reached the mouth of a woman or child. They piled the pack animals heavy the next day, taking it all for themselves.

    Rodrick himself worked until the sun had gone down. Finally able to retire, he stripped out of his armor and sank into a chair within the local lord¡¯s manor. There, the Cyclops joined him, none of her compatriots intruding. She dressed like a man when among the troops, not wearing any indicator of status. Lit only by a dwindling oil lamp, she swaggered across the room to him with exaggerated charm.

    ¡°Your speech worked,¡± Rodrick said, idly shaking the wine goblet he had already emptied.

    ¡°As did your swordsmanship. All the pretty words in the world would have been for nothing without the delivery,¡± she said as she sat down on the table. She slid a hand over and wrapped hers around his. She squeezed to quell the tremor plaguing him.

    ¡°I¡¯m too old for this.¡±

    ¡°Too old?¡± the Cyclops asked, her laughter filling the room. ¡°I¡¯ll have you know the flecks of gray are charming. You¡¯re still unwed, aren¡¯t you?¡±

    ¡°I took oaths,¡± he said, gaze on his opposite hand where a wedding band might have been.

    ¡°You¡¯re an oathbreaker now, aren¡¯t you?¡± the vixen asked, forcing her fingers between his.

    His gaze sharply turned on her and he ripped his hand from her grasp. ¡°Save that for seducing the Solhart boy.¡±

    She sighed and walked over to the window where moonlight flowed through. ¡°Word is that he already marches here.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m not surprised. We plundered more than enough wagons of food.¡±

    ¡°He knows this isn¡¯t about the food.¡±

    ¡°Good.¡±

    ¡°He sent his friends to the east. Surreptitiously, he thinks. He probably has no idea that we¡¯re aware¡­¡±

    Rodrick frowned. ¡°What kind of friends?¡±

    The Cyclops crossed her arms. ¡°The kind that would make good hostages. He dotes on the one girl. Take her and he can be bargained with. But¡­ do you have a swordmaster at your disposal?¡±

    ¡°Several, but maybe not that would kidnap a girl.¡±

    The Cyclops said, ¡°Don¡¯t send anyone less. The man protecting her cannot be underestimated.¡±

    Rodrick nodded. ¡°I¡¯ll see who can be spared. But, get out of here, woman. I¡¯ll send for you tomorrow.¡± He snarled as she rolled her eye at him, but she departed. The paladin drank until his eyes shut.

    <hr>

    <ol>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">Of course, darkness of accounting rooms was purely poetic. Dismal as such scribing dens may be, they are rarely dark. It¡¯s difficult to cook the books if you can¡¯t read the numbers.</li>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">In this context, a friend of a kingdom such as Vassermark meant a tribute state deserving of protection both militarily and economic. The tribute was meant to be fixed, while the defenses were¨Cin theory¨Cunlimited.</li>

    </ol>

 5-11 - Code Fabia

    The minor employees of the Montisferro family shall forever have my sympathy and a proper modicum of mathematical respect from me. The task of distributing tables, seating, and of course food, through the palace¡¯s grand hall is among the most tedious of problems that can only be accomplished through trial and error. No algorithm can be applied to their overgrown tradition.

    The hall itself dates back to the age of the gods, though historians disagree on how often it was repaired. Regardless, it¨Cto this very day¨Cprovides ample space for assembly across the marble mosaic floor. Several centuries ago, it was decided that the seating for such holidays would be determined by cartography, that tables would be positioned according to the territories managed by the respective houses.

    At first, this could be done quite literally. The workmen pulled out a map of the kingdom and scaled it out to the regular grid beneath their feet, and marked out a replica of Vassermark. However, the borders of Vassermark continued to grow and the walls around them did not. Tables once far apart were pressed together as diplomats crowded the exterior. Wars led to fracturing of certain regions, which demanded more tables in turn. By the time of Lucius, there simply was not room to represent the different regions. Certainly, Jarnmark could not be given an entire quarter of the hall to itself.

    Thus, the workment deduced a more mathematical approach and set about preserving topology rather than size. They twisted and pulled and shrank, treating the sea like a great swath of freedom. Because floor space had become a premium, it was decided that various ranks and honors would be decided by serving order and the quality of the furniture(1). This, unfortunately, left a sticky problem of fitting tables around the existing support pillars, but that in no way diminishes the effort exerted to appease so many egos in one room.

    I explain this all because Lucius, Aisha, and Lupa were seated first at a table and yet had no particular notion which fief it corresponded to. They had three pieces of evidence. First, it sat near the king¡¯s table. Second, the livery matched across no less than three tables¨Cone of which was clearly for preferred servants such as squires and, in the boy¡¯s case, Lupa. Third, the woodworking befitted a master craftsman.

    These three facts were enough for Lucius to deduce who had invited him, and it made his hand shake.

    Aisha, seated beside him, put her hand to his and tried to squeeze the tremor out of him. ¡°Are you sick?¡±

    ¡°Never been healthier,¡± he said, murmuring into a wine goblet.

    ¡°You won a war and now you¡¯re¡­ scared? Lu, what¡¯s going on?¡±

    He snorted. ¡°I get scared in war too. Also, to change the subject, given the amount of people who died this year, I¡¯m surprised how many people have arrived. Many promotions I figure.¡±

    Aisha fixed him with a half-lidded stare. While it would have been scandalous to say, he understood well enough that she was reminding him he had done his share of reducing the noble population.

    Lucius cleared his throat. ¡°Do you think a stigmata census would ever be possible? It seems completely obvious that most people don¡¯t know how best to use their divine gifts.  It¡¯s fundamentally a failure of general education. For example, that fellow I assigned to the smelting factory in the Misty Isles. He had no idea how gold refinement worked. He had no concept of what he could have been doing with it except what he had already seen in his life. I had to tell him.¡±

    Aisha sighed and wetted her throat(2). ¡°You¡¯re still mad about that ambush, aren¡¯t you?¡±

    ¡°I am still mad about that, yes.¡±

    <hr>

    The incident in question happened shortly after Lucius marched out of the city. At this time, he was still compiling information and I had just taken my departure for the north. He was working on parceling out the land into strategic territories, but that¡¯s a detail I will explain another time. What matters is that he did not follow the paladin¡¯s army directly.

    That would have been foolish to do, because the rebels were scooping up every free pound of food. Be it by steel or by gold, that which doesn¡¯t exist cannot be acquired. He had to march his three thousand soldiers, along with the squires, the followers, the baggage train, and so on, along a parallel path, reconnoitering the rebels from a distance and managing their own position. The rebel¡¯s size was in constant flux at this time, as some men deserted and others joined ranks. Most vanished to their home, became vagrant bandits, or something of the like. At this point in the war, neither side had the resources to catch such men.

    Some tried to turn their cloaks.

    The majority of wars have such things occur, and these deserters buy their good graces through intelligence in a manner that few spy networks can compete with. The man who caused this story tried to sell himself instead. More precisely, his stigmata.

    This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

    Night had draped across a crossroads town more suited for shepherd flock trading. The granaries were so small¨Cdue to the expectation of meat¨Cthat Lucius was able to arrange a rather straightforward exchange of obligations. He took their storehouse and left their fields, rather than harvest too early. As far as he was concerned, they would feel the war the least and should have no hard feelings about his presence.

    Seemingly unstressed, he deigned to hear out one such deserter. He was a skinny fellow, armed with a spear upon arrival, and while he was missing several teeth was not afraid to smile. Standing midway between the armed guards and Lucius, he entreated the young commander. ¡°I can help you. That¡¯s right, I assure it. I can do something that nobody else can. You understand? I¡¯ll be a wonderful asset to a smart fellow like you. You just have to know how to use me. I¡¯ll be like your right hand man, ready to use my power. I can make your messages invisible!¡±

    Lucius had been studying maps for hours, until fatigue pressed on his mind. Even in such a wearisome state, he could imagine such uses. ¡°Show me,¡± he said, and moved to dash out a trivial message upon a bit of parchment like he might send a missive on.

    The deserter ignored his attempt and slapped his hand upon the nearest map. ¡°Behold!¡± And lo his power spread across the unfurled map. It twisted the stains of ink and transformed them. Pigment twisted into the parchment and shunned the light until none of the markings remained. Not one road, valley, town, or river. The scroll appeared as fresh as a cartographer¡¯s canvas.

    Lucius put down the scrap parchment and examined what had been the map he had been using to project Rodrick¡¯s movements on. ¡°Alright, well that¡¯s quite invisible. How do you see it?¡±

    ¡°Heat,¡± the man said, rather to my pupil¡¯s dismay. Such invisible inks were mundanely available.

    Restraining his emotions, he cleared off the flags and nobs representing the various elements of war. Holding the scroll above an oil lamp, the markings did indeed return to their original forms. ¡°You make a good case for yourself, Mister¡­¡±

    ¡°You can call me Mac, m¡¯lord,¡± the man said as Lucius put the map back down.

    Then the ink once more vanished from sight. Lucius stared at it, then stared at the man. ¡°It stays invisible?¡±

    ¡°Yes, sir.¡±

    ¡°For how long?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m not sure. A good long while at the least. I don¡¯t think I¡¯ve ever seen it go back to the way it was, sir.¡±

    Lucius put his finger on the near useless scroll. ¡°That was my map.¡±

    Before he could assign a punishment for the turncloak (although his subordinates decided for themselves and later had him flogged), a runner arrived. The burgomaster, for that was allegedly his lofty title, had leapt from a window and escaped into the night. By itself, this hardly mattered, but Lucius had to make a snap decision. It would be a propaganda loss if the man were to be rescued. Reasonable judgment would be painted as foreign despotism.

    Better that the man die.

    Lucius barked swift orders and marched out. Scouts were needed. Three dozen Vassish soldiers soon mounted up with either lanterns or torches. They snapped up what was at hand and one man set about with his stigmata to imitate a howling pack of hounds. Lucius had then spread out and charged after the fleeing official. Stirring horses in the night can be a dangerous affair, but the city¡¯s chief clerk was a fat little bastard who could as much keep up a stern flight as he could rise from a table without needing to push off of it. The horses weren¡¯t pushed so much that they hurt themselves in the rocky loam.

    Soon, through a combination of evidence, they sighted the man struggling over a hill to get out of sight from the road. The Vassish hollered and pursued, flanking and enveloping his escape like they were trapping venison.

    Then metal clanged in the night and spears emerged from the dark.

    One hundred rebels, with their cloaks smeared black by mud, rose up around the horsemen. They plunged into the bellies of the horses and the night filled with screams both human and animal.

    Lucius understood the disaster at once. ¡°Fabia!¡± he shouted, swinging his sword from side to side until a spear caught the straining throat of his panicked steed. ¡°Fabia!¡± he roared even as he had to throw himself from the beast. He hit the rooted slope, rolling across rocks and rotting deadfall, then sprang up. ¡°Fabia!¡±

    Sadly, his troops had not yet had it forced into their very bodies what his command meant. It couldn¡¯t pierce the sudden fear. Had he brought wastelander thralls, perhaps all would have survived. But only a very few of the Vassish kept their wits enough to understand a partial retreat had been ordered. I say partial because the code ¡®Fabia¡¯ did not mean to to running with tail between their legs back to the town. He had instructed all the sub-commanders of his army to waterfall down to the most common of troops that the ¡®Fabia¡¯ command meant to extract one¡¯s self from the fight and then follow the enemy. If the enemy chased, run more. If the enemy retreated, keep them in sight.

    And most importantly, if the enemy was trying to use overwhelming numbers, a hundred to one even, to overwhelm Lucius in combat, then they simply had to sit and wait. They were supposed to use their bows and arrows to kill anyone fleeing the melee, and if they had listened to his command properly; perhaps they might have.

    Instead, beneath the lesser light of the heavens, Lucius eventually pulled a broken speartip from his shoulder and stood atop eighty corpses. One of them was the burgomaster, which meant he was unable to question the man about the specific technique, but he at least had not been allowed escape. Unfortunately, many of the enemy ambushers escaped with their lives.

    They brought word to Rodrick that the boy¡¯s martial prowess had been underestimated. Fortunately, he had been fighting without his foot the whole time, so even their fear-filled tale telling was slightly insufficient, and a feast of horse flesh¨Cwhile less appetizing than other farm animals¨Cwas enough to fully regenerate Lucius¡¯ body.

    <hr>

    <ol>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">For more information on the intricacies of woodworking among the nobility, see Act 1.</li>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">A pitcher of cleansed water had actually been provided by the princess, courtesy of her stigmata. Alcohol being disallowed for her.</li>

    </ol>

 5-12 - To Kill The Undying

    While I perhaps could have explained this in the previous chapter, because it was the very same method that Lucius used to abstract the lay of the land, allow me now to sit among the rebel trio and paint for you their map. The method was introduced by the Cyclops, and it was much modeled after the stones game of Aillesterra. While games historically began as abstractions of reality, they reversed the process in a rather synthetic manner¨Cusing a game to abstract reality.

    Using a map as a board, they put Jeameaux at the center. The sides could not be made balanced, but that wasn¡¯t the aim. They scored off the great lakes and let the tributary rivers snake along the boundaries of the fiefs. Wheat fields formed the playing spaces, each marked with a denomination of growth.

    A cluster of battalion pieces marked their army, and another marked Lucius¡¯. Thus, the points of the game could be measured. The victor was he who harvested the most food.

    Of course, they cared little for the game. Its chief purpose was to suppose how Lucius might move. At any given time, a forced march could bring the two armies into stabbing distance of one another. Neither side was likely to do that however, because the one that marched would be the one to lose with near certainty. If both armies were at full strength that is. While detachments could run ahead or to adjacencies and empty out food stores both fresh and old¨Cthough Rodrick would not hear of starving the people¨CLucius certainly would order a march to crush such a convoy.

    Thus, the trick became how to maneuver through the fields such that Lucius would always prefer to capture a town¡¯s granary slightly too far away to want to close in and fight. The path they ultimately settled upon was circuitous to say the least. It zigged and zagged from one farm to the next until their path at last ran out in a mountain valley along the western end of the map.

    From there, they had no path out should Lucius catch up to them.

    That was of course their plan. It hinged on two detachments, both needed to succeed. First, Ismael had to take his cadre ahead, cutting through a few river fords to get ahead of Rodrick¡¯s path and prepare the way. His destination was ultimately to attempt to rouse the remainder of the Giordanan mountain lords, but no one put much stock in his success there. What was actually needed was his ability to flank.

    Rodrick lost little sleep over the fat prince¡¯s performance. As he put it to the Cyclops, ¡°With him, the die is cast. I can only pray that the hooks of virtue hold fast to his hide. We¡¯ll have a bloody fight if he fails.¡±

    The second detachment anguished the paladin. In part this was because he had to entrust it to a personal friend. Worse, his friend didn¡¯t complain. He didn¡¯t rebuke the immoral order, or even insinuate that it was. The man, a fine swordmaster, simply told him, ¡°If it must be done, then I will be the one to do it.¡±

    Rodrick nearly had a lapse in command of his army that night, because he could not meet with any of his officers. Words refused to come out of his throat. He couldn¡¯t even take solace beneath the stars, because then the soldiers would see the frozen state he was in.

    Once more, he found himself alone with the Cyclops, while the night had little more noise than snoring men and wind. She kept her distance across the tent, but her voice was loud. ¡°Skaldheim has denounced Vassermark¡¯s aggression, but they likely won¡¯t take action. Not this far south at least. For Prince Gabriel it will be another matter. Still, the mere threat that Skaldheim might sweep around and come down from the ice sea will tie up their resources.¡±

    Rodrick didn¡¯t order her out. Such an action would have caused unrest among the men. It is never good to have disunity among the elite. So, the man suffered her presence in silence.

    ¡°I suspect the most that will happen is trade sanctions. For a few weeks, any merchant who arrives at one of their ports will have their goods seized. Probably imprisoned too. It will be quite a headache for the dukes I¡¯m sure. I could walk you through all the intercepted communications but frankly I¡¯d be beating a dead horse. The simple statement is that the boy won¡¯t be getting reinforcements because the wizard doesn¡¯t want him to get reinforcements. If someone shows up to help, then it wouldn¡¯t be his victory. While we can grow stronger, he must make do.¡±

    The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

    Rodrick finally spoke, and had to clear his throat to get his message out his mouth. ¡°Why do you call him a boy?¡±

    The Cyclops paused and adjusted how she sat. She eased down from the formal posture of a military advisor and mirrored the near collapse that Rodrick was in. ¡°He is a boy.¡±

    ¡°He¡¯s a grown nobleman, was a successful colonial governor too. This isn¡¯t even his first war. Given his age and accolades, I¡¯m sure there are parental conspiracies across all of Vassermark about which daughter he should take as his bride. He¡¯s a man and calling him a boy¡­ it¡¯s dangerous to belittle your enemy.¡±

    Cyclops laughed. ¡°Spoken like a man of the central kingdoms. The boy is from Vassermark. Men are simply not as valuable as they are here. The Solhart family is small. They pay their taxes, yes, but they have relatively little trade connections. They¡¯re basically a subordinate of the Raymis. The old man might want to wed his daughter to the boy but that would only be for lack of other options. Nothing wrong with marrying an ally, but the boy is proving himself ambitious, and in a military sense no less. In Vassermark, where families are measured by sisters? Only one husband needs to be a violent sort.¡±

    ¡°A man doesn¡¯t need to be married to be dangerous,¡± Rodrick said.

    Cyclops scowled. ¡°A man needs to stand on his own two feet, not blindly do the bidding of another.¡±

    ¡°Sounds like you¡¯re just hoping he¡¯s a boy, that you can make him do your own bidding instead.¡±

    The woman rose. She stopped herself after one step toward him. ¡°You¡¯re just mad you didn¡¯t listen to me. You just had to know for yourself. You got almost a hundred men killed because you didn¡¯t trust me.¡±

    Rodrick took his gaze off of her and sighed. ¡°And you call such a killer a boy¡­¡±

    ¡°He¡¯s a boy because he¡¯s chasing women every moment he isn¡¯t at war. That¡¯s why we¡¯ll be able to split him off from the wizard. We just need that girl he dotes on.¡±

    ¡°We¡¯ll have her eventually. Tomorrow, it will be my job to make sure we all survive long enough for her to be brought back.¡±

    ¡°Could you win?¡± she asked.

    ¡°In a duel?¡±

    ¡°You¡¯ve been thinking about it, haven¡¯t you?¡±

    Rodrick closed his eyes. It was nothing more than a diversion for him, something to occupy his thoughts while riding his horse. His army didn¡¯t need micro-managing. Depriving his officers of their work would have hurt him. Much of his day consisted of looking the part. And so he had thought about how he might defeat an unkillable opponent. One of the fruits of the ambush was the simple knowledge that when cornered, Lucius fought like a skaldish berserker.

    At this time, Rodrick had no idea what that implied about capturing Aisha.

    ¡°I would need a different sword,¡± he said at last.

    The Cyclops had almost left the tent, thinking he wouldn¡¯t answer her. Turning, she asked, ¡°What kind?¡±

    ¡°A khopesh.¡±

    ¡°Not very holy of you.¡±

    ¡°But more likely to dismember him.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll see if I can get you one,¡± she said, and then she departed.

    For the next week, Rodrick saw not a spec of her. Intelligence reports came from a dwarf¨Cone of her little cadre of specialized stigmata users. He had hardly any time to consider where she had gone to fetch the esoteric weapon, because this was a week of recruitment for him. No major battles had been fought and the rebellious youths of Jeameaux were sneaking out of their homes. They appeared in ones and twos, sometimes even groups of a dozen. The strength of young men flocked to him like a crack in the layers of society pressing down on them.

    These were potent warriors, even if they needed training. More training than could be given to a rabble in a few days before their mettle would be tested. Worse, Rodrick had no money to pay them with. All of their needs would have to be supplied from the general supplies, and that in turn came from pillaging the very people he was fighting on behalf of.

    There was exactly one other way he could feed his army. He could lie.

    He had done just that¨Cswindled a shepherd of his flock with empty promises that the church which had forsaken him would reimburse the man, leaning on unblinking faith in a just god and his divine congregation upon the world¨Cwhen the khopesh was at last delivered to him. He didn¡¯t ask how the Cyclops had gotten it(1), but merely acquainted himself with the heft and swing of the foreign weapon.

    ¡°Will that do?¡± she asked.

    ¡°It will do,¡± he answered. ¡°With this, I can win.¡±

    <hr>

    <ol>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">I would have liked it if she had said how she had gotten it. I was quite convinced at the time that the clans of Aillesterra had a spy network throughout Lumisgard, but it was possible she had used other connections at the time. Unfortunately, I can¡¯t say for certain whether I would have been able to act on such information. Much of this exchange I didn¡¯t learn until years later and I might not have been able to root out foreign spies even if I had been given names, faces, and locations. Such was the chaos of these years.</li>

    </ol>

 5-13 - A Tight Encounter

    While Lucius wanted little more than to hear from his friends of lower station, the feast hall became a whirlwind of whispers the moment Prince Gabriel made his entrance. Personally, i think this spoke more to the poor quality of the minstrels and jesters who were supposed to be making the rounds between tables. Nobody should have been able to hear more than a table away because of the din of nonsense communication. Such gentle diplomacy was lacking from the Arandall court sadly. When Gabriel spied Lucius and scowled, everyone knew that everyone was talking about it.

    This surprised Aisha, who hadn¡¯t yet deduced what table they sat at. From her perspective, the second prince was nothing more than an ambitious nobleman of an age with Lucius. They were rivals of a sort, contemporaries at the least. The duel that morning had been done in good faith, even if they had been measuring one another up. Lucius was under no such confusion.

    Lupa simply took it in stride, like a child watching a puppet drama in a foreign language For her, things happened and had few strings connecting them together. She wasn¡¯t even properly seated at the table of course, she was officially recognized as Aisha¡¯s maid and a maid was a very important job to aid a pregnant woman.

    Bedecked in embroidered silks, the prince sauntered over. He plucked a bowl of candied fruits from a passing servant before he was close enough to sneer. He chewed a handful with his mouth open before passing the bowl to a courtier at his heels. ¡°I say that I have never seen a man so enamored with being the center of attention. You¡¯re just sucking it in, aren¡¯t you?¡±

    My pupil smiled back at the disgust leering at him. ¡°I should thank you for that, Prince. We made quite a scene this morning, together. Quite the capstone to our separate wars, don¡¯t you think? I¡¯m grateful to be so close to your father¡¯s table¡­ I was told to prepare my best theatrics for retelling the war.¡±

    Gabriel jutted his chin at Lupa. ¡°The war, yes. That¡¯s what you¡¯ll speak of, isn¡¯t it? We¡¯ve all heard the other rumors, haven¡¯t we? So it¡¯s high time we learn how you defeated the paladin. I¡¯m quite exhausted of hearing gossip about the trophies you bring back with you.¡±

    Wood scraped across tile. Lucius was suddenly standing. ¡°Perhaps you should have asked me for a lesson in manners rather than in fighting. If you knew how to speak, you might have women at your side as well.¡±

    ¡°Even a man should understand chasteness. You¡¯re a blueblood, Solhart.¡±

    Lucius considered and discarded half a dozen base insults. He smiled and gestured at the table between him and the prince. ¡°And look where my behavior has gotten me.¡±

    One of the jesters thrust himself between the men like a loyal bodyguard taking an arrow for his liege. His face caked up into masquerade, the jokester bellowed out a laugh as he said, ¡°Never there was a wiser playboy in this court. To let everyone know his status and character, that the only reason he has joined the lovely ladies is to entertain them, he brings his mistresses. Let there be no doubt, no doubt sirs! The boy here is intent on stealing my job! He¡¯s making jokes better than mine.¡±

    Gabriel stormed off as the jester prattled and Lucius sank back into his chair, only to find Lupa¡¯s lips next to his ear. She asked, ¡°Why is everyone talking about you and I?¡±

    ¡°Because you¡¯re loud,¡± Lucius said, almost giving Aisha a laughing fit.

    <hr>

    Now, while Lucius was chasing after the rebel army, he too had assessed the fiefs as a game board. It took him two days to feel confident he knew where Rodrick was going, but there was still a strong margin of error. He could imagine a few different scenarios, because he didn¡¯t know precisely how cunning and rational the paladin would be(1). This left him in a scenario where he had to take a guess and test his hypothesis.

    He divided his army. Putting Golden in charge of the Giordanan conscripts and one of Lord Raymi¡¯s retainers for the Vassish veterans, he personally took charge of his wastelanders. Because the rebels would have to curve around to reach the northern reaches of the mountains, Lucius decided that it was likely an advance force would be sent to clear the way. If he was wrong, he had left orders to close in like a net, and drive the rebels away from any possible fortification in the foothills, but we already know that his guess was correct.

    Marching through the night, for his blanks still did not trust the darkness and slept best during the night, he avoided detection during his nocturnal march.(2) And so, he caught the foraging scouts of Ismail¡¯s detachment on nearly the same day that Rodrick received his khopesh blade.

    The land was wooded, a blend of deciduous trees and grass that rolled like waves in the wind. Most importantly, it had a tributary river snaking through it. Lucius pressed his army against them¨Cin the scale of tactical marching¨Cwhile the rebels were in a tension of nearly pillaging the crossroads town. While the settlement had a fine dockyard for river barges, farmland it was not. In fact, the most foodstuffs available to the army was a brewery whose kegs had been smashed open the night before. A malaise of hangovers helped slow the troops down, but Lucius did not harry them hard.

    Golden, bereft of his angelic powers, had grown adroit with his powers of aquatic detection, and accurately informed Lucius that a storm would strike the west. Such information is often the key to victory. Lucius focused on containment, sending out his own scouting parties to capture and kill any runners that might alert the main force.

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    He did not order a charge until the river¡¯s torrent washed through the hills, until the floodplains swelled fat and rolled over the trees. When to step back was to be swept away. Currents that had been passable on foot became as raging dragons for that day, cutting off their retreat.

    This was the battle of  Ford, in the Jemeaux Rebellion.

    By training, his corps of wastelanders first barraged the Giordanan rebels with slings. The rebels returned missile fire with arrows, exchanging broken helmets for stuck shields as Lucius marched in. When the range tightened, his forces switched to their bows, still alien weapons in their hands. It couldn¡¯t be said which siad was more accurate, but the wastelanders never faltered in their shield formation. They moved with machine precision while the rebels clumped and shuddered.

    Then an act of the gods foiled his plans. A man revealed his stigmata, laying trees low and lashing them in place despite the current. He pulled roots from the mud and treated them like rope. Before the melee could even begin, an artificial ford had been thrown together at the back of the rebel army and they began to flee. The incoming shield wall pressed them to the river and fear squeezed them through like a bladder.

    Of course, Lucius ordered a mad charge the moment he saw what was happening. He encircled the rebels, crushing them underfoot and driving through them with spears. Alas, in the essence of speed, he had brought no heavy artillery, and the carnage could only be carried out so fast. While hundreds were cut down in the frenzy, the majority escaped to the far side of the flood waters before the tree-bridge was released and the waters splintered it.

    For two reasons, Lucius could not pursue them into a proper bloody rout. First, his troops had no means of staying the current. Second, the blood hunger gripped the wastelanders. They shirked his orders and ate their fill of the dead. Many of them took the surname Ford that day.

    Lucius retired from the battlefield while the river still raged. He returned to the pillaged hamlet alone, shocking the locals would refused to believe the army commander traveled without an entourage. Eventually, he learned the confusion was because the burgomaster had been killed. Given the size of the settlement, and the damage already done to it, he settled for a room in the inn and a meal¨Cboth of which he paid for to their surprise.

    He had intended to sow some goodwill as well as some rumors. He and I had spoken about dubbing the wastelanders as something of a demon corps. The locals didn¡¯t dare to broach the subject however. When he was interrupted, he had been speaking with a barge captain about ferrying some messengers back to his main force. One look at Lupa and Lucius curtly told the captain to get lost. He rose from the table, shooting glances that led to doors getting shut and shadows leaving windows. ¡°What is it?¡±

    She shook as she held up her hands. Blood clung to her palms and spots covered her arms and chest. Her steps were tremulous, swaying as she approached him. ¡°Lu¡­¡±

    He took hold of her, pressing his dining napkin to her hands. Putting an arm around her shoulders, he squeezed her to him. ¡°Are we under attack?¡±

    She shook her head, burying her face against him as she wrung the cloth until it was red. ¡°No, no. It¡¯s just that this was the first fight. Since coming to the north, this was the first battle.¡±

    ¡°I have a room,¡± he said, turning his body. She turned with him, clinging to him. He swiped the flagon of wine from his table and together they mounted the steps. The rooms above the common area had been evacuated. Partly because most boats had fled when the rebels arrived, and partly because he had told the other guests to get out. Such was the limit of privacy he could achieve.

    When he sat on the bed, a wretched box of aged straw befitting the podunk respite, she refused to relinquish her embrace. She curled against him tight, clinging to his shoulders as her mouth silently worked. ¡°What the hell is wrong with us?¡±

    He let her lay atop him as he stroked his hand through her hair. ¡°It¡¯s okay, Lupa.¡±

    ¡°I never¡­ When I grew up¨Ceven when Anubi blessed me¨CI only knew what was normal and¡ª¡± Tears choked her as Lucius took hold of the bloody rag. He pulled it from her clutched hands and turned her palms up, dry.

    ¡°I¡¯m glad,¡± he said. ¡°That you came to me.¡±

    With a nod that pressed her face to his chest, she said, ¡°They just started ripping into the bodies. They treated them like animals. Men who had been living more than they had. Just envy and jealousy¨Cthey butchered them. They were happy, Lu. They laughed! Some¨Csome even¡­ in the blood they¡­ One of the sargeants, Leyfield, he came to me. Said he had taken a name. I don¡¯t even remember what he said it was. Just his teeth. Like ivory. He was smiling, Lu. He was covered in blood and smiling and he wanted me to smile back at him. He had it in his hands, wanted to share it with me. He had the man¡¯s heart.¡±

    ¡°Did you take it?¡±

    She twinged and shook her head. ¡°He put it in my hands.¡±

    Lucius put his hand to her cheek and turned her head to face him. There was no blood on her lips. ¡°Then you did nothing wrong.¡±

    ¡°But I¡¯ve done it before!¡±

    ¡°When you captured me, you took care of me. You wanted me to take you north, to the land beneath the sun where the old gods reigned. I was able to physically bring you here, but you were the one that had to arrive. I¡¯m glad that you have now.¡±

    Her refutations were silenced by his mouth. The tension in her body melted as the two of them rolled over on the bed.

    The next day, he took Lupa out of combat responsibility and gave Ambre Leyfield sub-command of the wastelanders. Immediately after congratulating the man, he ordered him to update the army registry and identify all new stigmata manifested after the battle, along with a dozen other tedious tasks.

    <hr>

    <ol>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">Not to get into a digression about the unsolvability of certain game theory scenarios, because if two hyper rational commanders are facing one another, seemingly irrational choices suddenly become rational. Had Lucius known that he faced the Cyclops, his pirate foe from the Misty Isles, he would have acted differently and perhaps for the worse. It is hard to say who will come out on top between two masters second guessing one another.</li>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">The idea of torches, lanterns, and so on to ward off the darkness had been introduced to the wastelanders, but they couldn¡¯t bring themselves to trust tools and fire when they had lived their entire lives only needing their eyes.</li>

    </ol>

 5-14 - Family Reunion

    The great people of Vassermark had begun to fill the grand hall, following the unspoken rule that the least important were to arrive first if not part of an entourage. The more important waited until later, when there would be more of a reception, but not so late that the king arrived before them. King Arandall was of course happy to oblige his personal delay. The man happily drank with his engineering staff, which gave his steward a good deal of worry that something would explode and injure him.

    Thus, the king would be the last player to arrive at the feast, and before him the owner of the table Lucius sat at. Before them was an arrival I wish I could hide from you, dear reader, as her fate hung in the balance until very late in the war and to introduce her now undercuts much of the tension. Of course, her own rumors precede her and even a casual historian would know the source of her fame came after the rebellion so she must have survived it. There is also the simple fact of textual psychoanalysis that I would not have given her the attention that I thus far have if she were to be offered up as a sacrifice on the altar of politics.

    So, for these reasons, I pull down this sham tension and confirm that, at the feast, Aria vi Solhart was alive and well, indeed on good terms with my pupil. Thus, he was momentarily surprised when she stormed over to him. Clad in a layered dress of blue with pleated skirt fluttering down to her heels, a layer of paint struggled to obscure the incensed flush of her cheeks.

    Sister confronting brother was hardly remarkable, until those nearby heard her ask, ¡°What do you think you¡¯re doing?¡±

    Lucius grimaced and rose from the table to circle round. In a quieter voice, and speaking through a smile he didn¡¯t feel with the elegance of a ventriloquist, he said, ¡°Politics.¡±

    Aria stabbed his chest with her finger. ¡°Don¡¯t you know Felicia had a seat for you?¡±

    ¡°Practically at the door, I¡¯m sure.¡±

    She rose up on her toes to snarl at him more closely. ¡°You may not have grown up with her, but she thinks you have. In fact you¡¯ve given her a rose-tinted memory. Do you have any idea the shock you gave her when she learned where you were?¡±

    Lucius rose up and his eyes distantly met the dark haired girl whom Aria had just separated from. ¡°You know I can¡¯t speak too much with her. And here? You want to know what is going to happen? I¡¯m going to get pulled over to the king¡¯s table. It will be Aisha who has to entertain the two cousins. It¡¯s a small wound to the prince¡¯s pride that he¡¯ll have to slink over here by the grace of his father. Just wait and see.¡±

    His alleged sister wrinkled her nose at him. ¡°Just who taught you how to treat women?¡±

    Lucius burst out laughing, unable to contain the contradiction of his past and who he was about to meet once more. ¡°You wouldn¡¯t believe me if I told you.¡±

    Aisha sighed. ¡°Sometimes, I¡¯m glad you never met my father.¡±

    At once, the boy was somber. He muttered the same apologies he always muttered, regardless of the fact that time was soothing the wound. A wise maneuver regardless. Aria replicated it with far more passion, the way women typically can.

    The redhead waved them both off. ¡°Please, if neither of you are going to tell me whose table we¡¯re at¨CI am a foreigner here afterall¨Cthen can you at least assure me that I¡¯m not going to be dining with the angel? I don¡¯t have a good track record with that.¡±

    Lucius grinned. ¡°Unless she party crashes, she will be at the king¡¯s table. Have no fear, my love.¡±

    ¡°Why should I be afraid. You¡¯d protect me, wouldn¡¯t you?¡±

    <hr>

    Of course, months prior, Aisha arrived in her home city without Lucius. The city guard had changed, as most of the towns youth were buried outside Rackvidd. Further, she hesitated to use her family name without knowing the welfare of her father. Leomund had to take the lead, walking his horse up to the inspection officer manning the portcullis. ¡°M¡¯lady has business in the city. You¡¯re not going to tell her she has to bed in the stables, are you?¡±

    The man was old enough to be gray haired and wrinkled. A stiff shove from the northman would have bowled him over, but he stood with the strength of duty. ¡°And where is your lady from? Does she have a name?¡±

    ¡°She¡¯s a pilgrim of the Shepherd. Her name is Aisha. Mine is Tolzi.¡±

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    To the surprise of his companions, it was Tolzi¡¯s name that sparked recognition in the man. ¡°The bounty hunter? Why, it¡¯s been nearly two years, has it not?¡±

    Leomund crossed his arms and softened his tone. ¡°A bit less. Time isn¡¯t flying that fast. I¡¯ve been busy playing bodyguard as you see.¡±

    The man nodded. ¡°And your friend?¡±

    ¡°A scholar I¡¯m teaching to fight. Name of Sacerdote.¡±

    ¡°Well, I¡¯m glad to see you returned, Master Tolzi. We¡¯ve had far too many vagabonds of late. We¡¯d sure like it for you to round them all up, though I imagine the council will go bankrupt paying you!¡±

    The northman laughed. ¡°Well I¡¯d happily spend their coin here, but my sword is already spoken for. What¡¯s the name of that tavern I liked? The Emerald Leaf?¡±

    ¡°The Emerald Jawhara, just as lovely as it ever was.¡±

    Leomund strolled into the town, leading his companions as if it were he that had grown up there. After only a few streets, both he and Aisha had made note of something on a subconscious level but for nearly opposite reasons. There were hardly any men left in the city. Aisha noticed the lack, while Leomund noticed the plethora of women.

    When Leomund stopped at the Emerald Jawhara, a resplendent gambling hall that was layered with rooms for travelers. It was also atop a tunnel network so the good people of Tavina didn¡¯t have to see the debtors get hauled out in chains and sold as slaves near the city gates. Such economics were left to the shadows, even if they did fund the city watch almost single handedly.

    Aisha said, ¡°We¡¯re not going in there.¡±

    Leomund frowned. ¡°Why not? This has to be the best place in the city to find someone. Or to find a way to find them at least.¡±

    ¡°Why do you think?¡± she retorted, which only furrowed his brow further.

    Sacerdote laughed as he scratched his steed¡¯s ear. ¡°Why pay for a room when hospitality is free elsewhere?¡± he said, guiding his animal to follow Aisha as she continued on to the mercantile district, and from there to a tight, cobblestone road that was like the mixing of oil and water. On the one side, rebuilt and plastered over homes spilling against one another with expansions and extra floors. On the other side of the road sat the plain and regular dwellings of the clergy. The road marked the border between the mercantile district and the temple district, and thus was filled with children running between homes and school buildings. The littlest went to general lectures while the older children sought apprenticeships. Naturally, many found themselves in lesser employment than a skilled trade, but serving as boatmen or farm workers was not such a lowly life that they couldn¡¯t smile.

    In fact, the most troubled man on the road had put on rings of fat from many months of subsisting from wine. His trade contracts had been with Vassermark and most went unpaid because of the rebellion. The stink of ethnic betrayal meant he could hardly find new work for his ships, most of which had been sunk outside Rackvidd.

    Despite all this hardship, and the lack of employees to serve his house, the man blossomed like a spring flower when he laid eyes upon Aisha, for he was none other than her father. Tears burst from his eyes as he fell on his knees hugging her. At once, she felt miserable for not ensuring her letters reached the old man. For this, I must take partial fault, as the nature of her oath dulled such thoughts in her. Explaining all that happened ran the risk of exposing Lucius¡¯ secrets, and thus made her subconsciously loathe to put ink to parchment.

    With a parent¡¯s intuition, Master Canta broke off from his embrace of his daughter. ¡°What is this I feel?¡±

    She understood at once. ¡°Inside, father, may we?¡±

    He scowled at the two men accompanying her, and as soon as the door was shut she had to assure him that it was neither of her current companions that had put a child in her. Naturally, he struck on the fact that made it worse. ¡°Who are these men you¡¯re traveling with then?¡±

    Leomund snorted as he stole himself a bowl of dried fruits, which Master Canta had been too morose to bother with. ¡°The father¡¯s sword instructor.¡±

    Sacerdote, quietly took a seat, ¡°A fellow scholar.¡±

    Aisha shook her head. ¡°They¡¯re the friends he could spare while he fights a war. The three of us are here looking for a woman named Vita. Tall, beautiful, black hair. Ring any bells?¡±

    Her father frowned. ¡°The one who bought the Emerald Jawhara?¡±

    Leomund laughed. Aisha sighed. ¡°At least we¡¯ll be able to find her.¡±

    ¡°Easily enough, but why are you looking for a whore mistress? First you come home with child, on horses no less! Then you seek out one of her? Were you not raised in the temples my dear? Who even is the man who took advantage of you?¡±

    ¡°He didn¡¯t take advantage of me!¡± she snapped. ¡°My man is Lucius von Solhart, a nobleman of Vassermark.¡±

    Her father was even more crestfallen. ¡°You¡¯re a concubine?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m to be wedded to him.¡±

    ¡°One of many, I¡¯m sure. Why didn¡¯t you talk to me about this?¡±

    ¡°Why didn¡¯t my brother talk to you before swearing a vendetta!¡±

    Silence gripped the Canta household. Leomund and Sacerdote played the role of polite guests. Before her father could say something, Aisha threw her arms around him again. ¡°I¡¯m sorry I didn¡¯t come sooner. I¡¯ve been so busy, I wish I could tell you about it, Dad.¡±

    Her father nodded. ¡°In a rush, are you? For something only a witch can provide. I¡¯ll do what I can.¡±

    I wish I could say the two of them had a touching night of catching up, and while that¡¯s a true statement history is marred by the fact that Leomund didn¡¯t stay the night. He went to the Emerald Jawhara and started a chain of events that would ultimately lead to his demise.

 5-15 - The Angels Den

    There is a misconception, born from the desire of artists to aggrandize reality. When they seek to depict figures such as the angel Acheliah they have a natural inclination to make her the centerpiece of the art. This is a bias born from the patronage of the temples of course. They surround her with radiance because they know no other way to depict the peculiar impact of perception that beings of magic have on the eye. Most inaccurately, they tend to depict her constantly surrounded by handmaidens and servants, perhaps on a palanquin of gold and sapphire.

    These artists, although they are possessed of a true artistic muse and produce wonderfully aesthetic works, have almost no foundation in reality. The image of the palanquin is a misassociation because she did prefer a rather lavish throne whenever she sat and watched something like a play, but it was never a mode of transport. Not only was flying faster and easier, but her visage alone sufficed for the grand impact that an entourage would give. This let her move about as she saw fit, playing every bit the role of the matriarch for she very much saw herself as organizing children. Given that she was older than their entire kingdom, her attitude was rather justified.

    With these facts established, it can now be understood that the angel of Vassermark, the living embodiment of their theocratic righteousness as a kingdom, strolled through the festival overflow like a manager of merchants and while doing so laid eyes on an unremarkable swordsman of skaldish descent. I speak of course about Leomund, who by now was far more acquainted with angels and divine beasts than he would have ever imagined he would be.

    When she loomed over him, her eyes read the immaterial world. Her mind ran through the realm of ideas and of will, reading him as a scholar might skim a codex. In turn, Leomund stared back at her without a hint of awe or lust in his blue eyes. Naturally, not one person except Leomund¡¯s companions, imagined that his only thought was whether he would have to fight with a butter knife in place of a proper sword. The rest of the crowd thought the angel was picking herself out a companion for the night.

    The crowd was thus shocked when she asked, ¡°You basically have my cousin¡¯s lipstick smeared over your neck. Just where is Vita?¡±

    Sardonically, Leomund laughed and returned to his drink. He answered, ¡°If only I knew.¡±

    <hr>

    The lost angel Vita had transformed the Emerald Jawhara over the preceding year since her revival, making it a sensuous den of pleasure that burrowed into the sandstone below Tavina. She draped opulence over decay, separating the layers of her business through the floors of the building. Wives and daughters left destitute and abandoned by Medorosa¡¯s revolt worked throughout the snake¡¯s den. The elderly cleaned and served, turning over rooms for travelers that still opened their windows to the desert breeze. The young and hesitant carried food and drink between tables of conversation and of dice.

    The more desperate women found themselves in a hierarchy of flesh, forming a carnal body with a small facade led by chaste and beautiful courtesans in the Aillesterran way. These few women were gems of the female form, crafted like sculptures by the ancient divine. Blessed and loyal, they had been girls of low status, of drab faces and lean bodies, but with minds like diamonds for the angel was never one to train her pets. These queens of the pit extracted obscene payments from the mercantile network of Tavina, through which Vita laundered her more sordid income. Monthly payments of silver to the local temples were her apparent taxation, the charitable contribution her den of flesh provided the small city.

    It was not why she was allowed to operate.

    The conversation Aisha and Vita had was short, and insulting trash. To cover it simply, she agreed to teach the girl all manner of magic purely to spite me. The two of them shortly embarked on a compressed and rushed tutelage that would only ever be offered by a fool with no experience in teaching. Aisha was taught methods without reasons, and given weapons but few defenses even from her own mistakes. Her arcane apprenticeship was trash that I will not put to ink here, even if it were information fit for public consumption.

    But, her study left ample time for Leomund, the troll of the northern fields and slayer of trolls to wallow in temptation. The man drank and he brooded over present responsibility and future possibility. He was torn that he might be making a mistake by helping Lucius instead of me though I had given no contravening direction. It was Anubi¡¯s gift that captivated his thoughts, conjuring up fantasies of what relief it might give him.

    And so his duties of protection fell victim to distraction. The presence of guards inside the Jawhara eased his tension. Games of chance lured him to tables where women sat in his lap with soft bodies and tittering laughs. On the fourth day, while Rodrick¡¯s champion still approached Tavina, an audacious girl snuck enough wine down his throat that she drew Leomund from the tables and to her room.

    Whoring was nothing new to the mercenary. Indeed, it was in a sense one of the reasons he worked for me. Not the opportunities, but because I had educated him in the subtle matters of medical diagnosis. Consequently, there was a scandal in the basement of the Jawhara when he stormed out. Many assumed it was a common problem, a girl too young or too old, makeup coming off in sweaty streaks. Because he kept his mouth shut as he laced his breeches once more, only the girl¡¯s madame realized it was because the girl was diseased.

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    Apologies were swift and diplomatic. One of the untouchable courtesans was sent in to occupy him, to bring him even deeper into the establishment. She plied her body across him, assaulting his senses but his guard had already been raised. Empty compliments fell on deaf ears, until at last the lady herself arrived and the two of them found privacy in the night.

    Lounging across a mismatched collection of pillows, the angel swirled a goblet of wine and explained, ¡°The girl is lucky. Her disease isn¡¯t the end of her.¡±

    Leomund let his wine sit, his attention on the enormous sprawl of scale and tail that might unravel into the material world with him, the monstrous body of the divine beast masquerading as a woman. There was no visible sign of it, but he remembered well enough from his first encounter with her. ¡°Perhaps not the end of her, but how many months of fire?¡±

    The angel curled her lips. ¡°Here, it depends entirely on contribution. Medicine for it exists, for a price. Had you hired her, you would have cut down her sickness.¡±

    ¡°And I would have paid more than silver.¡±

    ¡°But not as much as the drifters and vagabonds. You are worth far too much.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m just a sword and to be honest, I¡¯m feeling a bit of rust growing on me. There¡¯s a war going on right now¨C¡±

    ¡°Several.¡±

    ¡°And I¡¯m here like some kind of retiree.¡±

    Vita laughed. ¡°I¡¯d say you need a bard, but you¡¯re protecting one. I¡¯ll have a word with the Canta girl. She really should be pumping up your ego more. You¡¯re not a retiree, you¡¯re a knight defending a woman. You were the only man that could be trusted to keep her safe in a city populated by angels and daemons. Quite the honor. Were you prepared to fight me when we met?¡±

    The northerner grinned. ¡°I was. I figured I stood a good chance too. It¡¯s not like I was facing Aurum or Acheliah.¡±

    Vita laughed. ¡°Now I think you overestimate yourself. You¡¯re a specimen of the masculine variety, but plunging me through with your weapon is hardly enough to do me in.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m curious about something,¡± Leomund said, finally picking up his drink. ¡°This isn¡¯t your territory. Why are you allowed to, well all of this.¡±

    After a moment, Vita sat upright and smiled. ¡°I could explain to you, but I don¡¯t think you¡¯d believe me if you didn¡¯t see the others. Don¡¯t you think this den is lovely though? The entire universe is reflected in it. As above, so below. The base reality of desire and power, cycling from hand to hand in a churning flux of bodies. I¡¯m doing exactly what the temples do, and I¡¯m doing it more efficiently. The tribute I pay is not merely the coinage I send as tax, but I provide the very essence the black chick of Tavina needs to sustain herself. Worn thin by her reaping I am the only water in her desert. Ah, you don¡¯t grasp it still. Even though you came here to learn the secrets of magic, you don¡¯t even know what you came to ask.¡±

    Leomund drained his goblet. ¡°Aisha came to learn. I came to keep her safe.¡±

    She grinned and leaned closer. ¡°But aren¡¯t you curious? Your stigmata is a form of magic. It gives you such strength that you think is your own, but you were not the one that forged it. You just use it.¡±

    The swordmaster matched her lean, their faces almost as close as lovers. ¡°Is an angel about to blaspheme?¡±

    ¡°The capital T Truth can never be blasphemy. Did you know that stigmata are only a few hundred years old? Lumisgard only started being called Lumisgard when they began appearing. They are tied one and the same.¡±

    ¡°Ancient history. The wizard has told me much the same.¡±

    Vita cocked her head, grinning still. ¡°The wizard will fail. He grasps for too much. He would seize the whole world but he is no god. Leomund Tolzi, swordmaster and mercenary, is there anything in all the worlds, of material and of will, that you desire?¡±

    There was, of course, but Lucius held it close. ¡°Not that you can offer me.¡±

    She rolled her shoulders back, letting her silk dress droop across her body more deeply. ¡°No need to act like a eunuch.¡±

    ¡°I know I came down here because of a whore, but that doesn¡¯t mean they tempt me much.¡±

    Vita laughed and at last retreated, once more lounging. ¡°To the north, the eagle has a swordmaster, a paladin of impeccable character. Quite the ornament, even if a human¡¯s lifespan is so fightfully short and bloody. Leomund, truly if there is anything that can be offered to sway your loyalty, I will offer it. I cannot wade through this world by paying off those stronger than me. You don¡¯t even understand the depravity I must stoop to for my protection. If a parasite were to dig through the barrier, I would have to throw myself at the feet of my cousins and if I did that, they wouldn¡¯t think twice about putting a collar around my throat.¡±

    ¡°So you¡¯d rather have a collar on mine?¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t rebuke me then stoop to bedroom talk,¡± she said, grinning as he snarled at her. ¡°Still, if you turn me down, I¡¯ll have to throw in my lot with the wizard. And you would be very, very surprised what I can offer him. Not just in the delectability of the bait, but in the swiftness I can deliver it. I despise that incarnation of rage, but I will work with him if I must.¡±

    Leomund rolled back in his chair, rocking his head back to stare at the timber ceiling above. I hadn¡¯t kept him around for so many years because he was stupid. He understood the value of even being a mere interlocutor. While Lucius had his dearest desire, he knew I still offered much. ¡°What could you offer him that he did not wring from your body last we were here?¡±

    Vita spoke softly, eyes cold. ¡°Aurum¡¯s brother.¡±

 5-16 - Abandoned Responsibilities

    There exists a certain urban legend now, which originated from the minor city of Bi¨¨remarch¨¦ that death rides a dying horse. The phrase itself has been passed around for generations now, often repeated by people misappropriating the words. They act as though it is some profound warning when the meaning was quite literal. A man once arrived at Bi¨¨remarch¨¦, caped and hooded in the night, with cryptic reasons and foreign coin. Those who saw him believed they witnessed a demon, and the proof of their claim was the death of his horse shortly after he left. Not merely a bursting of the heart from exertion, but the creature was long since necrotic as though it had died several days past and continued to carry the stranger to his destination.

    As one might guess, this legend came about during the Jeameaux rebellion when I took lone action. While attention was far to the west, and Lucius gathered his forces for a mountain siege, I slipped unnoticed to where no one was watching.

    I strode down the cobblestones, by all appearances elderly and slow. I leaned on a cane and muttered to myself, not out of senility but to sort through the traces of magic that lingered in the city the way the rich smells of bakers linger long after their ovens grow cold. Several remarked about me, that it was no time of night for an old fellow to be alone, but that was one of the beauties of the city. Whereas scoundrels skulk the shadows of grander places, even the drunks were quiet and polite in Bi¨¨remarch¨¦. Town guard patrolled, saying early good mornings to the workers bringing firewood into the city and they chided those that hadn¡¯t made it home yet, but crime was nearly a foreign concept.

    It is truly sad that such quaint living is not something all people the world over can enjoy, but it does require a certain effort of the citizenry. I would say most bloods of peoples would never be able to create such a society, even if they too had a benevolent guiding hand, a continuation of divine right that saw fit to yearly proclaim that the laws were good, the people were good, and nothing should change.

    Alas, the Bi¨¨remarch¨¦ of today is little like the city a skulked through. The wars of later years pulled too many mercantile companies through the crossroads and swindlers found themselves drawn to the city like threshed wheat. But that is a tale for another time.

    Originally, I had planned to only visit the city with a cadre of warriors about me. Leomund at the least. But I didn¡¯t even require the presence of Golden, who I¡¯m sure would have salivated at the thought of feasting on such a corpse as I was to make. Though, it would be unfair of me to say that he played no part in the affair. It was because of him that I was able to reproduce certain sigils, pass keys, and forge documents that identified me as an anointed priest of Shepherd.

    Even these were not enough to give me free entry to the cathedral, but it was enough to summon one of the elder scholars. He was a hard man, firm in his resolve to protect the image of their angel. Had I been a mere pilgrim, I¡¯m sure I would have had to stay in Bi¨¨remarch¨¦ a fortnight, whiling away hours in the public library and dining in the gardens where locals played trireme and drank. However, the man was but a man. He had a most curious stigmata which let him transform honey into mead at a mere touch(1), which I learned almost as soon as I had him talking. Changing the subject to the loss of life at Fallen Crest Abbey, I easily cracked open his defenses and knew I had the heart of him when tears dribbled down his cheeks.

    Of course, even that wasn¡¯t enough to get me into the same room as the angel, but it secured me lodgings sufficiently close for my task. It might seem that there was a risk to my actions, that I was exposing myself to danger without allies to fall back upon. To that I say the risk would have been great if I sought to deal with Aurum this way. Lumi¡¯el was another matter entirely.

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    Mighty though the divine beast was, he had long ago been slain by the disease of despair. While a human would have become consumed by alcohol, by opiates, or gambling perhaps, Lumi¡¯el had to seek stronger pleasures, delving inot the arcane at a level that could twist his mind into a form that could not conceive of the fact that his creator was dead and, as all living things, he faced an eternal life of worry and strife, that every breath he took in opposition of death would be one taken against usurpers, backstabbers, parasites, and all those that craved his power of authority.

    Lumi¡¯el was weak, far lesser than Aurum.

    Because of this weakness, he locked himself in the deepest sanctuary of the cathedral, treating his body like a merchant treats his gold at a bank. And similarly, he cast out his mind into a new life as a daemon within the body of an unwitting servant.

    Truly he disgusted me. That I had to leave him alone, avoiding the wrath of Aurum, for so long makes bile rise up in my throat even to this day. But, by the other face of the same coin I may still experience the echo of the joy I felt the night I ruined him. It was by a weapon I thought I would never discover, given to me by Anubi. Not almighty by any stretch, but it was a key that fit the lock of Lumi¡¯el¡¯s power just as Lupa could break the stigmata of a common man.

    The process was slow, effort filled, and uneventful. Sitting in the room provided me, I had to recreate the spell from pure memory and further complicate it by routing the effect out my window and to a room I could neither see nor hear save by the enslaved efforts of a bird. But there, the great beast slumbered. On a bed of hay like a common animal, stained by his own filth from days to weeks of inactivity, the lesser angel of the central kingdoms slept. He was guarded by paladins, a now defunct order of children raised by the clergy and brainwashed into servitude. They stood with steel in hand, vigil against any intruder. Had I gone there myself, they would have struck me down without hesitation, but those humans were blind to my magic just as they were blind to the magic Lumi¡¯el used on himself, the hedonistic soma of distant dreams.

    Just as Aurum could pay visit to Jeameaux by borrowing a body, so to did Lumi¡¯el send his mind into a pit of flesh and depravity. He shirked responsibility and forced others to play guardian for him. He drank and fornicated until his mind rotted, piling sensation into a hole he continually dug out of his own soul. It was this cleavage between power and mind that made him vulnerable. It was that spell I attacked with the hungry wolf of the desert, twisting and fraying the lines of connection between the two halves of the divine beast.

    And then I had to do nothing more with my own hand. I tarried in Bi¨¨remarch¨¦ only long enough to fill my stomach and acquire a fresh steed. The clergy forgot my arrival and swift departure by the time they had woken up the next morning and those diligent guards within Lumi¡¯el¡¯s room recognized no change. The body still lived. It still breathed and shat across the hay, and would continue to do so for weeks after.

    What I had done was nothing more than what Lumi¡¯el desired. I stripped him of power, of responsibility, of his unasked-for life. I made him powerless and by destroying his ability I removed his need to worry. He no longer had to think about how he should act because it didn¡¯t matter. All paths for him were out of his hands, the responsibility of others.

    I stranded his mind in the body he had stolen, down in the depths of the Emerald Jawhara.

    <hr>

    <ol>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">I thought perhaps his stigmata was a restricted form of time acceleration, one of the most sought after spells that I¡¯ve even heard speculated, alas it was not. Almost more improbably, he had the entire fermentation process for honey written into his stigmata, which gave it an enormous size, spilling even to his hands. It is no wonder the man was taken into the temples from a young age, long before they understood just what it did.</li>

    </ol>

 5-17 - A Dangerous Invitation

    The harvest festival had grown loud. More minstrels were brought in, leading the low class guests in songs like swaths of oarsmen wielding wine in their calloused hands. Even the princess¡¯s favored skald was there, paying a visit to Aisha. He had nothing but compliments for the expectant mother, more than some of which were because talking to her excused him from repeating the most common songs of the north for the thousandth time.

    But of course, this meant it was nearly time for the feasting to begin, for all those of highest station to arrive and sit and allow the politics to swarm around them. Word had already come that the king was to arrive, bringing Kassandra with him, and that meant all others who wished to eat would have to appear. A clamor of horns forced the minstrels to shut their mouths and hold their strings, so that the usher could bellow out the titles and names of perhaps the second most important family in all of Vassermark.

    The warden of the north, the shield that protected against Skaldheim, Danyl Ashe strode through the middle of the hall, his sister-in-law Irina upon his arm. He said not a word, smiling to his many allies and rivals as he passed by Lucius¡¯ seat. He spared the boy a knowing smile, then sat down at the king¡¯s table upon the left, opposite where Prince Gabriel had settled in with the Feugards.

    Trailing behind him entered a trio of his children. At center were the two flowers of Jarnmark. Annika the elder, garbed in a dress of blue striped with black, walked with the Montisferro boy on her arm. He took the shield position of the entourage, as though he might draw out his fencing saber like a back handed rogue and fend off attackers when in truth he knew more of economics than violence. Frederika wore a dress that both matched in cut and contrasted in color, slashing her blues with white, for a quite clear symbolism. The man on her arm was merely a boy, still fat in the cheeks and plagued by the red ravages of puberty. Their little brother Andrey could barely manage himself in his formal attire, squirming away from so many eyes upon them.

    Indeed, almost the entire feast hall watched and gossiped, save for Aisha. She realized who they were and consequently whose table she and Lucius sat at before they arrived. She snarled at her beloved who had withheld such information for so long, but he had already risen to pay his respects to the ladies who had tormented him as a child.

    ¡°My thanks for the honor of this invitation,¡± Lucius said, placing a hand to the table between them.

    The girls kept their chins up, eyes searching through the hall and spying upon one person after the next. Their words were for him however, ¡°You¡¯ve been a distant ally to the family, and a wonderfully successful one at that.¡± Annika seated herself as did her fiance, her hand on his.

    Frederika sat, utterly ignoring her kid brother. She held herself with a degree of self-regard only possible for one who could have the prince¡¯s hand in marriage if she so chose. That was, of course, why Gabriel gnashed his teeth at Lucius¡¯ provocation. The ties between Ashe and Montisferro were old and economically established, a union between provincial military might and courtly management. Annika¡¯s marriage was a soft and pleasant affair between childhood friends while Frederika was tasked with expanding the family¡¯s influence and that could not possibly mean having an interest in such a rural nobleman as Lucius von Solhart. Any rational assessment came to such a conclusion. At most the schemers of Vassermark wondered if my pupil would be tempted by unfulfillable promises into laboring even harder for them.

    Had any of them listened to what  came out of her mouth, they would have been flabbergasted.

    ¡°It¡¯s been years, hasn¡¯t it? Do you remember me?¡±

    She was probing on a question of earlier festivals, when she and the original Lucius had met briefly. The two were close in age, but of such vastly different statuses that nothing came of it. Alas, the boy donned a distant expression as he answered, ¡°How could I forget?¡± For, in his mind were the two girls that had dressed him up as a mummery knight.

    She leaned on the table, eyes on him alone but it was a scrutinizing gaze. ¡°Father never imagined you would accomplish so much. It seems the whole world underestimates your stigmata.¡±

    He was sorely tempted to say to her face that if her father had realized anything, he wouldn¡¯t have been sent out into the woods with naught but a sword. He said, ¡°I¡¯ve put it to good use for the kingdom.¡±

    ¡°Father says,¡± she continued, ¡°that all stigmata are unique. Have you heard of this? That even the blessings that seem different are in fact subtly different. He says that it¡¯s the work of the Shepherd to return these blessings back to the living after the owner dies.¡±

    Annika chimed in to say, ¡°Foreign knowledge, but not contradicted by the temples.¡±

    ¡°What do you think of that?¡± Frederika asked.

    This was a subject I had never broached with the boy, because it hardly mattered. He couldn¡¯t die to pass on his stigmata elsewhere and without the utmost care in analysis and record keeping it would be impossible to know for a fact that a specific stigmata had reincarnated and not merely a similar ability. Nobody has ever offered an experimental measure of how long the reincarnation process might take, rendering the hypothesis scientifically rubbish.

    Lucius said, ¡°I just fought a man that could make his own arena for dueling. I¡¯ve never seen nor heard of someone else with that power, and it seems to me like the kind of stigmata people would make note of.¡±

    ¡°Sir Rodrick was of the upper class,¡± she said, quite ignorant of the paladin¡¯s humble roots. ¡°What if the previous person blessed was a serf? Or a slave in Giordana? They could have been a farmer in Aillesterra or one of the savage swamp men of Skaldheim. If that were the case, how would anyone hear of their ability?¡±

    Lucius shook his head. ¡°You¡¯re arguing for ignorance and making assumptions. Someone with a truly spectacular stigmata would go and make a name for themselves.¡±

    ¡°If they had the chance,¡± she said, cutting in like a saber blade. ¡°What if the last person to have your stigmata was just a boy sold to a circus? Kept as a freak to grift money out of merchants?¡±

    The casual amicability he had covered his face with cracked and failed him. Part of him had hoped that she would recognize the boy she had tormented so long ago and part hoped to leave the past behind. To be obliquely accused of profiting off of his own death was like a cavalry ambush to an unprotected flank.

    In a tone cool and quiet, he asked, ¡°If the boy had my stigmata, how would he have died?¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re not actually unkillable. You can¡¯t be. You¡¯re not a god. If you were eaten by a dragon, you¡¯d die or do you think you¡¯d pull yourself together out of his bowels?¡±

    Lucius found himself snarling at his host. ¡°That¡¯s certainly not something I plan to find out.¡±

    The Montisferro boy cleared his throat and reached across the table to pick up a distant flagon of wine. ¡°Lucius,¡± he said, his voice booming over their conversation as he smiled. ¡°How did you deal with that Rodrick? A one on one fight, man to man, a proper duel in the middle of a grand battle. It¡¯s the stuff of stories!¡±

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    Lucius let out his breath and reminded himself that he wouldn¡¯t be at the table for long. All expectations were that he was to regale the king with the grand battle. With the skill taught to him by that circus so long ago, Lucius pulled his attention around to the savior of the conversation. ¡°I had the good fortune of studying it at a distance before I had to confront the man. In truth, I¡¯m not sure what would have happened if I had charged in and forced a fight with him. I realized later that the worst thing that could happen would be trapping me in a stalemate while the armies fought it out. His sub-commanders stood a good chance of out maneuvering mine. The final confrontation¡­ well¡­ that wasn¡¯t a particular concern, but the first rout was nearly a catastrophe.¡±

    <hr>

    Some days after the confrontation at the river, both sides had fully marshaled their armies onto the chosen valley, which left Lucius plagued by the feeling that he had been manipulated. Unfortunately, this was partly my doing. The way I had left for Bi¨¨remarch¨¦ had implied that I had other schemes afoot, which I did. He made the mistake of thinking that I might have been playing both sides, because they had chosen their path exactly as if I had been the one to train their commander.

    Nothing came of that, save that Lucius found himself faced with an improvised palisade of carriages and carts, cobbled into the stony walls of a foothill valley. Cut through the middle of it was a stream that Rodrick dared not dam up, but if the boy tried to march an army through it then they would have been cut to pieces by arrows and slings from above.

    No ordinary commander would have chosen such a place to siege up, but Rodrick was not looking for a prolonged siege. He needed a confrontation just as Lucius needed one, so he sat his army where the boy would be sorely tempted to leave the command of his main force to another and climb his way through the cliffs. Perhaps he might go in the dead of night, with a few dozen of his wastelanders at his back to strike fire to the supply wagons and incinerate the plundered supplies of grains. He could cut his way in like a rude assassination band, aiming for Rodrick¡¯s throat directly.

    As it turned out, the boy resisted such temptation nearly by accident.

    His sister, who he had dragged along in the supply chain, had taken ill the night before. Lupa conflated the girl¡¯s symptoms with her own and thought she had been the one to make Aria fall sick. This minor burden was enough that when one of his Giordanan sub-commanders offered to lead a vanguard raid through the southern mountains, Lucius assented.

    Later, he would learn that no fighting at all had occurred by those Giordanan mercenaries, because they had been confronted by Ismael and they spent the day arguing and insulting one another. Punishments were later doled out, but not too harshly. The fact remained that they had occupied nearly a thousand men of the rebel forces and taken no injuries. Unapproved diplomacy could only be frowned upon so much.

    Prolonging the fight would only give the advantage to the defender in this circumstance. The day that Lucius arrived, with the mountains providing a streaked and snowy backdrop, was the weakest that Rodrick¡¯s fortifications would ever be. The men were hard at work moving boulders, felling trees, and turning the river valley into a temporary fortress and they certainly had enough food to sit on their spears until winter.

    Golden provided his advice on the fortifications, his eyesight still greater than a regular human¡¯s despite his divine demotion. He, Lucius, and the remaining sub-commanders spent an hour bickering over paths and responsibilities before Raymi¡¯s appointee of the Vassish soldiers declared that he would push through the gut of the enemy. Golden had spotted a span along one of the cascading ridges, that fed down to the river like terraces, a region defended by toppled hand-carts. They were shoddily built in the first place, and weather worn from the journey. A stern press by a shield formation would smash through them better than any other, so a heavy force of infantry was nominated.

    The attack began at noon, while the mercenaries clambered through the hills to flank. At the time, Lucius had two working canoneer units, but transporting the weapons was a laborious process of pack animals and easily assaulted. The focus had to be upon the initial hammer blow, and so Lucius himself marched with the heavy infantry. In close ranks, the Vassish locked shields like the shell of a tortoise and advanced. Skirmishers harried the other fortifications, intent on stopping any flanking action from reaching the heavy infantry. Naturally, a flanking maneuver couldn¡¯t be stopped forever, but if the assault took more than a moment then the strategy would fail.

    Lucius marched in the second row, carrying a long shield overhead. Arrows bounced off the wood when they were still a hundred paces out. They broke through even the leather cladding when they were fifty paces out. Men began to catch steel in their necks at twenty-five paces. That was when they charged. As one, the disciplined men of Vassermark hammered forward. A whoop of valor reverberated in the valley as each man braced against the man in front of him. Together, they smashed into the poor fortification and barreled through it. Men screamed, some falling down the ravine as steel began to clash.

    Lucius could see only over the shoulder of the man in front of him, a small window to the battlefield. Through that, he tried to shout commands, but he could only hear the men at the sides exchange stabs with spearmen while more arrows pelted the formation.

    Then Rodrick bellowed, ¡°I challenge thee!¡± At once, his stigmata erected a barrier, encircling himself and one of his comrades. The forced arena sat dead in the middle of the path Lucius¡¯ formation was set to take and their shields slammed up against, breaking like waves against a rock.

    None of the Vassish were injured by it, but they were baffled by the arcane barrier. It took their attention away from the archers. That moment of success broke the spell. The requirements of the challenge depend on both combatants recognizing the other as an enemy and such a fiction could only be fleeting between allies. The wall faltered just as soon as the heavy infantry formation dispersed against it.

    The paladin swung his sword tip at the nearest Vassishman. Again he bellowed, ¡°I challenge thee!¡± and again the barrier was thrown up. It cut him out of the pack like a sheepdog pulling a ewe. And that barrier stayed up. Scared and uncertain of Rodrick¡¯s power, the frontmost infantryman found himself alone and no amount of shouting for Lucius could get through his fog of trepidation.

    Lucius had understood enough of the spell at once. What had seemed like weakness had been strength. Rodrick had pulled the Vassish into a trap. For as long as it took the paladin to lazily duel but a single infantryman, the formation could not advance without clambering up or down a level of the ravine. They were stuck against their enemy¡¯s wall while archers waylaid them.

    Corpses mounted, forcing the shield formation to contract and shrink, trampling over the bodies of their friends while the other forces threw themselves at the stronger fortifications. His troops were amassing nearly as many kills, but diluted across the battlefield. Blood fouled the river as Lucius slammed the butt of his sword against Rodrick¡¯s barrier.

    The paladin toyed with the infantryman. He turned spear thrusts aside, circling around him and dragging out the fight. He made it look easy, demonstrating the skill of a swordmaster. He even had the luxury, feigned I believe, to look at Lucius directly. He smirked and spoke to him, still toying with the soldier who had by then been nicked and bled almost to death. ¡°Where¡¯s the wizard, boy? Our fight is with him.¡±

    Again, Lucius slammed the pommel of his blade against the barrier, finding no luck in cracking it through strength. ¡°Your fight is with me.¡±

    One of the Aillesterrans leapt up on a rock behind the barrier. ¡°The wizard is gone,¡± he announced.

    Rodrick wheeled on the foreigner, earning himself a cut to the thigh that almost sent him to the ground. A wicked slash of his blade shattered the infantryman¡¯s spear shaft, and as the Vassishman recoiled, Rodrick shouted, ¡°Throw the fire!¡±

    With that command, the simple exchange of man to man in melee combat, even the exchange of missiles, ceased to matter. Artillery from both sides was lobbed. The rebels threw bottle after bottle of oil until the ground was mud and strewn with glass, but also they threw one of the Cyclops¡¯ concoctions, a sticky and foul smelling brew of everfire. Greasy smoke rose up like curtains to the sky as some few men found their clothes ablaze. No amount of rolling or water put out the fire that had clung to them as fur does to hide.

    And at the same time, Lucius¡¯ first cannon was hammered. The percussion launched steel splinters through the wooden fortification, in turn creating more splinters. Nearly a hundred men, bunched up for volleys of arrow, fell victim to the destruction. Some died of blood loss and were left where they lay. Most died over the next few weeks while the army fled across the countryside and tetanus set in, for the grapeshot had been neglected, and a blight of rust coated the ammunition.

    In the final tally, Lucius suffered one hundred deaths of his forces, and some few hundred more injuries, many of which led to dismissals. The dead taken from the rebels ultimately numbered four hundred and this great victory was reported by way of military bulletin back to Vassermark, along with several convoys of captured grain.

 5-18 - Escape Into The Night

    ¡°How did they escape? I read that bulletin. You reported that they had taken refuge in a natural fortress. You had them pinned in,¡± the Montisferro boy asked. The king had already arrived, to the typical fanfare that is so laden with ceremony that it is not worth repeating. His seating, between the dukes Feugard and Ashe, marked the proper start of the feast and food had already been laden across the table. Bounties of vegetables, both raw and roasted, were kept in communal bowls and steaming loaves of bread burned the fingers of the overeager before they could stuff the baked bounty into thick cups of seafood chowder.

    While Aisha chastised Lupa for picking the scallops out of the soup, Lucius explained, ¡°I wrote that bulletin while we were still sieging the place.¡± This was a lie of course, but the kind of lie appropriate to the situation. ¡°It was obvious that the number of defenders was decreasing through the night. It¡¯s very difficult to leave proper cook fires unattended you know, and my wastelanders were still habitually vigilant beneath the stars. I had a good estimate of their reduction but I made the mistake of thinking it was through desertion. The cliffs to their back weren¡¯t unscalable, they were simply difficult to take en masse. I learned after that they had smuggling tunnels to use. One third of their army climbed the hard way. One third used the tunnels, and the mercenaries allowed the Giordanans under Ismael to escape through the foothills because they regrouped with me for orders. The fire threw everyone¡¯s plans into disarray.¡±

    ¡°Except the Cyclops,¡± Frederika said.

    Lucius nodded his head. ¡°True. While I won the tactical victory, I was unable to break their strategy. At that time, I had no idea what kind of leverage they were seeking to use against  me, else I would have been slightly more irrational.¡±

    ¡°Good that you didn¡¯t,¡± Annika said. She gave a coy grin and said, ¡°People would have starved if you hadn¡¯t secured that grain.¡±

    The boy grimaced. ¡°And a great deal of soldiers would probably still be alive today if I had ended the rebellion then and there.¡±

    Frederika had mostly ignored her food. ¡°Did you really count the bodies? Like, you assigned somebody the task to go around and count everyone who died?¡±

    Of course, he hadn¡¯t, but he said, ¡°It happens when you bury them.¡±

    ¡°In a pit?¡±

    ¡°Even when you bury them in a pit, yes. I think our conversation has strayed a bit from appropriate fare.¡±

    ¡°Well, father always says to never trust a bulletin. Half the time they¡¯re forged to mis-inform the enemy. The only thing you can really trust is the goods and the prisoners that show up before your very eyes.¡±

    Lucius grinned. ¡°Such as the grain.¡±

    ¡°Such as the grain, which you took from an enemy you drove off to fight nearly on the other side of the world.¡±

    Lucius scoffed. ¡°Please, we were barely east of Tavina. We were still in Jeameaux¡¯s territory when I caught up to him again.¡±

    ¡°For the grand finale to the rebellion,¡± Frederika said, speaking into her wine.

    ¡°The paladin had to reconvene with his designated thief. I would have caught him sooner if he hadn¡¯t plunged into the swamp.¡±

    Annika chimed in, after glaring at her little sister. ¡°Remarkable, isn¡¯t it? That such honorable men became so base?¡±

    Lucius glanced over to Aisha. ¡°If any lesser a man had done the deed, I¡¯d be here telling a very different story. And I don¡¯t mean to say they bungled the villainy.¡±

    <hr>

    Aisha had completed barely a week of study¨Cshe still struggled even the simplest of resonances(1)--when the blademaster came for her. The ruse of staining her hair with soot was meaningless while she stayed in the known home of her family. The effort to hide her was ultimately for naught. Mihael of Bakerstreet prowled through the night,  having shed the armor and glory of his due station. He once more skulked as does a youth without parents, without hope for the future. The city streets were of Tavina, hot and dusty, but much the same. He had no fear of squelching through mud, of leaving the signature tracks of his boots. After several days settling into the city, he moved through the night as if he had grown up there.

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    The guard patrols were light, one of many symptoms left by the rebellion. Still, he had no desire to cross blades with the men of the polis. When their lantern light came swaying across the alleys, he shrank beneath windows and stifled his breath. As quiet as death,  he still kept a grip upon the handle of his arming blade. Though he brought with him his knightly blade, it was the shank of steel kept in a hand-stitched leather sheath that he knew he would have to rely upon between the plaster walls.

    Perhaps if he had been with any other accomplice, he might have had to spill the blood of the town guard, but he had with him a man of Aillesterra who existed as a ghost. His breathe oozed out with a heavy magic, leadening the air and holding it still. No sound existed around his cloaked form.

    When the two of them reached their destination, they had to climb over a mudbrick wall, its edge lined with pottery shards. Hoisted up by Mihael¡¯s hand, the Aillesterran struck off the ceramic blades without a noise. He then easily pulled himself up and rolled over to throw down his hand. Hauling Mihael up like a pendulum, the two rogues barreled into the garden of the Canta family residence.

    Here, there was a victim of history. Through no fault of anyone, that particular night the Canta family hosted a suitor for Aisha. He was a young man with little to offer for her but his forthright effort. He had ridden in on a spotted horse and boldly offered his own life in bondage to Master Canta for a period of three years in exchange for his daughter¡¯s hand, and if she would have him, seven more years hereinafter. He thought that with her brother buried, such a proposal would be amendable to the old man.

    Perhaps in another circumstance, it would have been. The boy was cunning and strong, with a sincere heart. He was wasted as the mere son of a well town elder. As evidence, the revelation that Aisha was already taken before he arrived was greeted with laughter and congratulations for her good fortune. He bore not a shred of ill-will to her. Truly, he believed the two of them would have grown close over the years and bonded properly, but with a frank rejection he merely accepted customary hospitality.

    He was to stay one single night but that was the night that Mihael invaded.

    Among the languishing flowers of a mother long passed, the two men confronted each other. The failed suitor tried to raise an alarm but discovered that he had no voice. He understood even before Mihael drew his little knife that it was to be violence. With no explanation of intent, both men naturally acceded to violence. Out from his night robe came his own little dagger. It was a smaller weapon than the swordmaster¡¯s, but it did not break or bend under the blows. Steel slashed back and forth as the men lunged at one another. Their feet silently scattered the garden gravel as cloth was ripped apart and stained red.

    Then Mihael¡¯s blade opened a wound on the man¡¯s hand. Muscles were split open and his grip faltered. Another blow knocked the little dagger from his grasp and then it was but a single move to thrust into the suitor¡¯s chest. He collapsed to the ground, choking on blood as Mihael entered the Canta home where his comrade had already intruded.

    Tragedy made silent proved somber. The Aillesterran had carved open the throat of Master Canta and he laid across the tiles in his pooling blood. Aisha had been taken by the arm. She thrashed and wailed to no effect as tears poured down her face. A number of cuts already adorned her cheeks, hands, and throat, but the threats of the foreigner could hardly quell her anguish.

    Unable to speak, Mihael gestured with his hand to ask where the others were. His companion could only shrug. The two violent men who accompanied Aisha every day were not there. Neither defended her beneath the moon and no other man raised a hand to stop the three of them. After throwing a cloak over Aisha and pressing a blade to her back, they dragged her off to the stables they had prepared, and there they hauled her onto the front of a saddle. While Mihael took the reins, he also placed his hand to her shoulder to steady her for the ride.

    While he did so, the Aillesterran slaughtered the stablehand who witnessed them. The needless death sickened Mihael, but he suffered it. Then they snapped reins and sent their frightened horses galloping through the streets. Subterfuge was abandoned, flight taken. They burst past the city watch, flying out into the desert.

    When Tavina was a speck in the distance, the Aillesterran dropped his stigmata. His chest heaved as exertion caught up with him and they drew their horses to a walk. ¡°We have a problem.¡±

    Mihael reined closer. ¡°Where were the men?¡±

    The Aillesterran sneered and shook his head. ¡°Let them come. I¡¯m not worried about them. She¡¯s the problem,¡± he said, gesturing to Aisha.

    She turned her head and glared with insurmountable hatred at the swordmaster who had captured her. ¡°You¡¯re going to pay for this.¡±

    Mihael bowed his head to her. ¡°I¡¯m terribly sorry about your father.¡±

    The Aillesterran reached out and yanked on the cloak that covered Aisha. ¡°Her father can¡¯t hurt us now. Look!¡±

    Aisha twisted her shoulders as Mihael pulled his horse to a stop. She let him see the soft rounding of her belly. The Aillesterran hissed, but there was no need to explain to Mihael. He understood at a glance, now that he had her so close, that there had been a tremendous miscalculation. She was pregnant. She was not merely Lucius¡¯ mistress of choice, a pawn to be bartered with.

    Aisha was the mother of his child and by abducting her, they had not only endangered the girl¡¯s life, but the life of Lucius¡¯ firstborn child.

    She made him a promise. ¡°Lucius is going to rip your heart out of your chest. He is going to kill every last one of you.¡±

 5-19 - Ten Seconds Of Life

    While the main hall bogged down with proclamations and recitations of prayers the likes of which would bore even the most possessed of historians, the Skaldish bard Frierdrich slipped out. He had heard tale that the angel Acheliah had made a scene earlier, and he decided to investigate that rather than listen to her talk about the ancient founding of Vassermark. The angel had a way of meandering in her speeches when she got onto history, because she largely drew from her own memory and biases. It had personal flair but not the narrative seduction that a bard like Friedrich would have enjoyed. Not the least of which reason was because he was a foreigner.

    His delight at spotting Leomund was genuine, and the two men spent a time drinking and exchanging news about their homeland. Neither had been to the frigid north in some years and both found the conversation subtly distressing. In the spirit of the holiday, however, Friedrich squeezed onto the bench beside Kajsa. While the others refilled tankards of ale, he buttered a bun and made his ultimate inquiry. When news reached the guest table that Kajsa had been requested to join the main hall, he accompanied her, almost in a daze as the sandy heroics filled his head and kindled music within him.

    He had asked Leomund, ¡°I heard you fought Mihael during the rebellion.¡±

    Leomund nodded. He knew that most of his story had already been leaked through the taverns and cities of Vassermark. ¡°I did, though neither of us were at our best. That¡¯s what happens when you spend an entire night chasing each other through the wilderness.¡±

    The bard asked, ¡°If you had been at your best, who would have won?¡±

    ¡°What a silly question,¡± Leomund said as fire-roasted chickens were brought to the tables. They were too hot for most to touch, but he snatched one for himself regardless. Chilling his fingers with his drink, he said, ¡°I haven¡¯t been at my best in years and that¡¯s no excuse. When you fight, you fight with all you¡¯ve got. Your life is on the line. Sometimes, other people¡¯s lives are too. If someone would whine that they were sick, or didn¡¯t get enough sleep, or they were injured from another fight, how is that any different from whining that they would have won if they had just tried harder? If they hadn¡¯t slept around with so many whores? There¡¯s no fundamental difference between the two once you¡¯ve committed to a fight. Excuses are nothing but a salve for defeat.¡±

    Friedrich nodded and asked, ¡°Then you accept that you were bested?¡±

    Leomund scowled. ¡°I certainly lost the fight, if that¡¯s what you¡¯re asking. Maybe it would have gone differently if I¡¯d been more levelheaded. Maybe I underestimated him. Doesn¡¯t matter. I lost.¡±

    ¡°At least you¡¯re here today,¡± Friedrich said, trying to console the man by slapping him on the shoulder. ¡°Why did you lose your temper? Did the good man of the faith have a foul tongue?¡±

    ¡°Nothing like that. It was because I shouldn¡¯t have been in the fight at all. The girl shouldn¡¯t have been snatched from under our noses like that.¡±

    <hr>

    The night had been blissful for Leomund. A soma to numb the mind with the pleasures of the material world. Only when Sacerdote arrived at the Jawhara den did it come crashing down. The two men had split guard duty for Aisha between each other, allowing each some time for personal desires. Sacerdote had dug through the temple libraries, and Leomund had spent his time with Vita.

    That Aisha would be without either of their protection was beyond thought. It through the northman into a rage but he stifled it against the wastelander. Drunk as only an off duty soldier can be, he burst out of the brothel and ran through the streets. He barreled through a crowd that had taken notice of the spurred horses. Through the front door of the Canta household he burst, fear welling up from the moment he saw it open.

    There he saw Master Canta dead upon the floor and he understood what had happened. Gritting his teeth, immediately he drew on the power of his stigmata. The berserker rage¨Cjust a taste of it¨Cwas enough to squash the inebriation. As a force, he moved to the stables prepared to throw out the helper, but found that the boy was already dead. He had to saddle his horse alone, before the guards realized who he was. The fact that they would only get in his way was already evident. With nothing but his blade, he leapt atop his horse and snapped the reins.

    That night, the desert had three dervishes. The night was clear with the glow of the moon above, a blessing of the wolf mother for her wayward son. The abductors could not keep up their pace and hide the plumes of their sand from Leomund¡¯s keen eyes. For hours he tracked them, utterly certain that they knew they were pursued. He gave his horse no quarter, diggins his heels in and striking its hind bloody. He rode the animal until its heart nearly burst between his legs, until it was a wild eyed and frothing animal stumbling over its own hooves.

    But that was enough.

    As the morning sun warmed the horizon, the two criminals had given up their flight. The sand and stone of Giordana had begun to give way to the loam of the central kingdoms. In the shallow beside a cleft of stone, springwater flowed northward and in that shelter were six more men of Jeaumeax. They were unprepared to take flight at once, so they had no choice but to rally to arms as Leomund hounded them down.

    Berserker reflexes pulled his head aside as a steel tipped arrow soared for his throat. Two more lanced the air around him, pelting the beleaguered horse and felling it. Then he was upon the recruits. His blade smashed through an upraised bow and through the man holding it. He kicked the lad into their tethered horses, making the animals yelp and kick as Leomund leapt at the next closest archer. That one too was cut down, a blow opening his back from shoulder to hip.

    Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

    Then Mihael jumped in. ¡°Face me!¡±

    Leomund considered the challenge only long enough to reject it. He was outnumbered and without support coming to help. What was more, it wasn¡¯t merely his own life in the balance. In the pause it took for the other vagabonds to wait for him to accept Mihael¡¯s challenge, he flicked a dagger through the air and caught a boy beneath the chin with it. Three remained as the idea of a fair fight vanished. Rage had taken the youths however, and they closed in with clubs and swords.

    It was all the swordmaster could do to pressure Leomund, but the northerner just kept jumping back, playing the crowd. He weaved between bodies and took his cuts where he could. Chaos was the essence of fending off a crowd, but it also let him scan the encampment. There had been two horsemen, but only the one remained. The Aillesterran¨Cthough he didn¡¯t know it at the time¨Cwas gone. There was a chance they would have put a blade to Aisha¡¯s throat, but they needed her life to bargain against Lucius. The threat would have been moot against Leomund.

    Finally only two of the six boys stood beside Mihael and he ordered them back. He had done so many times already, but his voice finally broke through the melee frenzy. When they backed off, cowed by the violence as much as by hierarchy, there was only the swordmaster of Skaldheim and the swordmaster of Jeaumeax. That was a duel people the world over would have paid to see, at least to have reputable witnesses regale them with the clash of steel. Their talent clashed in the spring-water mud. Both men were exhausted from a full night on horseback, but both knew how to overpower fatigue.

    Their swords moved like hissing vipers. They twisted and pulled, sidestepping and retreating before lashing out. The clang and chip of edge against crossguard was all that protected their hands and wrists. Neither could get close enough to land a mortal blow. Leomund was faster, surging with the strength of his stigmata, but Mihael¡¯s blade was longer. The other swordmaster held his pommel in one hand, easily twisting from one guard to the next.

    Soon they began to circle one another more than they fought. The chaos of a battlefield, which suited Leomund more, was a poor behavior for a one on one fight. While in a mash of steel and blood, the berserker could jump from one surprised opponent to the next, there were few options to surprise a trained duelist.

    Mihael grinned, sweat pouring down his ruddy face. ¡°I see why the cyclops said a swordmaster was needed.¡±

    The calm part of his mind wondered about the cyclops, but that part was no longer in charge of his mouth. The berserker panted and growled, more a beast of reflex than of contemplation. In his experience, that gave him a very specific chance.

    He closed with Mihael, twisting his body as he attacked. He aimed at the other man¡¯s blade, driving it aside and opening himself up to getting the crossguard smashed into his face. The counter was natural, but Mihael¡¯s training betrayed him. Before lashing out, he fixed his footing. That one instant was enough for Leomund to draw a hidden blade and stab it up through Mihael¡¯s arm. Blood gushed out before Mihael even knew he had been struck, and not fast enough to stop the edge of the cruciform guard from ripping a hole through Leomund¡¯s cheek.

    Where a regular man would have been dazed, the berserker rebounded into the fray, now with two weapons. Neither had the reach of Mihael¡¯s longsword but the northman was faster. Mihael¡¯s injury slowed his parries, forcing the man to use his feet. The duel became nearly a chase until Leomund caught their blades together, Mihael¡¯s back to the cliff. He lunged with the dagger, only to be met by the man¡¯s boot to his gut.

    He was sent reeling back, ready to leap again.

    Then the duel was decided by a plunging spear to his back. One of the others had snuck in behind and with trembling hands thrust the short lance into his lungs.

    Leomund was able to spin and decapitate the lad, but the damage was done. Without a surgeon, he would die there, drowning in his own blood. As his enemies waited and hoped he would fall over, he had but a few thoughts. Mostly, he was disappointed that he hadn¡¯t been able to live up to Lucius¡¯ trust. And he was disgusted with what he was about to do to a man so well trained in fighting without even a stigmata.

    Basic martial arts is the art of killing. Advanced martial arts is how to kill without getting injured. These two categories are refinements of the brute instinct carved inside the feral minds of man, which can be drawn out when survival no longer matters.

    Leomund stepped forward. He leaned as feeling began to vanish from his exhausted body. As he lunged, Mihael drove the tip of his sword out like a spear and skewered the northman¡¯s heart. That left approximately ten seconds of life in Leomund¡¯s body as he landed atop the swordmaster. He pummeled with his right hand and stabbed with his left. Mihael¡¯s hands smashed at his face and he bit off fingers. As his lifeblood left him, he drove his dagger through Mihael¡¯s eye and pierced his brain, ending the lives of both swordmasters with but a single witness to their gory demise.

    There, in the early morning, Leomund Tolzi died for the first time, and the Aillesterran bastard continued north with Aisha in tow, none the wiser of her friend¡¯s demise. Word was never brought to the rebels. The only man that could have was felled by a stone from a sling before he was able to saddle a horse.

    Sacerdote¡¯s body had much muscle memory to make use of like that.

    We hadn¡¯t expected Leomund to die. Our plan was to be oriented towards Mihael in fact, but all plans waver in the face of the enemy and I didn¡¯t hesitate to salvage what I could. Leomund was a far greater asset than a zealot from Baker street of all places, and our butchery would only allow for one to rebuke the Shepherd¡¯s reapers and knit their flesh back together.

    Vita tossed down the trussed up body of Lumi¡¯el, taken by drugs and by force from the Jawhara. The angel had cowed beneath the might of myself¨Che thought me there in the flesh¨Cand Vita both. I think he never imagined we would kill him until the very last moment. He couldn¡¯t understand why he was trapped in the ravaged body of a human, and unable to return to his true form in Bi¨¨remarch¨¦. The confusion of such a degenerated host body kept him trapped with us as much as the robes that bit into the girl¡¯s body whose he had stolen.

    And so Vita helped me spit in the face of the gods that day. She earned her place as one of my accomplices, and in payment, the bonds of slavery I would have put on Mihael were instead forged between Leomund and her.

    Our swordmaster awoke the toy of an angel, and only Lucius could rescue Aisha by putting an end to the rebellion.

 5-20 - Crossing Paths With The Past

    At this time, these two separate timelines have aligned in a curious manner. So far, everything has largely been within the realm of expectations, concerning behavior between the nobility and at war. But at this time in the feast, and prior at the corresponding point of the rebellion, both parties found themselves shocked by the unexpected arrival of a woman.

    Beginning with the feast, for it is both more important to the ultimate history of Vassermark, maneuverings had begun from the royal family. Namely, the king invited Lucius to stand before his table and regale him with the war. The story had to be repeated, not the least of which reason was because the king wanted to hear it himself but because King Arandall interrogated him on matters of tactic and strategy. Questions were posed and reiterated. Hypotheticals examined. Both dukes were drawn into it, throwing their own biases at the problem. The boy held his own against them, often shielding his actions with the strangeness of the wastelanders. An unshakeable corps of veterans can always do wonders for maintaining morale among lesser men.

    But very few people in the hall could actually hear the conversation over the din of talk and of song. Instead they watched. They judged the expressions of the most powerful men in the kingdom. And among those people, Felicia vi Raymi sulked. She had barely taken her eyes off Lucius while he sat at the Ashe family table and she kept them on him as he spoke to the king. Her meal had been primarily wine, though her plate was covered in shredded meat from the dozen or so attempts she had made of rousing her appetite.

    ¡°I¡¯d say he was some kind of eunuch if I didn¡¯t know better,¡± the raven haired beauty said as she leaned on the arm of her chair, drawing close to Aria vi Solhart.

    ¡°Ley please, if you were invited to dine at the table of the Ashe family or the Feugards, would you say no?¡±

    Felicia sneered, glancing at the other people at her family¡¯s table whom had wisely given her space. ¡°I¡¯d say no to the Feugards.¡±

    ¡°That would be a scandal.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re a scandal.¡±

    Aria almost choked on her wine. ¡°What?¡±

    ¡°The heiress of the family and you ran off to a war you didn¡¯t even fight in? And it wasn¡¯t even for a husband but your own brother.¡±

    Aria ignored her blush. ¡°You know as well as I that he¡¯s been most peculiar. And one thing led to another. When the assassins started, what was I to do? Travel on my own?¡±

    Felicia sighed. ¡°I¡¯m sorry. It¡¯s the wine talking. If the princess invited me to tea at this point, I¡¯d embarrass myself and then what would happen?¡±

    ¡°She¡¯d tease you,¡± Aria said, trying to spot Kassandra vi Arandall at the table, but to no avail. ¡°Which might actually become an issue if she thought Frederika was courting my brother.¡±

    ¡°Isn¡¯t she?¡±

    Aria paused, and then the two girls drank together. Neither had the station to barge over and get answers from the Ashe family and both could theoretically wring it out of Lucius later. In Aria¡¯s case, she was confident Aisha would leak the gossip before the night was out. Neither of them were prepared for what happened when Acheliah made her belated appearance to the feast.

    Not because of the angel herself. She went right over to the king and trays of desserts were brought out. Acheliah had no attention for anyone else.

    The surprise was Gabriel strolling in through the angel¡¯s wake, almost unnoticed. He didn¡¯t take a direct path, but wove around the outskirts of the hall where scurrying servants masked his appearance and they masked the girl he had brought in with him. Felicia didn¡¯t let him pass without a word. So far to the south of the hall, her table was nearly against the wall. The prince had to walk right past her. ¡°My prince, I thought you¡¯d be returning with your sister.¡±

    The blonde youth snorted. ¡°Austin Feugard snuck off with her to watch a melee tournament. I can only hope Father is aware.¡±

    ¡°Who¡¯s this?¡± Felicia asked, eying the short girl beside him who looked awestruck to be in the room. ¡°Normally you bring your¡­ Kajsa?¡±

    ¡°Lady Raymi, I didn¡¯t expect to see you again,¡± the alchemist said, relief flooding over her as she quickly gravitated away from the prince.

    Felicia set her drink down and checked for a servant¡¯s chair but there was none. ¡°I thought you were the star of the gold mine down in the isles. What brings you here?¡±

    The alchemist blushed. ¡°It¡¯s because of my work getting the gold refining again. Master Solhart extended his invitation.¡±

    Gabriel laughed. ¡°I heard the tale when I stepped outside. I just thought it was so kind of Lucius to invite this woman as well.¡±

    For a moment, Felicia¡¯s face darkened but nothing could come of it because all attention became fixated on the clang of Frederika Ashe¡¯s chair as she leapt to her feet and toppled it. Her eyes had locked on Kajsa with an eagle¡¯s precision and to a storm of gossip, she stormed around the feast all. The alchemist reflexively tried to make herself vanish, but the prince happily snatched her by the arm with some empty words about showing appropriate respect to the nobles.

    Whatever the prince had expected Frederika to say, and whatever Felicia was preparing to tell the Ashe girl, everyone was floored as Frederika Ashe ignored the prince entirely and asked Kajsa, ¡°Aren¡¯t you Jarnpojke¡¯s friend? From Jarnmark? The little boy who lost his arm.¡±

    Kajsa opened her mouth to answer, but struggled as her natural memories yanked against the bonds that Golden had chained her with almost a year prior. All she could say was, ¡°I¡¯m sorry, I can¡¯t recall.¡±

    Frederika pressed her, sidelining the flabberghasted prince. ¡°He was with the circus before the Ashe family hired him. I¡¯m Frederika Ashe. We¡¯re the same age. He was a bit younger. He had a stigmata that would heal his wounds. It was just like the one Lucius von Solhart has. You remember, don¡¯t you? How could you forget him?¡±

    Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.

    Of course, she couldn¡¯t forget him. Not by choice. The poor girl was completely overwhelmed by the assault on her shackled mind. Her stammering ceased to make sense and the pressure overwhelmed her. Her eyes rolled up and her knees went out. Falling into the prince¡¯s arms may have been the dream of thousands of girls across Vassermark, but all involved would have wanted anything but. Still, Frederika turned her pressure on Gabriel. With a few words as precise as a fencer¡¯s thrusts, she needled his chivalry and had him personally carry the girl to a bed in the guest wing given to the Ashe family.

    And at just the same time, Lucius was unable to even notice because he was explaining to King Arandall how a one-eyed woman no older than his own son might be the most dangerous enemy in the world to Vassermark. And he knew this despite only crossing paths with her once during the whole rebellion.

    <hr>

    In all the written history of Lumisgard, I believe there are five army commanders that have ever walked directly into the enemy camp and lived to tell about it. It simply is not something that is done in a serious war. I¡¯m of course disregarding disputes of clans and the like, where all involved know one another.

    The event I speak of occurred shortly before the time Lucius learned what had happened to Aisha and shortly after Aurum¡¯s rage. The latter I will return to soon, as it ultimately had little effect on the boy¡¯s decisions. The cyclops herself deserted from the rebel army. She didn¡¯t stay long enough to even see Aisha because such a delay would have prevented her arrival prior to news reaching Lucius, and her entire gambit rested on catching him unawares.

    Bypassing the scouts around the boy¡¯s army proved trivial. The entire war was an early version of what came to be known as a policing action. To keep up the appearance that Lucius was acting in the best interest of the lawful government, the locals were not kept under martial law. Their own travel was not restricted and thus wagons still trundled through the hills and fields. His army kept their eyes peeled for the glint of steel helms, for the slow rumble of marching boots.

    An old man in a wagon traveling with his injured daughter was an event of utter insignificance. Some of them daydreamed about taking her as a wife, but it was the kind of idle musings that infantrymen always had. The only controversy began at the farmhouse Lucius had taken for his own rest.

    The boy would have happily slept in a tent like any other soldier, but he had to exert his authority to secure better lodgings for Aria and to be seen doing so. Unfortunately for him, it was her that first heard the woman¡¯s shoutings through the window, because the cyclops had no qualms whatsoever from proudly declaring that she was Lucius¡¯ mistress from Jeameaux and further, ¡°You must either let me in or you will have to explain to him why the mother of his child is out in the wilderness!¡±

    The owners of the house meekly shied out of the room while Aria stared at Lucius and called him a whoremonger. Lupa took a more evenhanded response, asking, ¡°I thought the only woman you spent a night with back then was your sister?¡±

    ¡°Lupa,¡± the boy said as he rose from the table. He took her hands in his and locked eyes with her. ¡°I know you mean well by that but everyone is going to severely misunderstand what you mean by that. Honestly, it¡¯s probably a spy but I¡¯m curious what their plan could be.¡±

    And so, my dear pupil left the dining table to relieve his confused guards. He opened the door and squinted against the setting sun. ¡°You certainly know how to cause a commotion,¡± he said.

    ¡°Would you have it any other way?¡± she asked.

    And at this moment I must confess that my evidence becomes more in the realm of conjecture. The truth of the matter is locked away in the mind of my pupil, where I will never be able to get it. My personal attention at the time was largely taken up by evading Aurum, so when the boy reflexively threw a boot knife into the heart of my enthralled raven, I was wholly unprepared to find another means of spying. Truth be told, I didn¡¯t even know he was that proficient with a throwing knife. The technique had little synnergy with his regeneration and it wasn¡¯t something Leomund taught him. I think perhaps one of the entertainers down in the Misty Isles taught it to him while he drank himself rotten.

    My apologies done, I must now continue my conjecture.

    The scourge of Lucius¡¯ military career had, I believe already at this time, abilities beyond what a stigmata can grant. She had accumulated certain blessings and incantations from the surviving angels, and one of them was a form of identity obscurement. I don¡¯t believe it changed her features, but those under its effect would struggle to remember details about her. My evidence for this is chiefly taken from the fallen of Rodrick¡¯s army, but also from Lucius¡¯ recollection. He denied any recognition of her at all, and Golden confirmed his tale.

    Lucius dragged her inside like a guard hauling a convict. When Aria tried to ask what was happening, he snapped at her to sit back down. The farmhouse had little by way of privacy and ultimately he dragged the new arrival into the root cellar. Among dangling braids of garlic and fermentation pots, he at last demanded answers from her.

    She made him an offer. I know this because it was referenced in their later encounters which I was essentially present for. Perhaps she made it more personal, more seductive, but the crux of what she said was, ¡°Leave the wizard and come with me. You don¡¯t have to be his pawn, Pojke.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m not his pawn,¡± he said, and of course he said that. I did more to raise that boy than his own father did.

    The cyclops was undeterred. ¡°What you are doing is evil. His hands might be bloodier than yours, but you are marching down a path of destruction with him, because he is spoonfeeding you just enough power that you can deal with the problems you had before you had that power. Then he makes it worse! You¡¯re in a cycle and it¡¯s just going to escalate! Bring your friends if you need to, but leave his machinations behind and come with me.¡±

    ¡°I should go with you? And where would we go? To some bug infested forest? Maybe you¡¯d like to hide in some mountain monastery? Or should we go to the edge of the world where the trolls reign? The only place I want to be is with my friends, with the women I love. And that means keeping them safe.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s a scam! He is why they aren¡¯t safe! Do you know, right now he is burning half a kingdom to dust. He is running an angel ragged with rage and getting innocent people killed because of his grudge. An angel that has never had anything but good will for us humans. He was a beacon of wisdom and temperance.¡±

    ¡°If Amurabi drew out an angel¡¯s wrath, then they must not have been very temperate, now were they.¡±

    The two of them were in each other¡¯s faces, shouting like bickering siblings. ¡°He killed an angel, Pojke! And that wasn¡¯t the first. You think he only hunts godlings? Parasites? Why do you even think he calls them parasites! It¡¯s because he¡¯s talking about angels that he thinks have abdicated their responsibilities! He¡¯s a killer.¡±

    ¡°So am I!¡± my boy roared back.

    She backed away from him, as if suddenly aware that Lucius could loom over her, that he outweighed her and had spent his years of war on the front line, not scheming from the back. She had one last gambit to sway him, merely asking, ¡°What does he have over you, Pojke?¡±

    ¡°Everything.¡±

    It was the next day that news of Aisha¡¯s abduction reached Lucius, and by then the cyclops had fled much the same way as she had arrived. He let her go, perhaps thinking that she was more dangerous to have around than to have loose, like a venomous snake in one¡¯s bed.

    His response to the party of Jeameaux rebels asking for a parlay to negotiate an end to the war, with capitulation from Vassermark, was brutal. Three men had arrived from Rodrick¡¯s army, and he beheaded two of them. The third he sent back to tell the paladin that Lucius von Solhart had made a blood oath. With a dagger given to him his priest¨Cthe man didn¡¯t know who Golden truly was¨Che had cut open his chest and sworn a Giordanan vendetta to have Rodrick¡¯s head and further, if Aisha were to come to harm, he would have the head of every man to stand in the paladin¡¯s army.

    This inevitable outcome was why the cyclops abandoned her support. There would be no more strategy, just bloodshed.

 5-21 - Aurums Rage

    Chapel City, though it has a proper name unrelated to the hundreds of church towers clustered like a forest of masonry, was the only city in the central kingdoms that did not recognize a suzerain. The only authority it respected was that of the church, headed of course by the angels. Foremost among them was Aurum.

    Long ago there had been dozens, but the centuries had been bloody. That was what made it such a decisive play to kill Lumi¡¯el.

    It was an otherwise quiet morning when Aurum realized what had happened. Service bells were ringing and bakers were selling their bread and their pastries to the endless throngs of locals and pilgrims. A proper artist¡¯s city, every sculptor, painter, and bard who found themselves in need of a patron plied their trade to the many churches and temples.

    And all of them stopped in awe that morning. They stared at the sky in silence as fire erupted from the grand basilica. The great, burning eagle that was their angel scorched the sky.

    So enraged his magic spilled out of every feather, Aurum broke through the dome of the basilica that day. He destroyed mosaics, statues, and murals that had taken over two hundred years to complete. The flaps of his wings scattered embers across the city, catching innumerable more rooms and buildings on fire. Clouds of smoke covered the city as the angel abandoned it.

    In a streak like the shot of an arrow, he flew for the site which had been his brother¡¯s demise. He didn¡¯t know that was where he moved. He simply sensed what I wished for him to sense. What he honed to was my own presence, radiating out of the body of the priest Sacerdote.

    The wastelander was kept paralyzed by my magic, while Vita and Leomund fled. When I told her I would deal with the eagle, she asked not how I would do so. She believed I had some clever trick, and in a sense I did. By keeping the priest shackled with my magic, he was bait for the blazing roc.

    As I sit here writing this document, I find myself wondering what truly went through Sacerdote¡¯s mind as Aurum bore down on him. He was a tragedy of my making, and the betrayal must have hurt him deeply. The sun was setting when Aurum caught up to him, and while that light diminished upon the horizon in so many shades of fire, the glory of an angel illuminated  the coarse and withered grass about him.

    Sacerdote watched as the inferno grew. At first it was like a pinprick through a heavy tent, but as he knelt on the sandy earth, that fire grew and grew. His body had been paralyzed, left facing his doom, but his mind was free unto itself. The man had studied half the religions of Lumisgard, enough to know that there would be no reincarnation for him even in the most diminutive sense. There would be nothing left for the Shepherd¡¯s reapers to reclaim.

    What faced him was a true death.

    Part of him accepted it, for he did not try to move his leaden feat. Another part rebelled violently. He arrested his whole mind, his very being itself, and assaulted the spell I had ingrained into his body. I can only respect the burgeoning will of a mere puppet made by Anubi, for he did manage one little act of rebellion.

    He spited me.

    As Aurum beat his wings above Sacerdote, the heat seared the sweat from his body. His lips blistered and his eyes burned white. But still, with the iron will of an Aillesterran ascetic monk willing to forgo food and water for weeks at a time until the grasp of the world weakens upon his soul, he fought me. As the water of his body boiled straight out of his skin and his body withered and wrinkled down to the bone, he left his mark.

    He pointed to where I had gone, all the way to Drachenreach. With his finger like the iron needle of a compass, he pointed Aurum to the great spire of the world. Even though I had left half a dozen decoys across the central kingdoms, Sacerdote¡¯s betrayal made them all worthless.

    The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

    The wastelander priest passed from life to oblivion in an instant. His brain was boiled to the point of rupturing out his skull. Several weeks later, after the local wildfires had run their course, his body was nothing more than the pickings of scavengers.

    Long before then, Aurum flew into Rodrick¡¯s war camp. With no explanation spared for the mere humans, he snatched the Aillesterrans out of the camp. He ripped their bodies with his talons and devoured their innards. With no heed for the terror of those loyal to him, he hunted down the secret weapons that the cyclops had brought with her and stole their stigmata for himself.

    The paladin demanded answers of Aurum, to the point of burning half his face just to get close enough to scream at the angel. Then he finally understood, as I do, that angels see humans no different than animals. Aurum told him, ¡°It is war,¡± and nothing more.

    Alas, if I could have been there. Those words broke the paladin. With such simple words I could have taken him into my embrace. I could have told him that not one angel in all of Lumisgard had heard from the gods in centuries. They had, each of them, forgotten their own teachings. So many years of doubt and fear had broken them. As the godling parasites burrowed in, one or another divine beast, angel, or emissary met their end with no help from their creators. The great poison of life gnawed away at them the way the sea eats the ships upon it.

    Fear drove its wedge between them and their own faith.

    In the days of my people, there were thousands of angels. They ranged the entire gamut from beast to philosopher and kept one another in line while in the light of the gods. Those times are gone now, as are my people. This is not the document to reminisce however.

    The constructs of magic and will that roamed the lands during Lucius von Solhart¡¯s age had become every bit as human as the apes they were meant to guide. Aurum left Rodrick¡¯s camp, having set fire to dozens of tents and several wagons of grain by his mere presence. He took to the skies as he digested the stigmata and incorporated them to his body, taking in skills he previously had no desire for.

    The cyclops had truly found an eclectic collection of powers. Vision that could see through walls. Invisible doppelgangers that could still hear where he had been. And most problematically for me, a power of scent stronger than a bloodhound¡¯s. Strong enough to even scent me from the skies while I walked among a throng of merchants to the tiered bazaar of Westcliff. I stood among such a mass of people hawking spices and half-rotten food that I would have been taken completely unawares if I had not been in the process of creating a new watchful bird.(1)

    As it was, I was forced to play a hand I meant to keep concealed. If Golden had known I knew the spell to break through the boundary of Lumisgard, I suspect there would have been much to pay. Thankfully, that disenfranchised angel was half a world away, and never learned I breached a hole through Lumisgard right in the sanctum of Westcliff¡¯s Acropolis. The lizard that should have been protecting the temple had only just woken up when I stepped out of Lumisgard, and then he became my unwilling guardian.

    Aurum landed atop the solar ring, the peak of the dome which was unfinished. His wings blazed with light and filled the marble below with illumination. It was a brazen challenge between the religions of the world, a violation of centuries old compact. What was more, the dragon stood to profit by having the portal I left behind. Even if he didn¡¯t want a doorway through which a godling might climb through, he could digest it and take my abandoned power for himself.

    The limited fight that ensued went down in public memory as the Westcliff Eagle Fight. Not the most artistic of names, but the tale spread too fast for bards to keep up with. The two beasts exchanged fire with one another in a most literal sense, and had they been anywhere but Drachenreach, they would have started a wildfire. I couldn¡¯t watch it first hand of course. I was no longer a resident of Lumisgard at the time. And in the shadows I remained for quite some time, lest Aurum think it worth his time to go back and scorch Lucius. But of course we all know that didn¡¯t happen.

    The boy¡¯s fight was with the fallen paladin. The angel¡¯s fight would not be resolved for many years yet.

    <hr>

    <ol>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">While it seems to me as a swift and dramatic arrival of the bird, it in fact took several days. It was during this time that the cyclops broke off with Rodrick and tried to sway Lucius directly. Fortuitous to say the least, for the people of Westcliff.</li>

    </ol>

 5-22 - The Wallows

    After Lucius swore his vendetta against Rodrick, both armies fractured. Desertion particularly plagued Rodrick¡¯s forces after so many so clearly saw the lack of divine providence behind the paladin. Without having truly lost a battle, the rebellion became a rearguard chase. Weakened as he was, Ismael chose that moment to grow a spine of his own and marched his Giordanans south.

    Whenever an army¡¯s forces are split in two, a commander¡¯s cunning is tested. Both the one who was reduced, and the commander who must deal with two forces at once, smaller as they are. This was the point that the dukes most wanted to interrogate. While the king chewed through slices of beef liver cooked in a vinegar glaze with a side of honey roasted vegetables, he listened to his right hand men question Lucius.

    ¡°How did you know the size of Ismael¡¯s force?¡± Duke Ashe asked.

    The boy answered, ¡°I only had a guess. I¡¯d seen a good deal of it at the river, and after interrogating the captain that intercepted Ismael in the hills, I had some idea of the size. Enough as could make a difference. In my position, I had four options and not a very good one. My army had two points of division I could make, each roughly equal in size. I could leave Ismael to escape to Giordana, possibly rallying a larger army, possibly allying with Aillesterra against us. He could be quite a thorn in our side if he had gotten good steel from the forest folk. Because of that, I felt I couldn¡¯t put all my forces against Rodrick. Of the three nationalities at my disposal¨C¡±

    Feugard snorted into his wine glass, but had the decorum to say, ¡°My apologies. I¡¯m not used to thinking of the cannibals as a nationality.¡±

    Lucius smiled. ¡°Neither are they, my lord.¡±

    ¡°On with the story,¡± the king ordered while his eyes were fixed on his spurious son making a scene across the hall.

    ¡°So, if I must at the least harry Ismael¡¯s forces while dealing with Rodrick, I had to choose if I would task the wastelanders with it, the Vassish, or the Giordanans. I believe none of you would be surprised that I thought it a dangerous idea to task men with hunting down their own countrymen. Further, I had just sworn a vendetta in the name of saving one of theirs. As a description of Aisha spread among the soldiers, grew as it were, they were quite enthusiastic. The mercenaries alone, well, you should never arrive to a fight with just mercenaries. Even if you know your enemy is poor. I had to take with me either the Vassish, or the wastelanders and the prudent decision was to keep the southerners with me. Lord Raymi¡¯s man, may the Shepherd rest his soul, was more than skilled enough to keep Ismael in check. It wasn¡¯t fighting that did him in afterall.¡±

    ¡°So you sent an undersized force against an untrained foe,¡± Duke Ashe said, his graying brow tight and curled with thought.

    Lucius nodded. ¡°I did, but with clear instruction that he did not need to fight Ismael in open combat. All he needed to do was to attack his scouts, raid supplies, ride ahead to deplete supplies or poison water supplies. Whatever he needed to do to keep Ismael from achieving anything while I dealt with Rodrick. Then, I would come down on whatever remained of the rebels. The plan worked, afterall.¡±

    ¡°Why,¡± Duke Feugard asked, ¡°Didn¡¯t you return to the city of Jeameaux?¡±

    The boy grimaced. At the time, there had been nothing wrong with his decision. We only learned later what the cyclops had done. He bullshitted magnificently however. ¡°Given the state of the expanded city, bringing a tired army into it was a hazard. First, men would have expected a few days of leave, and then many of them would have gone AWOL. Second, we would have been vulnerable to attacks from sympathizers. I¡¯d say I¡¯ve learned my lesson about garrisoning an army in enemy territory. Keeping control of the soldiers out in the field and merely exchanging supplies was both quicker and safer.¡±

    ¡°Even if he had been there,¡± Duke Ashe said, ¡°What would he have done? The kingdoms were in chaos after Aurum¡¯s rage.¡±

    The king said, ¡°It was right to let the city guard deal with the unrest. Now, tell me. You chased this Sir Rodrick into the serpent¡¯s marsh, did you not?¡±

    ¡°I did, my lord.¡±

    Acheliah arrested their attention with her voice, gliding over the heads of several servants before turning and alighting her rear upon the king¡¯s table. ¡°And I suppose, boy, you know what the namesake of that marsh is.¡±

    Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

    No matter how many times Lucius faced down a monster, he never felt comfortable doing so. Of course, that didn¡¯t mean he shirked from a fight, but he was all too aware that he was a mouse standing before a lion. Just because he had sharp teeth and could eat his way out from the lion¡¯s gut didn¡¯t mean his instincts did not shudder with fear while looking into the eyes of one such as Acheliah. I never wanted to train that reaction out of him either. It kept him from ever being complacent. Even in later years where his war campaigning seemed to drag on without end as he was thrown into one melee after another, cutting and killing until all was blood, there he might have grown slack in his mind.

    It was reminders like this that kept him sharp.

    ¡°How could I miss it?¡± he asked.

    If she had been playful with him the first time she met Lucius, she was no longer. ¡°Somehow you missed ever encountering an angel while you marauded the central kingdoms. Practically the only man who didn¡¯t see one the way I hear it.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s because other men boast. Stories are always better firsthand rather than secondhand, but I would not lie here.¡±

    The angel was not amused, and both dukes were sufficiently cowed to not even speak up. She asked, ¡°And there are situations you would?¡±

    ¡°To the enemy.¡±

    The king cleared his throat. ¡°Most pragmatic. Now then, would you continue? The wallows. Tell me about the wallows.¡±

    <hr>

    The Serpent¡¯s Marsh, or the wallows as some call it, refers to one of the most fetid lands in all of Lumisgard. After two weeks of marching and logistics, which to some lesser historians would call into question entirely the matter of Lucius¡¯ vendetta having an effect on the morale of the soldiers(1), Rodrick at last committed to an escape route from the war.

    The place was a battlefield of the dead like no other. It¡¯s much dried out nowadays, the passing of decades has finally begun to restore the farmlands. Ironically, when Lucius threw his army into it, the place was harder to cross than the day after it had formed. I should know, I was there personally.

    The serpent, a godling of almost unimaginable size, ripped through the firmament some three hundred years prior. Long enough for entire cities to be built in the shadows it left behind. What had once been leagues of grain, striped through by wild trees that were home to the most royal of venison in all the world, became the bursting nest of an anathema.

    The serpent came to be known as the world-eater, or the city-eater, depending on the nationality of the bard at hand. With scales like steel, it had dug through the rock and soil, treating the world the way a fish treats the sea. It dove and swam, tripping it to shreds and killing thousands as it basked in the chaos.

    It took half a day for Aurum and his siblings to arrive, but their fire could do nothing more than make the godling sluggish. They had been able to do little more than steer it back to the lands it had already ravaged while it digested. Beasts from Aillesterra, from Drachenreach, and even Acheliah herself and to swarm to the breach. All joined shields to fight as one, and I with them in my own way.

    Seven emissaries of the gods were broken that day, in exchange for stalling the serpent. Front line warriors and very brave, the beasts gave their lives so that others could break down its hide. Only when we were done carving our will into the serpent did the lances and flames break through and shred the godling¡¯s flesh.

    In their sorrow, the angels ripped apart everything but the bones. They stripped the godling of its might and heaped its power onto their fallen brethren. They were able to restore the bodies only. It was after that fight that Aurum took on the mantle of the head of the church, a station ill-suited to his dispositions.

    Now all that remains are the great, arcing bones of vertebra and rib. The ivory bridges between the flooded ruts of the land where only twisted life can eeke out survival.

    It was here that Rodrick had his men fashion a bridge to the east and upon the last swath of dry land that he set his defenses against Lucius.

    <hr>

    <ol>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">The historian Gregor von Brey of Skaldheim is most famous for his absurd analysis of the Jeameaux rebellion. He, despite never being there or even having a trustworthy firsthand account given to him, claimed that because Lucius would have long since healed from the blood oath wound on his chest, that rumors would have undermined him. According to Gregor, only a few hundred at best could have seen the act and then many times that number would have been contrasting one claim against their own lying eyes that the boy¡¯s chest was healed and not even scarred. From this, he speculates that the moral foundation of the war was wildly overblown. Gregor makes Lucius out to seem like a slave driver, as if he could treat Giordanan mercenaries the way he could treat the wastelanders. Needless to say, this is pure nationalistic propaganda disseminated among the northerners to sneer at the emperor. I shall set the record straight. Lucius spent the entire march enraged. He had a brooding anger that neither Lupa nor Aria (though she was still much a stranger to him, through this time she developed a respect for him) could assuage. He was a wildfire and nobody held a cup of water large enough to even think of trying to douse him. Consequently, his stigmata worked feverishly. He burst with energy and could barely sleep until he had drunk himself silly, and that was just to subdue his body with poison which was swiftly flushed out. Naturally, the trifling cut of a blade couldn¡¯t stay upon his chest. That was why, on no less than five occasions, he had to renew the blood oath among new witnesses.</li>

    </ol>

 5-23 - The Tightening Noose

    It was a rear guard maneuver, most dangerous of all. Rodrick had led his army into a bottleneck of his own choosing, but his soldiers saw it as a noose tightening around their throats. Unlike in the foothills of the Ashfall Mountains, the walls that funneled Lucius toward them were not basalt stone, but boot-sucking marsh. A rational mind knew that the stagnant wetlands were home to so much venom and poison that to order a company of soldiers from one strip of dry land to another would be to lose half of them within the month to disease if not outright drowning. It was at best a slow maneuver, whose only protection was the chest-high grass that seemed able to grow from the very air itself as though no soil beneath was needed for roots.

    Lucius would have needed a stigmata to move armies through the Serpent¡¯s Marsh as he wished, but that didn¡¯t stop anger from germinating in the hearts of the rebels. After Aurum¡¯s tantrum, the illusion of divine right had shattered. The paladin¡¯s words of equity rang hollow. He had been wholly unable to give up any of the spoils taken by force from the peasants. No, every night the soldiers themselves were forced to make porridge out of it and become accomplices with outright theft when they had stayed to bring justice to their kin.

    Naturally, their anger went outward. Very few men have the strength of character to see their own faults, so they pointed daggers of hate toward the man who had led them. Rodrick lost his ability to command his army. Sure, they would break camp or set camp when and how he said. They followed his direction through the wallows because nobody else was giving direction. The chain of command still answered to him because they were personal friends and misgivings take longer to fissure.

    But, he had also committed a moral crime by taking Aisha captive and everyone knew that it was his fault the enemy would be enraged. To prevent an ill-fated disaster of some troops trying to make off with her in the night to buy their own freedom, Rodrick had to keep Aisha at his side. Indeed, her account was ultimately the most valuable of this entire battle. She watched it all from mere steps away as the fallen paladin stood at the buried neck of the godling spine, letting his entire army march single-file away from him where old artisans had chiseled steps into the anathema corpse.

    The spine arched as a bridge almost clear from one side to the other of the marsh and was without a doubt the fastest way to traverse it. An army could spend weeks trying to circle around the wallows to catch up. By then, the men could have ran to any number of well towns, ruins, holdfasts, or distant cities and lost themselves. They all could see a future for themselves across the bones, but if they had seen Rodrick¡¯s back they would have seen a target.

    There were no railings to those steps. One misstep from injury, and there were several during the two days of crossing, and a man would go plunging off the side. His friends would hear a splash and his body would never be found.

    Thus, Rodrick had to take responsibility for his actions because nobody else would. The very angel that commanded him to fight had killed his men and abandoned him. Still, he stood at the front line, between his men and Lucius¡¯ advancing army. While others fled, he stood with sword and shield. He stood, or he paced, dredging his feet through the sodden soil and familiarizing himself with the spot that would be his grave. A good warrior can learn a great deal about the ground beneath his feet, and it took his mind off the death of Mihael. To the man¡¯s credit, he was more sad for his friend than for himself. He could accept the consequences of his own decisions but not when friends paid the price.

    In time, his other friends left with tears in their eyes because they understood the land was so tight they were unneeded and losing their lives too was not what Rodrick wished. His army turned their backs on him and soon it was only him and Aisha.

    ¡°I¡¯m surprised you aren¡¯t trying to bargain with him,¡± she said, sitting atop the rotted remains of what had once been a workhouse foundation, or possibly even one of the farm houses from before the godling.

    With furrowed brow, Rodrick could see the formations of men marching on him. He knew they¡¯d be upon him in moments. ¡°You should have met the cyclops. I brought that idea up to her and she laughed in my face. She said it would be impossible. If he were to bargain with me to save you, it would be him saying that he is weaker than me, that he is at my mercy. Apparently, he would never do that.¡±

    ¡°No, he wouldn¡¯t,¡± she agreed.

    The paladin put his attention on her. ¡°You¡¯re his woman, aren¡¯t you? Doesn¡¯t that hurt you?¡±

    Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

    She smiled. ¡°It means he¡¯s not a fool. Promises between enemies mean nothing. If you were to say to him do this or that, else you¡¯ll harm me, there is nothing he could do by cooperating that would compel you to keep me safe. Only a fool would lay down their sword in exchange for words¡±

    ¡°Men in love are fools.¡±

    ¡°Not all men. Some stalk their prey and funnel them into precisely the kind of trap that would draw you to the front. Some make it so that your rational best interest puts you into the palm of his hand. Did you think he couldn¡¯t catch you sooner than this? Do you think he couldn¡¯t be marching to you faster? He wants your army to flee because he gains nothing by killing them. He¡¯d only lose soldiers that are now veterans from serving under him.¡±

    ¡°Girls in love are fools too. You speak of your man like he is a conquering king.¡±

    Aisha laughed. ¡°He has help. I think you¡¯d be surprised just how much the two of you have in common, Sir Rodrick,¡± she said, but she did not explain the nature of the raven that sat upon a rotting timber beside her. The pearlescent feathers and golden eyes. The bird had caught up with the rebels the day after the cyclops made her bid to turn Lucius away, and Golden had been keeping silent company with her ever since(1).

    ¡°It¡¯s unfortunate, isn¡¯t it?¡±

    ¡°Many things are.¡±

    ¡°Hundreds of men died in the last month and accomplished nothing. We simply set the stage for others to fight. The ones with the real power in the world. Death for nothing.¡±

    ¡°It is unfortunate, Sir Paladin,¡± Aisha said, venom leaking into her words. ¡°If you hadn¡¯t killed my father, you might have gone down in history as a good man. But I¡¯ll be the one spreading your tale. Perhaps I can¡¯t call you a coward but the whole world will know you as a fool. You obeyed a rotten angel. You were swindled by a foreigner. You won nothing.¡±

    Rodrick nodded. ¡°That¡¯s only fair. I am a fool. But, I¡¯ll see this through to the end. They¡¯re here now. Take a good look, miss. You¡¯ll want to at least remember the valor of those that come to save you as they die.¡±

    And so the vanguard of Lucius¡¯ army marched on to the bone bridge. They passed within bow shot but did not loose a missile. The boy had given orders against it. The fight was to rescue his wife after all. A stray arrow couldn¡¯t be allowed. From a hundred yards away, Lucius stopped the advance. The land bridge was pitifully narrow, churned to mud by the feet of the rebels. The only safe ground ran down the middle, straight to the forsaken paladin.

    But it was not Lucius that stepped forward to confront Rodrick. True, he did step in front of his vanguard, but he did not close within even fifty yards. Barely enough to see each others eyes. Instead, he gestured and a motley collection of warriors began to assemble around him. They did not form a shield wall, or even stand shoulder to shoulder. They were a gaggle of brutes with minds of rewards both promised and implicit.

    To Rodrick¡¯s amazement, the men stood together before him and drew lots of broken straw clutched in Lucius¡¯ hands. The nominee¨Cit is hard to call him a winner¨Cstepped forward. A tawny giant who thought himself blessed by a stigmata that made him nearly as big as a trollkin, he wielded a two-handed warhammer with a single hand and kept his other clad in a punch-shield. The design was crude, an imitation of barbarian army from centuries past that persisted more out of legend than practicality. Originally it had been fashioned from tortoise shell, but Giordana had hardly even sea turtles. Their blacksmiths made do with bucklers and grafted ill-formed blades to them to look like a blazing star of steel.

    The giant said, ¡°My name is Christofer. Veteran of two rebellions now. I¡¯ll be a hero after today,¡± he said with a toothy grin.

    ¡°Many dead men are heroes,¡± Rodrick said as he stared up at the Giordanan. ¡°I challenge you, Christofer,¡± he said, and activated his stigmata. The arcane barrier swept around them, reaching well into the marsh on either side. A great wall between the army and the bridge of bone.

    Then the paladin killed him. The fight was neither fast nor slow, but a jolting finish. The paladin didn¡¯t charge the Giordanan. In fact, he made no unnecessary moves at all. He waited for Christofer to come to him with a bellowing roar, which took him a good deal of time to work himself up against such an implacable foe. Then Rodrick parried, stepping in through the giant¡¯s right armpit to avoid the spiked shield. One swipe of his sword cleaved through the man¡¯s hamstring. His armor absorbed a wild, back-handed swing of the man¡¯s elbow but there was little force through the crippled leg. The paladin locked his sword like a lance and drove it between chest armor and helmet, ripping open the giant¡¯s throat and spraying blood across the ground.

    A moment later, the barrier receded, and the second contender stepped forward. And so on it would go. Fighting one by one to hold the bridge for as long as he possibly could, the paladin stood there and bought time for his army to escape.

    And Lucius waited for him to be exhausted, like a patient predator.

    <hr>

    <ol>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">To clarify, he was using a puppet the same way I often did. He had a few tricks he could use at a distance with the puppet, but he was still firmly human as far as his body was concerned.</li>

    </ol>

 5-24 - Fighting For Time

    The second man stupid enough to fight a swordmaster in a duel was called Lance, a former sailor or perhaps a washed-up pirate the world will never know, who fought with a battleaxe in either hand. Steel plates covered his forearms and a leather harness  protected his chest. To fight, he charged; pitting his immense size against the paladin and aiming to bludgeon him down.

    His first blow landed in the wood of Rodrick¡¯s shield and everything fell apart the moment the paladin twisted his shield. The axe had been strapped to Lance¡¯s arm, which meant it wrenched his arm over as well. The opening was enough for Rodrick to lay open his exposed bicep. From there, the man was easily picked apart until Rodrick ultimately thrust his blade up beneath the harness and skewered his lungs.

    The fight only lasted a few minutes.

    The orderly lines of Lucius¡¯ army began to soften as they watched the fighting, cheering and jeering like spectators at an arena gambling over prisoner¡¯s lives. Lucius made no effort to stop it. His cold attention was only on weeding out the stupid from the smart whom had volunteered to fight Rodrick. Indeed, the third fighter lost his nerve and refused to fight, much to his embarrassment among the troops, but by the end of the day, everyone agreed he had been smart.

    So, the fourth man by lots, but the third to step forward, was a one-armed man named Tyrion. He had been accepted into the army because his maimed arm could still be strapped with a shield and so he could keep formation, but he only brought his blade to fight the paladin. After the barrier erected around him, the old veteran took it upon himself to wax poetic about how he had devoted his life to the art of the blade, how it had cost him his family, his love, and his own body. He had convinced himself he was seeking a good place to die.

    Then he claimed that it wouldn¡¯t be that day.

    While the man possessed extraordinary swordsmanship, including a flying spin-cut that helped Lucius finally learn how to properly protect his head, the actual duel only lasted ten moves before Rodrick¡¯s blade bit into his neck and felled him like a sapling tree. Between the time spent sending in the third man, the talking, and the scant fight, an entire half hour had passed.

    Forgive me as I¡¯ll have to begin abbreviating the heroic tales of those that died trying to take Lucius¡¯ glory for themselves. Not one man was forced to fight Rodrick, indeed several backed out and saved their lives. Each genuinely thought they could overcome the paladin in a fair fight, and each was wrong but died with dignity. Not one whimpered for mercy, especially after so many others fell upon the marsh grounds.

    There was Gus, a cocky mercenary from birth who fought with an oversized sword and thought he could bash his his way through Rodrick¡¯s defenses. After heavy exchanges, the blood went to his head and he trusted his bronze helm to keep him safe as he threw all of his weight into a horizontal swing. Rodrick¡¯s blade cleaved through the old pot and dashed his brains across the floor.

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    Next there was a rogue by the name of Aster, who obediently fought with shield and spear when in formation, but when he was given the chance he used a dirty style of two dagger fencing. One of his short blades was notched a sword breaker. While he did manage to score the first wound on the paladin, he was struck in the head by the notched rim of Rodrick¡¯s shield. Dazed, he failed to evade the second shield blow which laid him out across the dirt. The paladin planted a boot on his back and slid the tip of his blade plunging through his heart.

    A spearman was the fifth man to duel Rodrick. My research has turned up three names for him, none of them certain. All we know for certain was that he gouged the paladin¡¯s jaw and wounded his calf. That began the downfall of the man. Unfortunately for the spearman, Rodrick snapped the half of his weapon then cut through his face with a heavy, overhead chop.

    The men of Lucius¡¯ army laughed, seeing that the fight would soon be over, even though so many had fallen already. The sixth man practically pranced to his death, getting overpowered in a single strike. The Giordanan had put up a simple parry with his infantry blade and underestimated Rodrick¡¯s brute force. Blade pushed through blade, cleaving through his arm and opening his life blood.

    Still, the paladin did not falter in his duty. The rebels behind him were still climbing, often hand over foot, across the godling spine.

    It was wastelanders who tested their mettle next. Nameless men who thought to take Rodrick¡¯s name for themselves. Five of them fell one after another, littering the field with their corpses in exchange for more glancing cuts and dents upon the paladin¡¯s steel.

    By the fourteenth duelist, confusion had begun to seize the army. Every man who fought the paladin clearly wore him down more and yet he showed no sign of losing. The odds continually improved for every man who sought to prove himself. But they too failed. A trio of freed slaves from among the Giordanans fell one after another. A cutthroat evading arrest in Aillesterra tried to use the trickery of his stigmata but barely forced the tip of his sword through Rodrick¡¯s breast plate before being cut down himself, reminding all that even wounded and exhausted, Sir Rodrick was a true sword master.

    The last two to put their swords against the paladin were apprehended deserters, told in no uncertain terms that they would be put to death if they ran away again, that their only path to survival was killing the paladin. Of course, neither did.

    Only then did Lucius turn to his men and challenge them. ¡°So, not one of you thinks he can steal this from me? That he can cut down the paladin of Jeameaux? If not, it¡¯s my turn.¡±

    ¡°Lucius von Solhart,¡± Rodrick said, forcing himself to keep his stance steady. ¡°I challenge you.¡±

    ¡°Well, take your time,¡± the boy said, tossing a waterskin to his opponent.

    Rodrick was taken aback, his body hot with blood both burning in his muscles, and cooling upon his skin. ¡°What¡¯s the meaning of this?¡±

    Lucius laughed and gestured to the arcane barrier surrounding the two of them. It was different. Stronger, and taller. It encircled them like a fortress, shimmering with light and twisting almost opaque. ¡°You don¡¯t know how your own ability works, do you? Why did you think I let so many others fight you first? Was it to wear you down? When your cheating stigmata gives you such an advantage? Or was it so that the walls couldn¡¯t falter? That so long as I didn¡¯t surrender, I who cannot die, that you would be stuck in here with me.¡±

    And so, with both of their stigmata fueled to the point of overflowing by the corpses and the lingering magic of the marsh, the longest duel of Lucius¡¯ life began.

 5-25 - The Paladin Falls

    ¡°The duel at last,¡± Duke Feugard said, his gaze seeking the return of Prince Gabriel. He had reclined heavily in his chair, the wine weighing against his sense of dignity.

    Duke Ashe hadn¡¯t taken his troubled gaze off of Lucius as the boy stood there speaking. As Lucius wetted his throat, the older man said, ¡°Couldn¡¯t you have challenged him yourself? What was the point of sending so many to their deaths?¡±

    ¡°Showmanship, before and after,¡± Lucius said. Then, he gestured to the crowd filling the feast hall. ¡°My lord, how many people in this hall right now are here because of the glory they won for themselves? It¡¯s a coveted thing, and I for one believe it is best to have a way of relieving the pressure of ambition or else it¡¯s like lighting a fire in a tent. If there¡¯s no chimney, you¡¯ll choke on it. Not one of those men were forced to fight. Some even retreated at the last moment. What I did was make it clear that they all had the opportunity and that I wasn¡¯t using them for my own gain. Of course, it was a foregone conclusion that the paladin would die there. The question was simply how.¡±

    ¡°Except the deserters,¡± Duke Ashe said.

    ¡°I¡¯m sorry?¡±

    ¡°The deserters,¡± the king said. ¡°You may have had the right to kill them, but it seems a little cruel what you did. Maybe you should omit that from future retellings, hmm?¡±

    The boy bowed. ¡°Duly noted.¡±

    ¡°Lu,¡± Acheliah said, her voice as sweet as honey. She beckoned over with her slender arm as she leaned to him, but when her fingers closed around the scruff of his shirt, she almost yanked him off his feet as she pulled him over. Their noses nearly touched as she searched his eyes. ¡°Who taught you how that magic works?¡±

    Struggling to suppress his instincts to fight, the boy kept himself so close their breaths were passing over one another. ¡°What do you mean? How could I not?¡±

    ¡°Explain.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re asking me to reveal something that could get me killed.¡±

    ¡°I am your angel, the emissary to your god, am I not? You will tell me. I know the wizard has met with you. Do not play dumb. You are nothing but a good looking asset and I can be very fickle.¡±

    Lucius had the audacity to crack a smile. ¡°My healing rate varies. In part it¡¯s based on how injured I am, but it¡¯s also based on how much blood has been spilled. The scorpion that took my foot for a time, it took ages to restore because they were peaceful. But the melees in the desert? I took mortal wounds without even noticing. I merely found the stains in my linens afterward. If I was to use my stigmata to its utmost, I had to fertilize the ground. I didn¡¯t think I would need it much, but from that¡­ well the power of Rodrick¡¯s stigmata has to come from somewhere as well.¡±

    Acheliah shoved him away, crossing her arms once more. ¡°Continue, or maybe I should grab the bard girl and make her tell the tale.¡±

    ¡°If you¡¯d wish so, but¡­¡± Lucius made a subtle gesture to the cadre of courtiers that had begun mingling near the table, eying the king for an opportunity to intrude themselves.

    King Arandall groaned. ¡°Acheliah, please. Let the boy finish. He¡¯s almost done.¡±

    <hr>

    The duel was to be unfair, and that did not satisfy Lucius. Of course, Rodrick had been fatigued and injured by so many other duels, but the paladin still had a proper shield. The boy could have brought one himself, either a skirmisher¡¯s buckler or a full body shield from the front line, but that would have been an uninspiring fight. Simply hiding himself behind the shield and overwhelming the paladin with force, by bashing and shoving, by cutting at knees and ankles to force him back through the mud. No, that would have done nothing but prove that Lucius was younger and fitter, that he had thrown away the lives of his men to secure himself an easy victory.

    He gave Rodrick time to compose himself, to quench his thirst, and to face him properly. He even gave the man leave to say prayers, to invoke the protection of his god or the angels. ¡°Didn¡¯t you hear?¡± Rodrick said as he tossed the waterskin aside and picked up his shield. ¡°I was excommunicated the day I took supplies and an army, the day I challenged Vassish imperialism. The gods will offer me no salvation here. I only have what I can claim for myself.¡±

    Lucius asked, ¡°Have the gods ever answered your prayers?¡±

    Rodrick gave a wry smile. ¡°Why would I expect a dead god to answer my prayers in the first place? Does your goddess answer yours?¡±

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    ¡°I don¡¯t think I¡¯ve ever given an earnest prayer in my life.¡±

    ¡°And why would you? When all the secrets of the world can be found in the wizard¡¯s mind? Every problem can be solved by listening to him, no?¡±

    ¡°No,¡± Lucius said, grip firm upon his blade. ¡°I¡¯m the one who solves my problems.¡±

    ¡°Is that so?¡±

    Lucius turned his back to his foe, and addressed his army. ¡°Let me make this clear to all of you,¡± he roared, enough to clear his voice not just through the barrier but through the many ranks of soldiers. ¡°This is the last duel. If I lose, you are not to avenge me. You are to let him go, or I will claw my way back from the Shepherd¡¯s embrace and turn my sword upon all of you.¡±

    The paladin shook his head. ¡°Empty words. We both know you can¡¯t lose.¡±

    ¡°And yet you hold your blade.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll die with dignity,¡± the paladin said, and both warriors lifted steel at one another.

    Their first clash rang like bells, steel slamming against steel. Blows turned aside blows. The edges of their blades struck against plate and against shield, bludgeoning the men as they darting in and out across the mud. Lucius struck with machine-like focus, swinging his sword gripped with both hands he hacked at Rodrick¡¯s shield until the wood cracked and splintered. He snapped planks from the reinforcement and hammered until Rodrick¡¯s arm was numb.

    And for his effort, the paladin took first blood. With his grip on his sword reversed, he stabbed out like a pickaxe. Blindly he thrust the tip out while holding up his shield and his steel found flesh. The paladin¡¯s sword opened Lucius¡¯ throat and from that red smile blood spewed across both of them.

    The boy fell to a knee as his brain blackened and the paladin redoubled. Bringing his blade around, he cleaved for Lucius¡¯ neck, but met only his upraised arm. Bone snapped, but the sword caught up in the ragged flesh. In return, Lucius shanked his sword up, driving it between the seams of the plates across Rodrick¡¯s chest, biting him in the breast.

    Rodrick leapt back reflexively, new blood spilling into his linens as Lucius spat blood and stood up. Their first exchange ended as Lucius¡¯ arm knit itself back into one and his bleeding throat closed with scar tissue.

    ¡°Are you insulting me?¡± Rodrick demanded, and cast aside his shield. He took his sword with both hands to face Lucius in an even fight. The paladin¡¯s sword had several inches more length than the stout infantry blade the boy fought with, a difference born from status and symbology rather than the realities of dueling. While blades such as rapiers exist today, even now they are still oddities and quite expensive. Certainly unfit for military application. The shape of Rodrick¡¯s cruciform blade was nothing more than for visual symbology, so that when he stood shoulder to shoulder with lower ranking knights and they each thrust their tip to the ground and stood at attention, the height of their crossguards would denote rank.

    But in this case, the extra steel gave a firm advantage to the older, injured man.

    Again, Lucius could have gone the way of a berserker. The story could have been that he became overwhelmed with rage at the abduction of his future wife and achieved berserker strength. He could have marched through the mud, striking with every step until he beat through Rodrick¡¯s defenses and cleaved through flesh.

    But that was not the victory Lucius wanted.

    The two of them engaged in parries and feints. Their swords danced like territorial serpents seeking one another¡¯s throats. Every few exchanges one took a chance with a cleave or a cut, meeting naught but air as the other retreated. They circled through the mud, their fight like rams locking horns until one or the other had to scramble and leap over a corpse while the army cheered.

    Outside the barrier, hundreds of onlookers pressed up to the barrier, the very image of arena gamblers watching a gladiatorial bout. This was the very reason that Lucius refused to use his youth and vigor. Every exchange was a touch upon the hearts of his men. An absolute masterpiece of manipulation that I¡¯m truly sad I couldn¡¯t be there to witness. For all the years I trained Lucius, this was his greatest triumph of showmanship.

    As proof, I offer the fact that it even brought tears to the eyes of his opponent.

    After exchanging wounds, a cut to the cheek on the paladin and a stab through the thigh in Lucius, both men stared at each other with their pallid faces, each struggling for lack of blood. Of course, the ultimate advantage would be the boy¡¯s, but that did not still the paladin¡¯s heart.

    ¡°For all the blessings the gods could bestow upon you, for you to walk this path of blood is the greatest tragedy I can imagine.¡±

    Lucius stopped, teeth bared. ¡°The gods? What did they ever do for me? I¡¯ve met gods. I have nothing but what I¡¯ve taken for myself.¡±

    ¡°What you¡¯ve taken from others, you mean! That¡¯s not even your face, nor your name. You are a fraud.¡±

    The boy laughed. ¡°And where¡¯d you hear that rumor?¡± But, he knew.

    Rodrick knew his time was fading. He no longer had the strength to insult the boy and he couldn¡¯t imagine how it would help him. ¡°A word of warning,¡± he said, even his voice weakening. ¡°You don¡¯t have to face a man with steel in your hand to beat him. You¡¯re convincing the whole world that you can¡¯t be beaten that way, but¡­ that just means they¡¯ll attack you another way.¡±

    ¡°Like going after the mother of my child?¡±

    Rodrick nodded. ¡°Yes, like that. The political dark arts as they say.¡±

    ¡°Says the paladin of the light.¡±

    The fallen paladin grimaced and lifted his sword once more. The next exchange was their final. There would be no catching up to the rebel army now, so there was no point in prolonging his own pain. Taking a high guard, he braced himself with ragged breaths then drew out the last of his strength and cleaved downward.

    Lucius, finally exerting his youth, cut him down first.

 5-26 - A Name For The Annals

    Duke Ashe asked, ¡°So you killed him? Then and there?¡±

    Lucius nodded. ¡°That was the blow that killed him, yes. I cut off his sword arm.¡±

    ¡°I heard,¡± Duke Feugard said, his breath saturated with wine. ¡°That he surrendered.¡±

    Lucius said, ¡°The barrier came down. I¡¯m sure most of the army could only see the magic and not the fight itself.¡±

    The king stood up, pushing his heavy chair away from the table as he gestured to his son, the prince, who had just returned to the dining hall. While the dukes interrogated Lucius further, he passed by his daughter and spoke with her, giving instruction on how to deal with the courtiers.

    Duke Ashe folded his hands together. ¡°It would have been better if we could have brought him to trial.¡±

    ¡°Agreed, but, alas.¡±

    Duke Feugard snorted. ¡°And I¡¯m sure avenging your abducted little damsel had nothing to do with it. Why didn¡¯t you bring his corpse back for burial at Jeameaux?¡±

    ¡°The wastelanders,¡± Lucius answered. ¡°They would have made it difficult, and posthumous honor for a criminal, well that would make us look weak.¡±

    ¡°Savages,¡± the duke grumbled. ¡°I¡¯m impressed you can use them so well, but don¡¯t forget that¡¯s what they are.¡±

    ¡°Not all of them,¡± Lucius said.

    The king returned as Acheliah departed to interrogate Leomund further. She had a good deal of information about what had happened, and now she was getting more, without a hint of subterfuge from the boy. She ordered him to still be there when she came back, but the king quietly assured Lucius, ¡°It¡¯s a toss of a coin whether she¡¯ll remember what she demanded of you. Come here for a moment though, my boy.¡±

    The king took Lucius by the shoulder and walked him to the northern wall of the feast hall, where the tables were sparse and a modicum of privacy could be had. There, he held the boy at arms length and spoke. ¡°You¡¯re a promising young man, Lucius. A rival for my son, a victor in war. You turned the Misty Isles around faster than I could have hoped. I still want to meet that alchemist girl too. I¡¯ve heard good things about her factory. But, I¡¯m worried about you.¡±

    Lucius didn¡¯t have to feign shock. He was alone with the king, an honor most nobility couldn¡¯t achieve let alone a crippled son of a miner. ¡°You honor me, sire.¡±

    ¡°Please, please, enough of that,¡± he said, his blue eyes scanning the room. He spotted the two men trailing after them. One a most ardent bureaucrat who seemed convinced he was due a moment of the king¡¯s time, and the other was the Skaldish bard. He gestured for both of them to wait. ¡°Normally, I would caution a boy like you to take it easy, that you don¡¯t want to get yourself killed. I understand that¡¯s little concern to you but you should take my advice regardless. There is so much more to life than moving lines on a map. I know you didn¡¯t learn many lessons from your father. You were practically thrown out the door into the arms of the military, but look how you¡¯ve flourished. I worry that you are becoming a product of your own circumstances. As I understand it, before Feugard¡¯s conniving got you replaced as the governor of the Isles, you had ample time for love. You wooed a fine young thing. Even my daughter likes her. Perhaps you should consider spending some time here in the capital, or even in the university. Expand your horizons, lest you think all your conflicts should be solved with violence.¡±

    ¡°Forgive me, sire,¡± Lucius said, glancing at the two men crowding in on them. ¡°But when leading an army, violence is the point, is it not?¡±

    ¡°Not always,¡± the old fool said. ¡°You could have negotiated a surrender. Perhaps you couldn¡¯t have come to terms, but you should have tried. To be rebuked for doing the right thing is a noble badge, don¡¯t you think?¡±

    ¡°My lord,¡± the bureaucrat said, hefting a bottle of wine before him.

    The king looked from the bottle to the bard. ¡°Friedrich, to what do I owe this exactly?¡±

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    The Skaldish bard looked his companion up and down. ¡°Monsieur? Monsieur Hagen? He is the owner of the ship that brought me to this fine city, so many moons ago. Recently promoted to¡­ what is your office now?¡±

    ¡°Under secretary,¡± the bureaucrat said, rubbing his thumbs across the glass of the bottle as he smiled. ¡°Under secretary of the department of non-sectarian relics. I replaced Monsieur Giomo after his passing.¡±

    After a moment, recognition flickered across the king¡¯s face, but it was plain to all that he was remembering both the department¨Cwhich among other things was responsible for cleaning the white guardians of the city wall¨Cas well as Giomo¡¯s unexpected heart attack. ¡°Of course. But a moment more,¡± he said, turning his back to them and turning Lucius¡¯ too. In a more hushed town, he said, ¡°I¡¯m afraid, my boy, that unless Skaldheim breaks the peace, we face a future not of open combat but of subterfuge.¡±

    ¡°The political dark arts?¡±

    ¡°Just the same. You should be careful if men come to you with offers of favors and allegiances, of political maneuverings and the like. They are like that false weakness in the foothills, yes? An opportunity good enough to pull you in while the ones you don¡¯t see bite your throat. You¡¯re too young for such things. You¡¯re young enough to take a quiet position for a time, and focus on your family. You¡¯re about to be a father, wedlock or not. What do you say? Shall I arrange for something? Why, I think I could find something like an under secretary position if nothing else.¡±

    The boy smirked, but the smile didn¡¯t last long. ¡°A quiet winter at least. That would be good.¡±

    The king patted him on the back. ¡°Wonderful. Let¡¯s see if you can go the whole season without killing anybody, shall we? You¡¯ll have to explain to me what is going on with the Ashe girls. Even the Duke doesn¡¯t know what you¡¯ve stirred into them.¡±

    ¡°When I understand it myself, I will tell you.¡±

    Friedrich had stepped closer, moseying with his lyre. He sang a few quartets about being young, in love, and stupid, until feigning that he noticed Lucius looking at him. The jester¡¯s act made the king laugh, and at last he turned to Monsieur Hagen. ¡°What is this you keep trying to shove into my hands?¡± he asked.

    While the under secretary launched into an explanation of the vintage, how old and expensive it was, the bard stood shoulder to shoulder with Lucius and asked, ¡°Do you really not know what has gotten into the Ashe girl?¡±

    ¡°It doesn¡¯t matter,¡± Lucius answered as glasses were distributed and the wine wax broken. The cork was pried out and dark wine flowed into all of their glasses.

    Once they all had their wine, Monsieur Hagen held up his glass and smiled. ¡°To Vassermark.¡± He drank.

    Friedrich said, ¡°To the continual gifts of m¡¯lord¡¯s patronage.¡± He drank.

    Lucius said, ¡°To the things we do for love.¡± He drank.

    The king, ever scrupulous, examined each man after the next. He saw the sweat appear on Monsieur Hagen¡¯s forehead, but missed how his dark irises dilated. He saw the bard stagger, drunk and confused. But then Lucius complimented the wine.

    ¡°To peace,¡± the king said, and he drank.

    Monsieur Hagen¡¯s face split open with a grin. ¡°Thank you so much for this opportunity, Charles. Because of you, I will be remembered. My name will go down in the annals. I will be remembered for centuries.¡± And indeed he was right. I¡¯ve put his name right here in this document. Or, at least I¡¯ve put a name. On drunken faith, he held up his glass and announced, ¡°To the revolution!¡± then drank the rest of his wine before falling flat on the ground. The wine bottle shattered as Friedrich fell into a table.

    Women screamed and guards charged through the hall to reach the king as he put a hand to his throat. ¡°What is the meaning of this?¡± he asked, turning to Lucius. He stared at the boy who had drank a glass of poison and complimented its taste, who had soothed the ever present fears of poisoning from the king¡¯s mind.

    He stared as Lucius dropped his goblet, acting like it had slipped from his hands and as blood squirted from his nose.

    Blood gushed from the king¡¯s nose too. As his heart raced to the point of stopping, he doubled over, forcing fingers into his throat but the trembling had begun. Monsieur Hagen was convulsing in seizures and they were already beginning in the old king too.

    There were shouts for doctors. Shouts of assassination and to seal the doors. Everyone seemed to find something else to shout, creating an incoherent cacophony as Prince Gabriel leapt atop tables and sprinted through the feast hall. Lucius, fighting through the poison, lurched in front of him and grabbed the prince¡¯s doublet. ¡°Stab me!¡± he growled.

    Prince Gabriel wanted nearly nothing more than to run to his father¡¯s side, but he had spent half the day dueling Lucius. He understood at once and out came his steel. While Lucius leaned on him, unable to even stand on his own, the prince ran his heart through and shoved him aside. ¡°The king has been poisoned!¡± he screamed as guards attempted to resuscitate the king.

    But another war cry and risen up in the feast hall, where all the kingdom¡¯s nobility had come and put aside their weapons. There, shoulder to shoulder with the lesser classes who had served them well in the year of civil wars and rebellions, they learned what political dark art had possessed the kingdom of Vassermark as dozens of guests shouted, ¡°For the revolution!¡± and began to spill blood.

 5-27 - An Angels Wrath

    Every form of society has had conspiracies and secret societies, and they always will. They are daemons formed by the intermingling needs of humans to have companionship and belonging, but also a distrust of those around them. Secrets bind and bindings give a man foundation from which to view the world. Of course, most of these cabals are impotent, short lived, or insane. Just as they form from men seeking their own advantage, they splinter apart as their constituents realize that such organizations are detrimental to their advantage.

    But, as some apprentices in a lowly smith shop might work to oust a competitor they find odious, so too does the pattern occur among those of the political class. The management of these swirling motes of potential is perhaps the least respected art of politics throughout all of history with the exception of the microcosm. The social fist an old mother can wield over her family, particularly when she has control over the family estate, is what most kings can only aspire to achieve with their political class.

    For many years, King Charles von Arandall did just that, with the support of Acheliah. His death at the feast I cannot even call a miscalculation, for there was no reason that he should think poison would even be a true assassin¡¯s weapon. Any apothecary with an education knew that the royal family was blessed by the protection of the angel. A popular tale is of the king¡¯s father, who had a habit of eating exotic fish raw with those he had difficult negotiations. More than once a venom sac was cut wrong and both parties were in danger of losing their lives before Acheliah¡¯s intervention. Most famously, King Charles¡¯ great grandmother, Junea vi Arandall II, intentionally drank a drought of poppy¡¯s heart(1) in an attempt to commune with the goddess of death, and was revived after seven days.(2)

    As such, the king¡¯s key concern was more bodily in nature, having steel thrust through his heart or head. Poison was not a death threat in his mind, but perhaps a danger that his judgment might be subtly impaired before needing to make decisions, the effect slight enough that Acheliah wouldn¡¯t take notice.

    That Corpse Rot(3) would be used against him was unthinkable because it hadn¡¯t been used for hundreds of years. So long that its very existence had been cast into doubt. Only a most ancient text might conceivably explain how to pull the very idea of death itself from the remains of a human and smother a healthy man¡¯s soul with it, and to produce such a poison without killing one¡¯s self would require not just a master¡¯s skill but a great deal of luck.

    But, as was deduced by his sons in the aftermath, it was the very introduction of such a cheat that the skulking societies of half-virtuous, half-wealthy revolutionaries sprang to action. Like a whale¡¯s corpse bloating upon a beach, had they been left to their own devices they would have drank until they each had gout and nagging children and had fought among themselves for business deals so much that all their energy did nothing more than leave them gray haired and dissatisfied with life, just as a whale¡¯s corpse would eventually be nothing more than fertilizer for the ocean. A disturbed carcass can be quite a surprise however.

    A sharp prod through the putrefying blubber and such a torrent of noxious gasses and foul humors can come spewing out that a grown man can be launched off his feet.

    Corpse Rot poison was that sharp stick, and the malcontent writings of certain philosophers had drummed up the usual issues of class division, ultimately spewing death across the feast hall.

    There was of course another issue the would-be revolutionaries faced, but which they had been led to believe would be taken care of on their behalf. So, they fearlessly avenged grudges with the blood of the aristocracy. They stabbed and grappled. They cut short lives and were thrown to the ground by guards. Turncoats appeared among the soldiery but still swords were brought to bear in the name of the king. In moments, it was nearly impossible to tell who was friend and who was foe as tables were knocked aside and men tumbled.

    Into this chaos, Lucius stood back up, with eyes fixed upon the Ashe family table. With a choked roar, he spat blood from his throat and expunged the poison with the power of his stigmata, sucking in the storming life forces. Rotting humors coursed through his body, twisting worm-like bruises beneath his skin as his heart beat hard and true.

    The first weapon he set his eyes upon was nothing but a bread knife which he slammed down through the back of the neck of a serving boy. The lad had crushed the skull of a guard with a wine amphora and stood in shock as blood squirted across his face. Lucius threw him to the ground to convulse and die, then snatched up the guard¡¯s blade.

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    Orders were being shouted, contending with the dwindling revolutionary war cries and both being overwhelmed by the wailing fear of the victims. A press of vagabonds made a rush for the prince and Lucius took a sliding hack through one man¡¯s head, sending him spinning to the floor. Four more got past him, which he left for Gabriel to contend with. Protecting the prince was an honorable prize, but the boy fought for himself, not for Vassermark.

    While Lupa had been taken by surprise, she wasn¡¯t the only fighter attending to the Ashe girls. The Montisferro boy had interceded with his own body, getting cut open across his chest but still he stood. Ribbons of blood stained his clothes as one of the revolutionaries attempted to stab a carving knife through his throat. Lupa broke a chair over his back, sending him reeling.

    Lucius ran him through, getting a gasp of surprise from the scarred soldier who had turned upon the nobility. It¡¯s possible he was one of the soldiers who had fought for Lucius during the campaign against Rodrick, but no one was ever able to sort the bodies accurately afterward. Two more men called out that the Gambling Lion had turned. One with a concealed blade and the other with a fire poker, they attacked him together.

    Lucius took the knife stab as he removed the other¡¯s arm. Then, with a twisting flourish, he plunged the sword back and through the knifeman¡¯s chest. He leapt up on the table, motioning for the girls to press themselves against the wall behind him. He declared, ¡°Anyone who wants to die may come!¡± His boast stalled other assailants for a moment as his stigmata closed up the wound in his chest and as the Montisferro boy slumped to the ground.

    Two more blood spattered killers rushed him. The larger of the two booted the table he stood upon, but he leapt down and cleaved the man¡¯s skull in two. A poor slash of a sword, swung by a veteran at least ten years past his military service, lacerated his back and drove the boy to his knees.

    Lupa leapt to his aid, having scrounged the iron fire poker with its beaked hook. She nearly smote it through the swordsman¡¯s head, but merely drove him back a step. The reprieve let Lucius free his sword from the corpse and in three moves opened the man¡¯s wrist. Another slash knocked the stolen sword away and then Lupa did drive the poker through his temple.

    ¡°Who else?¡± Lucius roared, circling quick around the table, keeping his back to Aisha and the Ashe sisters. Having seen the melee, Aria wasted no time in dragging Felicia to the safety he offered.

    The fighting continued, but the main doors of the hall were blasted open. The hasty barricade proved nothing more than a hindrance to the brute might of Acheliah. The tone of the shouts changed as she spread her wings, but she did nothing to stop the fighting. As Lucius killed more of the panicked men, she glided across the room, her feet just above the heads of the nobles. She didn¡¯t spare a glance for any of the killers save the one still battling Prince Gabriel.

    Her arrival made the man spin about and the prince¡¯s doppelganger cut him down on the spot. The angel didn¡¯t bat an eye at the man¡¯s death, her gaze was only for the king as she knelt down and cradled his head upon her lap. Those about her saw pure grief, but she was not a weeping maiden. She attacked the problem of his death intellectually, though in a way only perceptible to herself.

    Only when she realized she was too late did the tears flow. The grief ridden sobs of an angel were as fear inducing as a pack of wolves. The word to flee fast and flee far had reached everyone in the hall as Acheliah stood back up and spread her wings. Declaring them all heretical vermin, she declared every man in the room to be dead.

    She used her magic to harden her feathers to razors and then launched them in every direction. Given a life of their own, they flew like diving hawks and sank into the flesh of everyone, innocent and guilty. All were cut down except for the prince. She was a thing of beautiful wrath and all who witnessed her that day would remember it for the rest of their lives.

    Not the least of which reason was because, for most of them, it was the last time they would ever see the angel of Vassermark.

    Of course, one other man suffered her wounds and stood.

    <hr>

    <ol>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">The method of concocting the poison has been lost to time and I won¡¯t describe it here. The only thing of importance is the deathlike trance it leaves the victim in as the parasitic creature excretes in their stomach until removed.</li>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">Reportedly, she did speak with Shepherd, only to be told not to make such an attempt again. The goddess of death knew perfectly well the protection Acheliah offered, but the words left the angel in a depressed mood for years after.</li>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">For the most famous use of Corpse Rot, also known as Juliet¡¯s Blade, one must look to the climax of the schism war, which gave Rackvidd its independence in the year 107, before rejoining Vassermark in the year 132. A most tragic tale of ill-fated lovers.</li>

    </ol>

 5-28 - Leomunds Power

    Not so much as the sound of men choking on their own blood broke the silence as Acheliah composed herself. The Bureaucrat''s Rebellion was over as soon as it had begun. Promises of protection from divine fury had failed and none yet stood to point the finger of blame for that lie.

    Only Lucius still stood, in brazen confrontation against the angel. His stigmata surged with power, clashing against the angel¡¯s magic the way two counterflowing streams fight for space. The bloody ground between them twisted and spattered, throwing blood out of the way as the weeping mother of a nation walked toward him. With his sword in one hand, still raised, he ripped her steel feathers from his body and cast them aside. His own blood mingled with the gore, crackling against the marble as Acheliah struggled to control her anger.

    When she pointed a finger at him, he braced. ¡°Try me.¡±

    ¡°This is your fault,¡± she declared.

    Between them, a defenseless girl threw herself. Frederika Ashe rushed forward, letting the boy¡¯s sword nearly rest on her shoulder. ¡°My lady, please calm yourself. He saved us, he saved me!¡±

    Lucius said, ¡°Step aside Erika.¡±

    ¡°Enough blood, enough!¡±

    Acheliah cocked her head, staring over the girl¡¯s shoulder. ¡°You should be groveling.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ve fought worse.¡±

    ¡°Only because I don¡¯t have my blade,¡± the angel said.

    ¡°You think I¡¯m going to back down?¡±

    Frederika dropped to her knees, soiling her dress with blood as she clasped her hands in prayer. ¡°This man stands in front of the mother of this child!¡±

    Only then did Acheliah deign to look behind, where Lupa still stood with her bloody weapon, one arm shielding Aisha who could do nothing more than breathe, pressed to the wall for support. ¡°Where is the wizard? This is his doing.¡±

    ¡°Not here.¡±

    ¡°Lies!¡± Again, she spread her wings, blasting a gust of wind across the room and sending a dozen women to the ground, fainted.

    ¡°He¡¯s been gone for months, Acheliah! Your demon killer is gone.¡±

    ¡°He is the demon you stupid child! He should never have been allowed back, never should have had his punishment rescinded. This is the work of the blasphemer.¡±

    The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

    Prince Gabriel, his eyes racked with his own grief and cradling an injured arm, pushed himself through the wind, his voice nearly drowned. ¡°God-mother, he fought for us, not for them.¡±

    Acheliah faltered, her magic subsiding as she turned to face the prince.

    He straightened up. ¡°You already killed that girl¡¯s father, would you kill her savior too?¡±

    The news broke all three of the Ashe siblings. Frederika wilted and Annika relinquished Andrey from her clutches to throw herself wailing at Gabriel. Only then did the angel stop to look at the indiscriminate slaughter she had brought to the nobility of Vassermark. ¡°He had already been killed,¡± she said, hiding her face from the broken families she had made.

    ¡°You didn¡¯t even leave us prisoners to interrogate.¡±

    If courage can be measured by the difference in power between the one who stands up and thrusts himself upon the stage and the one who doesn¡¯t want to see them there, then the bravest man in Vassermark stepped into the feast hall at that time. Nothing more than a junior guard, his cheeks still soft from youth, his voice cracked with late traces of puberty as he said, ¡°My lord, we have the criminals secured.¡±

    Lucius would have been happy to vanish with his prizes and secure their safety, but Prince Gabriel ordered, ¡°Join me.¡±

    Still limping from the wounds Acheliah had given him, he followed the angel out of the feast hall and to the courtyard. Gabriel interrogated the boy, learning who he was and why nobody of higher station had come to report. Namely, none were available. Lucius had a good idea what had happened, so he barely listened. Instead, he demanded to know why Aisha was following him and all the other girls were in her wake like ducklings.

    ¡°And where exactly would be safer?¡± she answered, voicing the same sentiment the Ashe family had.

    ¡°The fighting is over,¡± he growled, and they stepped into the lower class feasting area. Where Kajsa should have been, where Sammy and Sera still were, was comparatively untouched by violence, but not for lack of interlopers. From the moment they took their signal and pointed blades at the innocent, for those in the outer courtyard were certainly innocent of the decisions made by the nobility, they were suppressed.

    Leomund Tolzi stood in the center, sweat dotting his brow and glistening in the setting sun.  His breathing remained steady, despite the obvious exertion. Nearly one hundred revelers, a third of which had taken up blades, knelt on the ground or prostrated themselves before him. The tables and chairs they had seat at were reduced to rubbish amidst the spilled food and blood for while he stood like the pinnacle of a sundial, all else had been crushed flat by his will.

    Through Vita¡¯s efforts, she had gifted him a power surpassing what could be called a mere stigmata. He had a heavenly presence that demanded obeisance from even his enemies. When contrasted by the bloodbath Acheliah had caused. That difference in image between a man of the sun faith(1) and the angel of the water goddess fueled the schism that King Charles von Arandall had started when he married a woman of the central kingdoms and made the dwindling royal family into a monogamy.

    The nucleus of class division had been excised by death, but the religious issues of Vassermark were prime to prosper in the very stronghold of the goddess of mysteries and knowledge.

    Lucius, for his suspicious role in the affair, was put under house arrest within the castle.

    <ol>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">Leomund was effectively an atheist for most of his time with me and the boy, but such realities do little to stop veneration and hero worship.</li>

    </ol>

 5-29 - The Chains Of Pride

    One of the common failings of humans is a lack of adaptability, particularly in hierarchical systems. Suppose the king wants to be able to detain any miscreant who violates his laws, but not kill them, suppose further that they can be apprehended and the question is really one of keeping them secured. This is easily done until the infinite magics of stigmata are considered. Clearly, a man who can turn stone to clay and undermine a castle wall in mere hours is not a man that can be secured within the guest wing of the castle. So, the faithful bureaucrats put their heads together and create the donjon, an island surrounded by the voracious monsters of their goddess, able and willing to kill any escapee.

    Suddenly, a system has been created that can be utterly farcical because the prince can order that Lucius be apprehended and feel secure that the boy is in fact arrested because no matter his stigmata the prison system can contain anyone. Despite the fact that the boy was being kept at the castle, and not at the donjon. Indeed, he had a room with a high balcony that only a fool would imagine as a means of escape.

    Or a man who could put his body back together even from such a drop.

    After such a finale as the assassination of King Charles von Arandall, this trivia might seem boring, but it is precisely the reason that I was able to secret myself into the castle. Acheliah had locked herself away with Kassie and her senses had been dulled by wine. It made the excursion dangerous, but possible.

    The rooms Lucius were consigned to had been for Duke Ashe, and many of his personal effects still filled the wardrobes and other furnishings, although his family did not. Some weeks had passed and his family had fled back to the safety of Jarnmark. As such, he was only accompanied by those of his closest retinue as Gabriel saw it. Which was to say that Leomund was elsewhere. Keeping two of the most competent fighters in the kingdom together would not have been a wise decision.

    I found the boy with a book, sitting in candlelight beside the balcony. The soon-to-be  mother slept fitfully in the master bedroom, sharing the bed with Lupa. The two of them had become close as sisters ever since the attack, while Aria and Felicia rested in the guest room. When he heard two sets of feet cross the wooden balcony, he cast the tome across the desk and leapt up. Battle tension vanished when he saw the tired and confused face beside me. He gaped for a moment, then looked at me. ¡°Master.¡±

    ¡°Go, go,¡± I urged the girl, practically shoving her into his waiting arms as I beamed at the boy. ¡°Lucius, it is so good to see you again.¡±

    Holding her head to his chest and stroking his hand through the hair of his childhood friend, he gripped her protectively as he asked, ¡°How much time do you have?¡±

    ¡°Not much, but enough,¡± I answered as Kajsa whispered questions into his night clothes. I shut the balcony door and lit more candles with a flick of my hand. I was a travel weary mess, my clothes dyed black by my time beyond the world. I looked, for the most part, just as he had always known me on the road. He was the one that had become the image of a young noble, so far removed from the dirty boy in the woods I found so long ago.

    The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

    ¡°It¡¯s dangerous for you to be here.¡±

    ¡°But it would be a betrayal if I weren¡¯t,¡± I said, taking the seat he had used for reading. After giving him a moment to speak with Kajsa, I went on. ¡°I couldn¡¯t be happier with your performance in the central kingdoms. You¡¯ve become one of the best commanders in the world, a true rising star. Everything I¡¯ve taught you, you¡¯ve absorbed and now experience is augmenting. Your performance at the feast was heroic as well, but your position is precarious. Over the next few years, you¡¯ll have to continue walking the blade¡¯s edge between suspicion and utility. You must be too good to throw away, but never within the new king¡¯s shadow.¡±

    Lucius lifted his chin. ¡°It¡¯s Kassia that is next in line.¡±

    I shook my head. ¡°Her oldest brother will take the crown, perhaps not as the official king, but a king reagent. Acheliah is the one who gives the crown regardless of law and she dotes on Kassia too much. If she does, however, that is no loss. A boon if anything, which you¡¯ll have to capitalize upon yourself. I¡¯m afraid that for the next year, we must remain apart. I doubt you¡¯ll get so much as a missive from me, but that is to free you to act and build your power.¡±

    Gripping Kajsa¡¯s hand, the boy grimaced. ¡°You barely gave me time to prepare before¡­¡±

    I waved a hand to cut him off. Silence was prudence. ¡°I hope next we meet will be under celebratory auspices. It will be the first birth day of your son and I will lavish gifts upon him, commensurate with your accomplishments. But first! Your reward. Girl, give me your hand.¡±

    ¡°Go on,¡± he urged, keeping hold of Kajsa¡¯s shoulders and turning her around to face me. She hesitated, but soon I had the little alchemist¡¯s hand in mine.

    ¡°Just as I promised,¡± I said, unweaving the bonds that held her memories. She collapsed into Lucius¡¯ arms as fear rearranged into sense within her. At once she turned around and wailed, grabbing onto the boy. She babbled from one thought to another, reconstructing the past months. Her words almost brought Lucius to his knees, but he stood like a pillar for her to lean on as I rose once more. Then, standing at my full height, I planted my hand on his head and spoke the most binding curse that all the tongues of men have ever conceived.

    ¡°I am so proud of you, my boy. You will do great things.¡±

    That winter as the year became 756 CC, a great many events transpired and historians have argued ever since about which was the most pivotal. The assassination, the crowning of a firstborn son, the first riot massacre, but I maintain that the most important was the birth of Lucius von Solhart¡¯s first child and the changes it brought in him, for that moment of euphoria drove his ensuing life and who would be foolish enough to think that the emperor of the world was not the most important character in history? The only substance to their arguments was the comparatively slow life he undertook at order of the king, both performing policing actions throughout the capital, and subjecting himself to the teachings of the academy.

    However, those events are all removed from his clash with the paladin of Jeameaux, and so I shall put a close to this tome.

 5 - Dedicated Discussion Chapter

    Hello everyone who has made it this far, thank you! Writing Undying Emperor continues to be enjoyable for me, allowing me to move between styles and structures to challenge myself while exploring the world and characters. For Act 5 I wanted to see what I could do with a split timeline but better than I did in Act 2. I wanted to take advantage of future knowledge to throw curve balls and surprises, attempting to take advantage of what might be perceived as low stakes to surprise and develop the intrigue. Unfortunately, I did have several people say that they felt the pace was slower than they would have liked.

    I''m honestly not exactly sure what the failure point was. Perhaps the ratio of time at the feast to time in the war was too even? Maybe I didn''t hint well enough that something would matter at the feast? The overall structure of the story already takes for granted that Lucius survives and rises, leaving the tension and surprises to the realm of "how though?", which I know causes a large amount of potential readers to check out very early but that''s not the type of writing decision that can be "fixed", it just is what it is.

    Going forward, I''ll say that there are going to start being a few more jumps in time. Act 6 might feel almost episodic because it will be about the fall out from the attempted coup playing out over a good deal of time, not a specific war campaign of chasing an army through the countryside. There are many aspects that need literal time to develop. Future plot arcs will happen quickly, others might involve entire years skipped over. Such is the tale of a man''s life.

    This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

    I hope you will come along for me in Act 5.5 as I attempt a more intimate and thoughtful style of writing, exploring the writings in Leomund''s journal during Act 5. I didn''t want to undercut the final grieving over Nikolai but such a scene would have ground Act 5 to a screeching halt if given the time I feel it deserves. This will also give me an opportunity to explore certain aspects of the world that have been taken for granted thus far in the story. I expect it to be relatively short, like the other side stories, and soon resume Lucius'' story directly.

    There is at least one revelation that could be guessed at this point, but it seems that so far nobody has. The twists that did happen, were they satisfying surprises?

    Undying Emperor will resume next Monday with Leomund''s Journal. If any of you are interested in a more direct discussion forum, that is available through my book club (link is in the notes but for now, I let the link expire weekly)

    Lastly, while I appreciate positive reviews and they keep me motivated to keep producing, I am always interested in hearing about my short comings because they give me an avenue of improvement beyond mere experimentation. And, thank you for all the recent comments.

 5.5 - Entry 1

    My name is Leomund Tolzi. No Von, I¡¯m not a noble and as such I have never been a man to write much. I was born to Leosenn Tolzi and his second wife Bridgette in the jarldom of Ragnasenn Stonesplitter, during his grey years. For the first twenty years of my life, my reading capacity was limited to the runes of the faith, which I now understand to be less than one third of the written language of the skalds. I have chosen to write this journal in the common tongue of the central kingdoms because the events pertain little to my homeland and, to my shame, I am more fluent in it.

    Before I detail the miraculous event that compelled me to wet a crow¡¯s feather black, I will write a bit of my childhood so that readers may understand the man that I was.

    Ragnasenn¡¯s jarldom sat just inside the wolf circle. On a sun man, the glade of ice and rock would be a bit north of the western copper mine. As we men of the skalds reckon by the dragon rock, it was the thirteenth moon, meaning on the thirteenth night of every lunar month, the wolf¡¯s moon sat overhead. In the past, all thirty fiefs were home to my ancestors, but the thirteenth to the twenty-second, along with the old acropolis, have long since been home to the mongrel race known as trolls.

    This incursion became my primary preoccupation, for the gods had given me a gift for fighting. As my voice had only just begun to crack and deepen, I joined my first hunting expedition to kill a pack of the horned beasts. Young as I was, they gave me a spear to carry more as a walking aid than to fight with. Unless a panicked beast charged and impaled itself upon the weapon, I was unlikely to draw blood with it. It takes great strength to break through the lichen encrusted hide of the creatures, but there were tasks for an eager boy.

    They gave me one of the siege horses (bel?gringsh?st) which bore no rider. The weapon was mighty, the creation of some genius to the east. Similar in composition to the weapons mounted upon ships in the south, bands of lacquered wood were strung together to a trigger, armed with a heavy bolt traditionally crafted from the limb bones of trolls. When loosed, the missile could rip through a troll¡¯s body from even further than the fire-worshiping beasts could fling rocks. Unfortunately, winding it back typically took longer than it took for the survivors to charge, so after the artilleryman took their first shots, the horses were handed off to boys like me and we scampered away as the hunters cut down the survivors.

    This was my first taste of war, not counting the fights among children. My first taste of death came months later. The hunting party came across a trail of discarded baggage, and soon the abandoned cart it came from. Trails in the snow led downhill and our leader surmised it might be another northman. I think he would have left the people to their demise had they gone uphill, assuming them to be foreigners. Like bears, trolls tend to struggle rushing down a slope when they cannot easily reach out with their hands to grasp the earth. A healthy adult may thus stand a good chance of escape, so long as they aren¡¯t caught against a river. Unfortunately, that is exactly what happened to a group of approximately twelve men, women, and children. We came upon the carnage of smashed bodies while the beasts were piling up wood for a pyre. When the hunters descended on them, some tried leaping into the icemelt to escape the blades, but the slick rock rebuked them and a second volley from the siege horses felled them. The fire meant for the trolls to celebrate was then used to immolate the victims.

    The hunting of trolls is an important business beneath the wolf moon.

    For two years after that day, I continued to train with sword and spear as my body grew. My younger brother Nikolai joined, learning far quicker than I had the methods of the huntsmen and the two of us gained an early reputation. Thoughts inevitably turned from fighting to women as we approached adulthood and conquest made us arrogant. We believed we could marry into any jarldom we wished, so long as both of us could win the heart of a daughter in the same clan for we did not wish to be separated. Troll hunters enjoy respect everywhere in the north, whereas similar lives earn distrust in the south. For example, the shepherd¡¯s lot is quite pitiable in my estimation, enjoying no companionship but that of his dog.

    This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

    In 747 CC, there was an interpersonal war between jarl Tor and jarl Minsk. This is a peculiar matter of custom to my people and would be considered merely criminal in other kingdoms. Skaldheim is a vast country with many people, and we understand well that we depend on one another as a greater clan. It is why we can manage trade, diplomacy, and military matters on a footing with Vassermark, but we are not so united. Feuds run deep in our blood and fresh offenses must be answered. To settle this, we have the custom of interpersonal wars. They are battles meant to be fought only between the blood relatives of those engaged and not to involve the greater fighting force of the jarldom. Not all jarldoms are equal however, and it is common for the smaller of the two to hire mercenaries. Typically these are foreigners, but troll hunters far from their homes are thought to be unbound by the council¡¯s restrictions.

    As such, I entered into the service of jarl Tor, lord of the twenty-seventh moon. There were essentially two campaigns, because nothing decisive was achieved before the wolf moon dimmed and winter forced us into the longhouses for a time. There, I trained, I drank, and I bedded the jarl¡¯s granddaughter. I might have settled down in the impoverished town, if she hadn¡¯t taken ill and died that winter of pneumonia. The jarl became convinced she had gotten sick because she had gone out in the storms too often to visit me and I was fool enough to say that couldn¡¯t be true as I warmed her each night.

    When spring came, he tried to get me killed by putting me in his little vanguard and delaying reinforcements. I should say that while the jarldom was poor and poorly armed, the old man had been a lustful beast in his years and was able to call up an entire platoon from his own loins. Unfortunately for him, I proved the greater fighter. When he paid me from Minsk¡¯s coffers, I understood that I wasn¡¯t welcome back beneath the twenty-seventh moon.

    Now a man grown and with the knowledge that the men of mead halls knew my name, I took my time moving through the countryside with my brother. We joined other bands of troll hunters but also we served as guards upon trading vessels. We visited Portacheval, Drachenreach, and even to Jarnmark thanks to a liberal ship captain. By the time I returned to my home, I had fought and killed a man of every kingdom in fair combat, and several in unfair combat.

    There was no homecoming celebration for us, however. The thirteenth moon had been harrowed by trolls when a particularly fierce blizzard blew so much snow against the windward palisade that the creatures could leap straight over and have their revenge. Our family were among the casualties. Both of us burned for revenge and we had a good description of the tribal chief that had so wronged us, but two swordsmen would never be able to hunt an entire pack of trolls, and purportedly, these were no ordinary trolls.

    Our only recourse was to turn to the council and ask for a war band. We wouldn¡¯t have to wait for a Great Moot of the jarls, but we had to wait months in the capital of the first moon for representatives to be fetched from all the jarldoms. Nikolai and I were relentless during the wait. We called in favors and cut deals. Promises were made to traders for supplies on the expectation of feeding such a war band. It must have been two dozen times I was challenged to a duel to prove my mettle for those that doubted me and that was the time men began to call me a swordmaster.

    True enough, I was excellent with a blade, but I had never studied under a swordmaster so I didn¡¯t understand how I could deserve the title myself. I felt a fraud when I was brought before the rune speakers and introduced. The great wolf, Chain Breaker, listened to my prayer. His response was not to me. He asked, ¡°Will this one do?¡±

    The man he spoke to was a strange fellow from the south. He appeared to be in the loose garb of a desert traveler, but the loose fabric that looked to me like nothing but a trap for snow and ice covered a fur-lined jerkin that looked firm enough to stop a blade. I thought it might have been dragon leather, but I was soon distracted by the striking appearance of his eyes. They were like the rainbow chasms of certain hot springs I had once nearly boiled myself alive in.

    He said, ¡°If you can provide me a storm and your big bell, then yes I think this war band will do.¡± That was how I first met the wizard Amurabi.

 5.5 - Entry 2

    With the word of the wolf, the Great Moot was nothing more than a formality after that and in due time a host of warriors marched north to the acropolis. It was slow going as we were harried by displaced packs of trolls and a handful of grendels. This did much to wet the appetite of we northmen. We fell upon the monsters with glee and with few casualties.

    This was just as well, because our convoy had to drag the great bell from the first cathedral. The massive thing was lashed to sleds and dragged by a team of draft horses from the jarl¡¯s own stables. When we asked the wizard, who accompanied us, what the purpose was he said it was to ring out our victory from the acropolis.

    The skalds loved that answer, mostly because they didn¡¯t have a hand in dragging the behemoth. It invigorated the warrior poets and each night was filled with broken, incomplete songs as they competed with one another about what the best way to immortalize our hunt would be. I found their excitement to be premature, but my brother was enthralled by it, even the bagpiper.

    Nikolai was not a fighter. That isn¡¯t to say that he wasn¡¯t good at it. He and I sparred nearly every day and there was hardly a man in the north he wouldn¡¯t have stood a chance against. What he was was a thinker and a romantic. He yearned for the likes of King Galain. Indeed, he believed that tale to be of true history, lost to the age of the gods. He was enraptured by the god of crafts, and I think vaguely jealous that my name has its etymological roots going back to that legend and not his own name. If we could have swapped names, I think it would have been for the best. A god who was eaten by another god never seemed like much of a god to me and neither of us fancied worshiping a dragon.

    His passion for these tales dominated the urges of his youth and thus restrained him. He yearned for the fairest maiden, and the few times he met one he found himself shoved aside by some braggart or political union. He called it platonic and chivalrous, I thought it was a manifestation of his lack of experience.

    Still, it would be years more before there was another man I would trust with my back in a fight, and both of us had our hearts set on the acropolis. We had both wept at the graves, but it was blood that needed to be shed so that we could have our sorrow.

    The asked-for storm had begun to blow in when we reached the acropolis. The icy mist it whipped up obscured the grand temple such that our first knowledge of it came from a fall. One of the hunters crashed through an ice shelf into the ruins of an old home. Naught but the foundation had survived the centuries and the corners were stained by animal dens. Thus we discovered that all the hills and rocks surrounding us were the very city that once surrounded the holy site. We found bones too. Rat gnawed and ancient, they watched our march.

    The skalds said we should inter them, after our victory. As it turned out, we barely had the will to flee, much less bury forgotten ancestors. Now, I believe every man in our party was prepared to die, but that was until we came to realize it was more than a troll we were hunting.

    We had seen big trolls and little trolls. Brutal ones and cunning ones. We knew the sound of their nightly bugling and most had heard the crude language of grunts the beasts employed. There was no surprise as we fell upon troll families with little monsters still latched to the teats of their mothers that spawned them. But, we started to realize something was wrong by the sheer number of them.

    Any troll hunter can tell you that the reason trolls bugle is the same reason wolves howl. It¡¯s to tell the others to sod off from their territory because they have mouths to feed and don¡¯t feel like sharing. They have a different sound when they¡¯re coming of age in the spring and that brings together bull and cow so that in union they give the territorial call and all keep each other a few hours distance.

    We were coming upon packs and herds practically one on top of the other like a great big army had gathered up. Had they been able to call for help, we would have been smashed to pieces and thrown in the heaps of carcasses that rotted throughout the city. For hours we fought, having to take it in shifts to stave off exhaustion. We ran out of siege bolts despite our attempts at recovery and death filled the stormy air.

    Amurabi urged us on like a shepherd, driving us and the bell toward the acropolis. That was where the king resided, he said, and we soon believed him. The stone temple had bulwarks of ice all around it, the likes of which could only be crafted by the power of stigmata.

    Many of our number bore the blessings of Luna, and many haad powers far more extravagant than the berserker marks upon Nikolai and I. They were boons to help us fight back, but apparently trolls could get them too. Their worship of fire proved to be more than bestial superstition, and the chief who had raided my home had been blessed.

    This didn¡¯t stop us, but while the warriors were wary, the skalds were ready to leap atop the walls. They almost fought one another in a rush to be the one to capture a living legend in their own saga. That didn¡¯t change the problem that we had no ready way over the ice wall. Ladders and grappling hooks would have been required, as though we were raiding a castle.

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    The wizard came to our rescue, for none of us were blessed with a power that would help. In retrospect, I think he thought only of the bell, but he raised his hands to the heavens. Dark clouds had blotted out the moon and crackled with lightning. The darting lances splashed light upon us with the brilliance of the sun, but it was lantern light that let us see the shifting of his fingers and the mumbling of his lips. At his command, a spear from the heavens crashed before us and shattered the ice.

    ¡°On! Onwards!¡± he commanded. ¡°Earn your lives, men of the north.¡±

    Nikolai and I were the first through the breach, our cheeks stinging from the clouds of steam as we charged into the acropolis. Lanterns were no longer needed. The temple was completely illuminated by dozens of braziers that roared with fire built up by the troll.

    The guttural beast greeted us with curses and slurs in half a dozen languages, as though he had lived the life of a pirate. Spearmen rushed to encircle him as he leapt about with a profane club. The head of an ancient statue had been lashed to a haft of wood and marble shards flew through the air after every crash and swing. The troll lord towered thrice above my own head and a single blow would have broken me. Worse, his very presence cast ice upon the old stones. Many a man fell to the ground trying to escape the cleave of his hammer, but their blood warmed the ice and pushed it back.

    We would have cut down his legs and brought his head low soon enough, our steel was sharp enough to rend his crusted hide, had he been alone.

    But, there was another, and this giant of steel was the focus of the wizard¡¯s attention. It was that thing which had brought him, not the troll. Every pack of beasts was nothing but an annoyance to his mind. The knight of the acropolis was his true foe, the thing that had brooked the wolf¡¯s aid, and his aid we had for the storm still roared above our heads.

    In the acropolis of ancient Skaldheim, we fought what would be a god.

    Man or troll, it is one thing to fight a foe that is stronger than you, mightier than you, even when they wield powers beyond your comprehension. They still bleed.

    The only thing the knight had in common with the troll was that it still had to touch us to kill us, but it didn¡¯t bleed. I think there was nothing within the rime rimmed steel that could have bled. It was as though weapons of war had been given a will of their own, and the skill of a swordmaster too.

    Standing upright, my head wouldn¡¯t have reached its shoulders, and yet it flew throughout the battlefield, gliding over blood and ice to pursue us. When I saw it impale a man through the chest and hoist him like a flag¨CPodrick Redbeard of the third moon, a good fighter but bad gambler¨CI knew I had to break off from the troll. We had brought nearly a hundred warriors from across Skaldheim to hunt the troll lord and were prepared to do so, but none knew what to do against the knight.

    I still remember how my bones shook when its blade fell upon mine. Even bracing my weapon like a shield, one hand on the blade, the inhuman might drove me to my knees, overpowering even my stigmata. The creature¡¯s surprise was mild, but enough for Nikolai to thrust through the mail. Any living creature would have fallen from such a blow, but as he told me there was simply nothing inside. No bone, no joint, no flesh to cut or break.

    Nikolai was struck by a backhanded blow, the pommel of the knight¡¯s weapon smashing into his chest.

    I truly believe we would have been cut down to a man that night, if not for the wizard. He was late to the fight, cajoling the injured to push the bell up the steps as we fought. If they had understood what was happening, they would have surely rushed in to help, but he kept them blind and ignorant to the deaths until the bell sat in the grand archway to the temple.

    When at last it sat at the fray, he relieved the men. He goaded the knight, speaking ancient tongues. He played later that it was secret incantation, but I believe it was nothing more than base insults. Whatever the meaning, he captured the knight¡¯s attention enough that I scored a number of blows across the heavy plates. I struck until my arms were numb, until my blade was chipped and its steel dented. That hampered its mobility, but was little means of destruction.

    I thought what I had to do was sever the helm from the body, but had no means of striking it down. The wizard gave me those means as he called down lightning once more. He blasted the roof, shattering stone that had stood for ages. Great boulders fell about us and the knight flew away before one of the mighty blasts could strike it. Such chaos was merely clearly the way between us and the sky. It drove the troll to despondent wailing and spearmen rammed through its belly, but no harm came to the knight.

    The wizard had a plan for this too. He made no effort to hunt it down, but rather forced it to come to him. One of the bolts struck the bell beside him and it glowed with heat. At the same time, a phantom hand pulled upon my body and my blade. Every warrior in the temple had to grapple with their own weapons, many flew from their grasps to strike the bell for he had transformed the metal into dragon rock.

    The knight, a creature of steel entirely, could only dig its heels into the ice. Great sheets of the blood and slick shattered beneath it as the hulk was pulled to the entrance and smashed into the bell. Limbs splayed wide, it shook and rattled, struggling against the force, but unable to wrench itself free.

    Those warriors with axes were best able to wield their weapons and they fell upon the troll lord. The spear tips within its belly were wrenching through its guts and spilling viscera upon the ground before they cleaved apart its skulls and broke its antlers.

    Before it was even dead, the wizard bid me fetch the hammer. With the troll''s own weapon, I approached the knight. It spoke the same ancient tongue as the wizard, staring at me. Ignorant to the words, be they a plea or a goad, I used my whole body to swing the great cudgel. The statue head flattened the knight¡¯s helm and its resistance ended.

    No cheers went up, for none of us knew if the fight was over. Then, the wizard clapped me on the back, told me I did a good job, and offered to hire me. From that day forward, I routinely encountered the unbelievable but nothing the wizard ever did could compare to the day I died, except perhaps that he brought me back.

 5.5 - Entry 3

    Every morning now, I wake with an asp coiled around my body. It was my wrist this morning and it has been awful teaching the thing to not wrap around my throat. There aren¡¯t many snakes in my homeland, so I have no tolerance like the bold flutists that charm the monsters for coin in the street. I have seen more than my share of men take a bite to the leg while marching and I have no desire to feel warm scales rubbing across my flesh.

    Vi won¡¯t let me get rid of it though. She gifted it to me to help keep me safe, which makes it a strange gift to someone that¡¯s supposed to be keeping her safe but our relationship has seemed to be entirely reversed the entire time.

    Whether she is a woman or an angel, I can no longer tell and neither can she. We both agree that she was one, but that was centuries ago. Her memory is more fragmented than she lets on. At times, she slips into an older language. It happens when she gets thoughtful and wistful, but also when she gets heated. She cursed a cat seller so fast in so my languages I swear his eyes swam round in his head, and all so she could get a mangy rat-catcher a few coppers cheaper.

    The cat wasn¡¯t long for this world even before she bought it and she did nothing to prolong its stay. What she needed was a part of the cat, and not the thing itself. She took from its mind part of its instinct and grafted it to the mind of the asp that even at this moment has made its home in my boot. The serpent allegedly sees me the same way a mother cat sees its kittens.

    I pity the first sneak thief that tries to make off with my coin purse, and I pity myself because I¡¯ll be the one disposing of the corpse the next morning.

    The two of us always make an impression wherever we arrive, be it a trading market, a tavern, or an inn. I¡¯m used to such stares, due to my stature and my pale skin which even the Giordanan sun has failed to color. The curiosity is always counterbalanced by my presence, that when men look upon me they know they are looking at a warrior. Plenty of men have challenged me to duels, drunk or not, but that is a small hassle compared to being seen as a potential victim.

    With Vi it¡¯s different. Men desire her. Her beauty is like the twist of a whirlpool, dragging the flow of people around her whether they want it or not. Even the most vain women, the kind that see overwhelming beauty as an affront to themselves, are first put in awe over her. Perhaps this is because of the reticent nature of women in the south.

    The cities that once composed a proper kingdom are now nothing more than a collection of people. Some might think that is the same thing, but it lacks an intangibility that networks of merchants can only imitate. Those merchant families are the real nobility of the desert. Everyone else, every farmer, fisherman, shepherd, miner, and hand-worker lives a meager life one step from violence and yet they call themselves peaceful because there are no armies. Only Vassermark was half-fool enough to conquer them, only to learn that all the commerce of the realm is the barter of farmers, that to garrison a city is nothing but an expense while the merchants divert their caravans and hide their slave-mines.

    I fear I¡¯ve strayed from my point, but the art of words was never my world.

    The women of Giordana are never without the protection of a man, be he husband, father, or brother. If she has none, then she joins the temples or has the most pitiable existence for some short years before disease rots her. Winning the heart of a merchant¡¯s son and being whisked away to be a princess is nothing more than a dream.

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    Consequently, people assume I am her husband. When they realize that she is the one paying and making arrangements, some realize that I am a retainer, and that puts them even more in awe of this woman who can pay to have a swordsman at her side. None imagine that I am in bondage to her for the debt of my life in a most literal sense.

    The leash tethered to my soul is one she does not pull upon, however. I can feel that should she wish, she could hex me in any number of ways. She could work spells upon me that would debilitate me before I could ever raise a hand to her. I¡¯ve seen the wizard perform such sorcery at great expense, due to the effort of penetrating a man¡¯s soul.

    I have also seen him save his magic by substituting torture until the man was nothing but a husk with his brain spilled out for perusal. The process took weeks, but saved the wizard some measure of magic for which he is ever greedy. This weakness is the bond she holds on me, which she professes she intends to never use.

    I believe that had she intended to force my cooperation, she wouldn¡¯t have played the role of my nurse. She was a different woman after the events in Tavina which prompted this journal, but I think I have jumped over too many things. She has distracted me and confused my thoughts. Her serpent is at this moment slumbering in my lap and she lounges on the breezy balcony as the sun sets far to the west. The river wharf is still noisy with porters hauling cargo to and fro, the bickering of merchants and farmers, the life of a city. I can hear a trio of minstrels plucking out a comedy of a song in the plaza below, between their panhandling cries and the jangling of coins in a hat. The music here is of a different character, more attuned to the needs of dancing than the content of the words. In fact, I think most of the bards ad lib the music as they see fit, merely keeping a familiar melody as they do. The good ones can be uproarious in a tavern, but I wonder if the best isn¡¯t this very moment arm in arm with my pupil of the sword.

    Aisha is a gem of this country, more than I ever imagined when I heard her called the jewel of Tavina. Beautiful and of a noble character, but with none of the rough flaws that come from heritage. She was given education in coin, in nature, history, and culture.

    Last year, in the rebellion of 755, many men gave their lives to keep her safe, though they are but a footnote to her brother¡¯s strife. This year, I gave mine for it. I had promised the boy that I would keep her safe, but rogues found their way to her. I cut down nearly all of them, including a fine swordsman by the name of Mihael of Bakerstreet. Had he and I been able to duel, I think it would have come to neither of our deaths, rather than both. The treachery of war made it such that I was outnumbered and they could not surrender lest their cause be lost entirely. I died while Aisha was still in their clutches. All that I had been able to do wasn¡¯t enough for me to keep my promise to the boy that I would keep his woman safe.

    I was as weak as a babe when I woke, and could put no strength through my stigmata. My lifelong companion had abandoned me for my failure and all I could do was struggle against my pain. That companion will never leave me except in true death. When I fell out of bed and struck the floor, hands found me and turned me over. Though I did not know it was her yet, Vita asked me what was the matter. I could only croak out the crudest of responses but it was enough that she could sooth me with promise that she was safe. Where I had failed, my pupil had not.

    Now, she and I wait. There is work for us to be done, here in the southern country. There will be a party of wastelanders soon and we must look for them. Tonight, there is nothing but rest.

    I must put my quill down. Tomorrow I will straighten out my thoughts. The angel has asked me to dance and I think I will agree.

 5.5 - Entry 4

    In a sense, I had taught my brother Nikolai how to fight, but I was never much better than him. We were more like training partners than a mentorship. This had been enough for the wizard to declare me fit to service and charged me with a young boy he had found while in Jarnmark. He was even younger than I was when I joined my first troll hunting expedition, but that hadn¡¯t marked the beginning of my training. My father had taught me the basics with sticks and we had played in the fields as such.

    I did my best to recreate how I had first learned, but didn¡¯t have much hope for the boy. He was scrawny and short, and never seemed to get a word in edgewise with the wizard¡¯s apprentice. That was by far his worst trait. A young boy is in his prime years to grow strong, but it takes a lot to teach the right spirit.

    As it turned out, that was my mistake. I took his thoughtfulness for a weakness of spirit. I only understood later that he had been humbled again and again during his short life and meant to do something about it. His parents had sold him off and, in doing so, taught him that if he couldn¡¯t work then he wasn¡¯t any good. He had been cast aside and used by everyone in his life, but it was the wizard that taught him it was his own efforts that would shape his future. Thanks to the gods, for him more than anyone else, he could always pick himself back up and try again.

    By the gods, did he intend to.

    But, what the wizard did to him, it tried my nerves as much as the boy¡¯s. Imagine telling a lad to climb to the top of a tree whose branches couldn¡¯t support his weight. He did it, he did anything the wizard told him to do. I watched him at twelve years of age plummet onto the rocks. I flung a good bottle of wine from my hand as I ran to him and found him broken. Before the shock could even wear off of me his stigmata was piecing him back together. Within the hour, he was on his feet again climbing the damn tree. This was after a full day¡¯s worth of sword training and then he said he was feeling well and wanted to have another go at me.

    Not only did the healing save his life, but it gave him his vigor back. Some days, he was able to run me into the ground and only by the complaining of the girl, Ezra, did he stop trying to kill himself and that was because of the mess.

    After a particular mess from drowning himself (weighted down with stones in his pockets to keep from bobbing up to the river¡¯s surface) was a deal struck between them. None of us wanted to watch him gagging and vomiting water for another evening again so it became a matter of choking to death.

    Believe me, it¡¯s a queer feeling to squeeze the life out of a child even when you know he¡¯ll pop out of it feeling like he just had a good nap. I did it more than I would have liked, but never to speed up training. It was a swift cure to a broken bone for him, when a sparring blow landed particularly hard or when his horse bucked him off.

    The lot of us were traveling all over the world, helping the wizard deal with monsters like the knight in the acropolis, and more often than not we were essentially chased out of one village or another when they saw what we were doing to the boy. None of us could even say we were his father, because he looked nothing like us. He was born in the hills on the western edge of the map and saying he was an orphan we were taking care of just made the impressions worse.

    But, the boy did learn. The wizard took him as apprentice in all forms of science, politics, and philosophy. The only thing he didn¡¯t teach the boy was magic and that wasn¡¯t for lack of trying. While his stigmata could force his body back into health there were still limits to how much knowledge could be squeezed into his head. Miraculously, having his skull bashed open seemed to do nothing to his memory, but the boy still needed to sleep.

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    Nikolai was in charge of Ezra¡¯s martial training, but it was nothing like what the boy had to do. Her body had the limits of a young lady, which limited how much technique could be taught to her before she was unable to pick herself off the ground. All that spare mental power was given to the wizard for her further study. That, combined with a few years of age on him, left the boy always the inferior.

    I don¡¯t think he appreciated just how far he had risen above the average man because he compared himself to her. Anything he knew, she knew also and she knew it quicker. She had the sharper wit and the smoother tongue as well. She could talk her way into a merchant¡¯s good graces and walk out of any food stall with a sweet, or buy a bauble or gift or what have you for less than any man would have paid. The wizard had made a fine weapon out of her, for everything but the slaying of monsters.

    Naturally, that left the boy but one avenue to prove himself. He had his first fatal battle a few years after I met him. It didn¡¯t go well for him. He killed his first man the year after that. We were making ends meet by hunting bounties, which was really more a task for Nikolai and myself than for the wizard as he spent weeks to months at a time fussing over one business or another. He must have had a dozen different identities, switching between them like clothes as it suited him. Most were shabby things, but he always had a good measure of pride in his status as a royal engineer. I think he may have had a hand in the creation of that department in Vassermark if I can judge by the age of his medallion.

    At some point during the years, I came to realize that he was one of the finest warriors I¡¯d ever met. He came close to saving my life on a number of occasions, which is a lot to say for a boy barely able to grow a beard. He certainly let us challenge and kill monsters I would have had no choice but to flee from. In short, I grew fond of the boy.

    It broke my heart as I lay dying, his woman in the clutches of the enemy because I had failed to protect her. I only had a moment to think about it as I laid, mingled in the blood of another warrior but that realization weighed on me greater than even the death of my parents over a decade prior. It made me realize that I had made nothing of my life but violence and then failed at that. It would have been one thing if I had brought her back to safety at the cost of my life. I could have gone over to the Shepherd with a smile and met my ancestors.

    But I had failed, whereas my dear brother Nikolai had succeeded. At the cost of his life, earlier that year, he had pushed back an army and brought safety to the woman he devoted his love to, even if it was a chivalrous thing.

    It was that wound which has festered inside me and which I hope to soothe with these ruminations.

    Perhaps I won¡¯t even publish these words. Perhaps I shall cast them into the fire when I¡¯m done. I¡¯ve written here words that should be kept secret. The boy and I live in a web of political lies and to give evidence against ourselves is a folly. Yet I write.

    Tomorrow we meet with the wastelanders. If they have the man I think they¡¯ll have, perhaps I can make sense of my death. Word has already come down that the rebellion was scattered. The men of the city between lakes have fled in every direction but no one knows quite what happened in the wallows. That swamp is as depopulated as the southern desert. No bards were there to record the deed as they were in the acropolis. When I meet with the boy again, I shall hear it from his lips and I shall do whatever I can to make amends for my failure.

    Together, I imagine we will drink of a wizard¡¯s brew, a potion perhaps able to summon the Shepherd herself. I¡¯ve thought of many questions to ask her after my fleeting encounter with the goddess.

 5.5 - Entry 5

    I died, but was dragged back, and I don¡¯t know what that means for my faith. I¡¯m not even sure why we call it faith when angels and divine beasts, emissaries of the gods, walk among us. We have such solid proof of the matter yet struggle because the gods themselves are so distant. History says it wasn¡¯t always this case. The wizard assures me they¡¯re quite real.

    He has always been dodgy about the matter of their godliness however. Depending on the question, he has given different answers. An aspect of them is infallible truth of the world and perhaps that aspect is what makes them gods. They embody the iron laws of nature, but would that not be akin to worshiping the idea that objects fall down? That things of matter occupy space? The laws of mathematics that govern the twist of a snail¡¯s shell can be understood by any man of learning but that doesn¡¯t make him a god.

    Our world is dotted with great works: the sun, the moon, even the dragon¡¯s peak. Only the guidance of the Shepherd can be shown to have a personal touch. They have a flavor of kingly tombs for those that came before. Monuments to be remembered by and proof that the path of wisdom stretches long before the feet of men.

    But, what makes them godly? What makes them worthy of adoration, sacrifice, and worst of all the violence between men caused by them.

    In the snowy land of my home, tradition holds that the souls of the dead live on as shades. The hunters run through the endless woods as part of Luna¡¯s pack until such time as they need be called back. We have a legend of the White Army, the great host that she can call upon against the darkness and once a generation there is a woman born with the stigmata of an oracle, blessed with the gift to reach those distant memories held to the wolf mother¡¯s bosom.

    The fact that there is darkness is no secret to me. I¡¯ve seen it first hand and helped cut it down. I have never seen a White Army.

    But it is inarguable that I have lived my entire life with a blessing from the gods. Worse, that is a subject the wizard has never explained. I think it pains him.

    We met with the wastelanders today, but I have not been able to ask my questions. They had the man I expected, Rodrick of Jeameaux. They say the boy beat him in single combat, but also that many men were fought first. A difficult balance he had to thread. While these loyal slaves from the south have done nothing to harm the man, nature itself has ravaged him. His sword arm was cut clean off and infection has begun to fester. Fever keeps him delirious or asleep. In any other care I would not expect him to live three days more, but the angel is tending to him as she tended to me.

    I suspect within the week the world will assume he is dead, given a private mercy even if the wounds didn¡¯t claim him. Perhaps he will still perish, but there are few hands in the world better to bringing a man back.

    We sequester ourselves now in an old quarry. The man who lives here was a sculptor, but has ruined his body trying to dig out a proper piece of marble to work upon once more. Though the roads are old and sturdy, there are no travelers to bother us. Vi says that long ago, this was the womb of many great statues now adorning the temples of the land. If that is true, and I have no reason to doubt her, I can only surmise it was a very long time ago.

    It has only today occurred to me that, in a sense, she too was brought back from the dead. For over a century, Vi was little more than a corpse, sealed away in a temple several days'' ride east of this quarry. She was brought back by the misguided conniving of some bandits with delusions of conquest. That was how we first met. I had thought she was another of the monsters the wizard was always hunting, but he was willing enough to cut deals with her instead.

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    I finally asked her what it was like to be dead and she denied that she was anything of the sort. Skipping over the biological aspects, she said, ¡°Simply put, I didn¡¯t die because my soul was never handed over to the goddess. It¡¯s hard to say that I was alive, because I didn¡¯t even dream while I awaited my return. If I had to make an analogy, I would say I was like a closed book. Everything that made me who I am was still there, it just wasn¡¯t being used. To die would be either that the pages burn, or the binding is stripped and the pages scattered to nonsense.¡±

    I said, ¡°A scattered book could be put back together.¡±

    She smiled in that way that made me forget I had even asked a question. ¡°And just because a binding has been broken doesn¡¯t mean the pages are scattered either. I like the book analogy, don¡¯t you? Because even a burned book may live on in the memory of those that read it.¡±

    I asked, ¡°In this analogy, who are the readers?¡±

    The angel laughed and rose. We had been eating and she needed to change the bandages on Rodrick¡¯s wound. The bone was threatening to tear out of his skin and infection could set it any moment. But, she answered in a vague way. ¡°If an analogy was perfect, it wouldn¡¯t be an analogy. We are all readers and all books. To live is to read one another while others burn to keep us warm.¡±

    Who burns? Who sets the fires? Perhaps it is too simple an answer to say the demons. Perhaps it is too childish to think it¡¯s not the gods.

    I pray that the pages of my brother are still out there to be read by the time I rejoin with the boy, but I think the answer lies in a nuance of his power. He heals faster when surrounded by death, and I don¡¯t think that¡¯s because of his excitement level or something. I¡¯ve noticed it too. Perhaps everyone with a stigmata has seen the effect ebb and flow. With my battle fervor raging, I have cut straight through steel armor and thrown back men twice my own size.

    Worse, I can¡¯t think of any particular reason that the powers we¡¯re granted would be fundamentally different from the wizard¡¯s magic. I know that reawakening Vi required sacrifices, and I doubt animals sufficed.

    I should have kept the wastelanders, rather than let them escape. They are a curious folk, barely more than a bundle of instincts until they are older and their violent nature makes it a near certainty that any adult has killed in their time. By an old custom the boy adopted, they take their names from those they slay, as though claiming that life for themselves. They certainly claim the blessings of the gods from the dead, though I do not know if this is an effect of their stunted souls or the machinations of their demon god.

    I asked Vi why my own stigmata had changed when I came back from the dead and she said that they could have either saved it, or me. Every moment I was with the shepherd I was fraying and I was far more valuable than a mere berserker blessing. Until then, I had never thought of my blessing as common. No two divine sigils are quite the same, even if the wizard flippantly groups them together. Men say my brother Nikolai also had the blessing of the berserker, but he could never match my strength. They are all unique, but human needs mark some as more useful than others.

    I must admit my new power is far more potent though. While the gift I was born with could only affect my own body, just as the boy¡¯s power only affects his own flesh, now I can change the laws of nature themselves.

    A younger me would have happily experimented with it, stretched it to its limits and learned what I could do. But if it comes at the price of burning the pages of the dead, I fear I should not.

    She says it is not like a muscle. It will not grow stronger from use. Her words were like a command, that I should not let such fears come at the price of my life, for it is merely the way of the world. All things are consumed by time.

    I asked her who the soliedar were.

    She would not answer, just as the wizard would never. I know they came before men, but little else. However, I do not believe time consumed them entirely. I shall ask that question of the shepherd, when I meet her again.

    Tomorrow, I will write of my death. My body is tired, but the hot air of Giordana still makes sleep difficult. Arranging my thoughts will occupy me and I will put them down in the morning.

 5.5 - Entry 6

    To be aware one is dreaming seems to be a sin. The body rejects it instinctively. The physical form lashes out and grabs hold of the mind, wresting it back from the existence of ideas. I do not envy the oracles and diviners who receive messages from those above, for it must be a frightening thing. One must grapple with their own memory of who they are in such a consuming manner that one can hardly think of anything else. It is little wonder that it is said a vision can change a man. That very reason is why some seek out miracle drugs to free the mind from the body, but I know there are more than gods in the world of ideas.

    Even the gods may not be a blessing to encounter.

    I was in a place after I died, though I cannot describe it. What I perceived was an impression of safety. The idea was familiar and it brought up forgotten memories, events that I could not have willingly recalled but shaped me nonetheless. I found myself standing with my bare feet upon hardened earth. I could feel a cookfire across my front, warming my cold flesh. How many times I had come in from the snow to my mother¡¯s cooking, I could not say but my body remembered well the act of sitting upon the little wooden ledge that surrounded the ashen pit. Wind howled off the arched wood about me, beating at the enclave of warmth.

    And she sat beside me.

    Now, I¡¯m no poet or romantic or anything like that. I looked straight at her, and I knew who she was though for the life of me I couldn¡¯t say how or why, and I asked, ¡°You¡¯re it?¡±

    She was just a woman. She was older, but in a way that only a rare specimen of the feminine form can achieve. There no sag to her body, no wrinkles, no stiffness, but her hair was grey and maybe it was her posture. I wonder if she¡¯d be complimented to be called what I think is old, when I know she¡¯s centuries older than anyone I¡¯ve ever met save for the wizard.

    She answered me. ¡°I¡¯m it, Leomund.¡±

    A dozen ideas and memories swirled in my head. I don¡¯t know why I was so distracted by the past when I should have been thinking about the moment, about the future. I guess that¡¯s what happens when you die. I told her, ¡°If your statues looked like half the woman you are, I don¡¯t think we¡¯d have any other religions.¡±

    She laughed with a smile that reminded me of my mother, and of many other mothers I¡¯d met in my time. ¡°If Luna heard you say that, she¡¯d rip your head off.¡±

    I snorted. ¡°And what would that do? I¡¯m already dead.¡±

    ¡°For now,¡± she said, and I took her to mean I¡¯d reincarnate. I think she knew what the wizard was up to. I think she knew she didn¡¯t have much time. ¡°Leomund, do you know how many men you¡¯ve killed?¡±

    With all the grace of a thug, I scratched my beard and pondered the flames as I searched my memories. I had a good number of years at war and many more hunting bounties, not to mention all the duels I fought as a youth. I had to add another nine as well. ¡°Just shy of a hundred, I think.¡±

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    ¡°Seven thousand, three hundred and ninety-two,¡± she said.

    I laughed at her. ¡°Seventy-three lifetimes wouldn¡¯t be enough for me to have done that.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s because you didn¡¯t kill them directly. That¡¯s why you don¡¯t know how many.¡±

    My humor was fading. Her words stank of the kind of cunning I didn¡¯t like, as though I sat across from a fox haggling over gold. ¡°A man can hardly be blamed for what other people do, if that¡¯s what you¡¯re getting at.¡±

    She held up a hand and shook her head. ¡°It¡¯s the demons that I mean. You extinguished three directly and half a dozen in conjunction with others. Those creatures are masses of the dead. They are the compressed souls of those they¡¯ve killed. Little wonder they are mad. Now, I ask you another question. How much magic can the wizard work with the mere life of a bird? And if he can extract that much power from a bird, what could he do with so many thousands upon thousands of human souls?¡±

    That wasn¡¯t the end of our conversation, but the words elude me now just as a dream escapes the waker. What I remember is feeling a warm knot in my chest as Vi got me back on my feet. True, I had been stabbed, but that was healed. My stigmata changed, but it wasn¡¯t like new ink had been stabbed into my flesh with needles.

    The Shepherd gave me something. Maybe something inside me, or maybe it was just a promise. I need to ask her what it was when I meet her again. I¡¯m sure that when the boy and I grieve my brother I will get my moment with her again. Maybe she told me it would work that way, or maybe I¡¯m a fool.

    After writing this, I went to speak with Rodrick. What a pair we were, me who had met the god of death and he who fought for a dead god. Perhaps I should have asked her if it was she who reaped the soul of the god of the sun. That¡¯s one theological point that I always wondered about.

    Getting answers out of he man was nearly impossible. Both he was fevered and also the only thing he cared about was why he had been spared. How could I answer him? It wasn¡¯t me that had spared his life. It had been the decision of the boy. As far as I can tell, even the wizard had no hand in it. From my years with that old hunter of demons, he would not have left such a naggling thread. He would have wrapped up the boy¡¯s heroism and moved on. Vi views it as an unexpected gift. She says there¡¯s no such thing as plans, only improvisations.

    She also could not give him his arm back, cut off as it was. Not that regeneration was beyond her powers, but she said it was the property of another. I thought she meant the boy, but she meant Helios. To make him whole would be to change him and she did not wish to inflict that on him and he made no such request.

    A quiet fellow. I find it hard to believe he would have chosen to kidnap a pregnant woman to achieve his aims. But, I do believe he would have done it on behalf of another. He has the determined set of a man who does what he is told to do. Rare where I come from, but I come from a comparatively desolate land. Just finding the next town over often means long treks through the wilderness. The central kingdoms are always knocking into one another for space. They have cut down nearly all their forests and carpeted the world with farms. They have made seas of grain for their merchants to sail across with canvas topped carts. In the central kingdoms they do not need trolls to stalk their nights, they make their own.

    Thus, they need a certain cut of knight to keep the peace, much different from the hunters that shaped me.

    Our travels head westward now, back toward Vassermark where I will reunite with the boy and we will drink the cemetery beer. I have but a few days and then I will meet the dead once more.

 5.5 - Entry 7

    I can scarcely imagine the life Rodrick has told me, so different is it from my own. But I can imagine how it gave him the faith he clung to. Now that faith has deserted him. His own angel abandoned him in a rage. Pretentious of truth were shattered. He is more broken than I.

    Writing that, I wonder if that is how I feel about myself. Where did the flaw come from? Was it with me from birth? Did that iron demon at the acropolis smite it into me? What fissure crumbled when my brother died so far from me?

    He followed in his father¡¯s footsteps, more than merely into the employ of the church. Born in the city between the twin lakes, he has few memories of that crowded city. What he left the city with were bonds of friendship, one of which I severed. He holds nothing against me for it.

    The church of the sun god is an empire unto itself, and an empire is more than the nobles with their titles. The priesthood are but a tiny fraction, like the mortar between stones in a great wall which has held back the worst ravages of war. While it could be said that the foundation was the people themselves, the stones were men like Rodrick¡¯s father, tacitos. Not solely working off the dispensation of tithes, they form a body of commerce covering every need the churches need. Farmers, candlestick makers, coopers, masons, and fighters. When their labor exceeds the needs of the church, they work for pay and thus live lives one step beneath the holy regalia and one step in freedom.

    Some thirty years ago, a terror had crept into the minds of the central kingdom and all stemming from the witch Amelia. She had been burned at the stake already, but the rumors refused to die out. A woman with the power to deceive, to pry into the minds of others and twist them around. Her official crimes included swindling, seduction and adultery, assault on the office of the inquisition, arson, and finally murder.

    Her list of rumored crimes grew with every tavern tale. There was hardly a merchant in the land who didn¡¯t claim to have been robbed by her, even in cities she never visited. To explain these lies, the Amelias of the world proliferated and the finger of accusation pointed everywhere.

    The church did what they could to quell the hysteria. The original witch¡¯s power was rare to the point of mythological. Even the wizard lamented that her body had been burned before he could record just how her stigmata had worked. This all I knew. To this day, priests give the odd lecture on how stigmata work with some crude rules of judgment derived from the better learning of the inquisition. Mere words were not enough, and instead they had to offer sanctuary to those who needed it.

    Naturally, not all sanctuary was given peacefully. There were those that felt the church was reneging on their responsibilities by sheltering witches and sought justice by their own hands. However, the church of the sun has never been a pacifist religion. Better to buy a sword than a cloak they say, and Rodrick thus learned the value of a sword in the night.

    I don¡¯t mean to say such events always ended in bloodshed, and even when it did that someone died. Often, the men of the church simply had to use their fists, as though putting down a tavern brawl. He did kill though, took his first life as a young man protecting a woman who didn¡¯t even have a stigmata. She had tattooed herself with an imitation that she had claimed would cause backlash to anyone using a power on her. It was nothing but a bluff and the funny thing was that if her pursuers had put it to the test, they would have known.

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    Some years later, he had a far more remarkable encounter with a woman who both did and did not have a stigmata. She could call upon a variety of magic seemingly at will, her mark shifting according to her needs unlike anything the gods had given before, which meant to some people that it had to be the work of devils. When word of this reached the ears of the angels, they didn¡¯t even wait for the girl to seek sanctuary. Paladins were sent to find her, which sparked even more rumors about her.

    Rodrick road through the night with his brothers in arms. She had already fled her hometown, her parent¡¯s house ransacked. A tip from the city guard of the neighboring village brought him to a inn too late. The proprietor had been thrown through the window and was delirious. Instead, Rodrick got his hands upon an opportunist who had lingered, thinking it was a good chance to steal the inn¡¯s wine. He beat the information out of the thief and soon was on the trail of the burgomeister and his pack of thugs, lanterns jangling from their horses in the night. He was bedecked in holy iconography like a hare¡¯s white fur in the snow. Parley turned to steel and the fool girl came running out of a watermill to beg that they stop. It fell upon deaf ears as it became apparent the burgomeister was under no illusion of her being a witch. She was simply valuable.

    Rodrick and Mihael, the man I traded my life with, didn¡¯t back down. The thugs had no idea that the paladin could split the battlefield with his stigmata. He had the power to demand a duel, forcing the broad melee into a series of single combats, while Mihael skirted the edge of the barrier, weaving from thug to thug in a dance of blood. Given enough time, they would have killed them all, but the power could not protect the girl.

    The burgomeister tried to grab her and flee, but Rodrick caught him with a duel and ran the man through. Putting his trust in his comrades, Rodrick threw the girl onto the man¡¯s horse and rode off with her.

    For the first time, as the sun was rising, he met the angel Aurum and delivered to him the girl that would come to be known as the living angel, Jean of Jeameaux.

    He didn¡¯t tell me much about her. He knew I would be writing this down. As payment for telling me all this, he made a rather simple request even as he knew that his tale had disappointed me. The man had never questioned the righteousness of his actions until the day he was told, by his own angel no less, to lead an insurrection against an ally. An entire lifetime of obedience prevented him from resisting. Now, Vi has made him an offer to become one of her wardens. I¡¯m not certain the terms they negotiated, but he agreed. A paladin he is no more.

    Perhaps he felt he was walking away from his faith, but he did suggest a question for me to ask the Shepherd. It means little to me, and yet it strikes my curiosity. There has been something left out of all the scriptures, but if anyone would know then it would be the Shepherd. Perhaps I will ask who killed the god of the sun.

    <hr>

    The following is the payment Rodrick requested, a simple message.

    Jean,

    I¡¯m sorry. You likely don¡¯t understand why I turned my blade against the man who saved you. It was not him that I fought. When you judge a man, you must look at what he says he wants, the results of the actions he takes, and if someone else has subverted those aims. It seems I¡¯ll not be able to protect you again. I¡¯m sorry.

 5.5 - Entry 8

    She has left me and stolen half of my journal. What should I have done? Grappled with her and torn the pages back before she could leave? Perhaps I should have tied her up and kept her with me, rather than watch her go into that dark world beyond ours. She took Rodrick with her and denied me. I would have been ten times the protection a left-armed swordsman could be, but she denied me.

    I sit now in Eastern Vassermark, waiting for the boy to arrive. I have a heavy purse of coin, a sword, and my memories. I could sit here and write down every embarrassing detail I know of her now. The things she likes, how to touch her, the kinds of events that make her stop wistfully. Many of these trivial things were in my writings and that was why she took them for herself.

    She didn¡¯t want me to share them with others. I suppose I won¡¯t. Not at this time, and not like this.

    Our parting isn¡¯t forever, but it may be for a long time. She made no promises of how long she would be gone because she did not know herself. She has the same wish as another angel I know, to confront her mother. This is something that she cannot do from within the world, no angel can.

    This has been a quiet truth for centuries. I know that she isn¡¯t the first to attempt the journey, for it must be done physically. The direct paths have all been lost, broken in ways I do not understand. However, none have ever returned. It is something even the wizard refuses to attempt. Had she asked me to join her, I would have. No matter what monsters or trials awaited, I would have faced them for her.

    But, she closed the gate behind her and told me to wait. I wonder if I will be an old man by the time she returns. Will I even be alive? I¡¯ve already died once and I doubt I will cheat it twice.

    It is a strange thing to think that she wouldn¡¯t care about my age. She is far older than I am, or ever will be, but she never treated me like a child. The wizard didn¡¯t treat me as one either, and it seems I won¡¯t be seeing him again for years either.

    The city I sit in now has a trio of names, one stamped across it on the map by the king, another older, and one older still. Those of old families who still remember their pride call it Forum, harkening back to the original school where the holy texts were broken apart and reconstructed, where written language itself was created and thought could begin. They are envious that despite birthing wisdom, according to them, they did not prosper the way the port cities did.

    The place reminds me of the acropolis in the north, but it is overrun by nobility rather than by trolls. They seem equally destructive. One throws about fire and stone, the other throws silver and gold. Bit by bit, the dignity of the locals is purchased and they kowtow to the whims of brats.

    The boy was nearly trapped here for a time, escaping to the Misty Isles because the Feugards thought it would be his undoing. Now, I think it is only a matter of time before our motley crew of allies must make a home of it. For now, it is a good place for me to wait. There are few men of the north, for we are treated with distrust. The university prepares the Vassish for war and much is remembered about the wars. I will be easy to find, and there will be no escaping the rumors of the boy¡¯s arrival.

    He comes now at the head of an army. The southern Vassish will pass through here on their way back to their homes and his tribe of wastelanders will go where he goes. Funding has already been arranged for them, done before the wizard vanished. They are to be split up across the central kingdoms like mercenaries, to hunt down highwaymen and bandits, the scavengers that come after war. The nobles think this will diminish the boy¡¯s power and make him less of a rising threat, but they think of the wastelanders like any other army. They think loyalty can only come from breeding, and they will not rally around him should he summon them.

    I was correct to wait here. The doctor and his beloved have already found me. They say the boy is but a few days before arrival. Aisha is safe.

    It¡¯s good to see them again. Strange too. I never realized Lynnfield was such a woman of trust. She knows so little of what she¡¯s involved in, and yet she doesn¡¯t pry. Samuel knows his role is transactional. The wizard gave him half a library of knowledge and charged him with expediting the boy¡¯s recovery as necessary. I¡¯ve never met a surgeon with more confidence who wasn¡¯t drunk. He¡¯s not callous either. No matter how many times he¡¯s had to rip into the boy¡¯s regenerating body, he doesn¡¯t bring that carelessness to the soldiers. Perhaps no one else in the world has been able to so dissect a living cadaver to learn how it works, and serving in the war has brought him a stream of dying men that he has fought to keep from the embrace of the goddess of death.

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    Perhaps he might have been able to save me properly, the human way, from my death. He says he has done it for others, and now he has no desire at all to drink of the cemetery beer with us. He and Nikolai had only a fleeting time together, I asked him more in jest than in seriousness, but I think I would have liked to see a doctor confront her.

    Soon the boy will be here.

    <hr>

    She did not come.

    Neither of us knew properly how to use the tincture, the draught of magic given to the boy by the demon of the sands. Lupa did her best to play the role of wise woman and shaman, for she knew the drink as something her god partook of. She herself had never drunk it. It was a thing to call up the dead, but her people were hardly more than machines. There had never been anything to call back from the dead.

    In our simple imitation, the two of us drank and we spoke. If the magic would not work, we would at least grieve in the way of my people. He needed a distraction from the war, from the hundreds of men he led to their deaths or those he ordered slain. There had only been so much he could do to limit the casualties.

    The war against Rodrick had not been such an easy thing to avoid. The man had called upon national pride, on the indignation of a conquered people against their tax-hungry suzerain. The two of them had stood at the helm of ships in a storm. Both had turned the ships as best they could, but the waves were beyond their control. For now, there will be peace, but different winds are blowing in and new storms will come.

    It¡¯s one thing for a man to throw himself to the sea and swim, but such a man can bring nothing with him. As a younger man, that is what I would have done, but now I know what it is to cling on to something precious. How does this young boy, one I practically raised, know this better than I do? If he lets go of the wheel, someone else will seize it and then what can he do against the storm but watch as everything is smashed asunder?

    Look at me, a man of the north, a land of ice and hills, speaking in allegories of the sea. My people would hardly recognize me. But I have perhaps changed a mere fraction compared to my brother.

    The drink did work. It did not bring the Shepherd to us, but it brought him. We drank, we spoke, we laughed and cried, and there were four of us together. We had been in the little basement of a brewery, ignorant of the stars above and indifferent to the people of the city. The whole world vanished as though darkness had devoured it and Nikolai was with us once more.

    The boy begged forgiveness and it was given. Nikolai did not blame him for the tides of war. The relief I saw on his face was sublime. It broke through stress like steel that had clutched his body and soon he was naught but the boy I had first met again. When a moment of peace came to him, strength left and Lupa took him in her arms as he slept.

    For a time, whether it was minutes or hours I do not know, I spoke with my brother. We relived our lives, our triumphs and our blunders and I could at last understand how he had been enraptured by that falsely labeled witch Rodrick had saved so many years ago.

    I could understand because Vi had done the same thing to me, and I too would have charged at a thousand enemies to protect her. Surely, to live together and grow as old as the jarls of the north and surrounded by generations of kin would have been better, but to have run away from such a fight would have been unthinkable.

    Not all can take the helm of a ship, but it is no bad thing to throw oneself at the rigging and to play one¡¯s part. A captain without a crew is no captain at all, just a wailing child as the world crashes down.

    I must live with faith, must act here and have faith that she will come back to me. There are many battles to be fought.

    I should end this journal here. Nothing more needs be put down about me, only a doubt. As sleep had begun to claim me and the world returned, the boy spoke. He still laid in the girl¡¯s embrace, but his eyes had opened with a deep clarity and he asked me if I remembered by Ezra had left. The wizard¡¯s earlier apprentice. The first one he had taken as a pupil and tutored in all the ways of the world. That girl who had hated to see him throw his life away to chase strength.

    The wizard had called her a failure, a waste of his time and efforts. A broken creation no better than a sculpture smashed upon the ground. Her loss had fazed him no more than Nikolai¡¯s death.

    I don¡¯t even know if she still lives. I had never thought to go look for her, not while the wizard had work for me to do. What a foul man I had been that she had been unable to look to me for help. I wish I could go back and change that, but no magic in all the world can fix the past. That was one thing the wizard was always clear about. What has been done has been done. There is only the future.

 Act 6 - The Warden Blades

    Foreword,

    The years following the death of King Arandall were among the darkest in all of Vassermark¡¯s history. A bloody strife between countrymen whose body count would later be surpassed but whose suffering would not. While it is a lament to be cut down by the blades of war, the years of 760 to 765 were filled with cycles of starvation, like a plague of locusts moving from one region to the next and it is a truly onerous burden for the strong to bear when they must watch the young and the old wither and die.

    Alas, even though these times left such a mark upon so many, this period of Lucius¡¯ life I must approach with a more traditional study. I attended none of these events and examined none of the bodies. Like any regular scholar I have testimonies, court records, newspapers and other such trivialities of the written word. I considered skipping over it entirely and continuing on with the Aillish war, but there were a number of problems created by such an omission.

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    Chiefly, it would have omitted the context to how Lucius was given command of the armies headed east to the lands of the fae and it would ring hollow to say that they marched to plow fertile fields if the reader is given no grounding in the hunger that Vassermark faced. As I intend for this text to persist in publication for the foreseeable future, I cannot take it for granted that even the reader¡¯s great grandparents will have lived through the famines.

    I would also be negligent in my historical duties if I skipped over the reign of Fredrich von Arandall the Bloody. Although the events herein occurred primarily in the city home to the Eastern Academy of Science, more commonly known as Forum, the king¡¯s policies did much to control Lucius¡¯ life at this time and to constrain him for the king¡¯s advantage.

    Lastly and most personally, I enjoy the events between him and the Warden Blades. A new father, the boy had never before had the blade of death kept so keenly to his throat for so long and it presages the Census Hunts of his grey years.

    For these reasons I will do my best to breathe life into the memory of the years Lucius was forced to attend the kingdom¡¯s academy while bearing the mantle of the king¡¯s own hunt dog.

 6-1 - The Prince

    Drizzling rain fell upon the city of Forum, beating upon heaps of snow and driving the people, foreign and local alike, within homes and steaming taverns. Every room in the city had been filled and people were piled atop one another in every stables. Soldiers camped outside the city, bitter beside meager fires. The groundwork had been laid for boarding houses and fresh dormitories, with new land trenched to extend the city wall, but those would not complete for many months more. Dozens of young nobles had been ordered to the city along with their retinues and hundreds of the merchant class had come chasing after their open purses.

    It couldn¡¯t be said that times were good for the people of Forum. Even as they scratched numbers off their boards and doubled their prices there was still a daily scramble to find even the most basic of necessities. Peddlers rushed to the city to bring carts of fuel, food, and fabric, falling over one another to thrust their goods before the governesses of the newly enrolled students. It was the producers of the city that most profited. The bakers and the brewers extorted the new arrivals for all they were worth, in turn handing over their profits to give thanks to the town guard whom lingered on their streets and in their establishments to shove off the two-legged vermin expecting to always have their way at the expense of the people who had built the city.

    Many a night, taverns would be brimming with such armed men, bristling against one another. Conflict was not limited to merely the new and the old, but also among the different fiefs of Vassermark and most dangerously between those in support of the new king and those who believed the time of nobility had come to an end.

    On this most auspicious night, blades trembled to be ripped from their sheathes. The mere presence of Lucius von Solhart was like a vortex, pulling in the ire of all but those who had marched at his behest. Men of Rackvidd had been sent to Forum to ensure the safety of Felicia vi Raymi, but all of them had served Lucius and it was their preferred brewery which nearly overflowed with blood.

    Sir Pierre Champerouge had an empty belly and blood brimming with beer as he loomed over a displaced porter from the capital. The shorter man was just as burly and just as hungry and no coaxing from his coworkers could convince him to make an exception for Lucius when he said all of the nobility were parasites unfit to carry the names of their forebearers. Three men would be dead in that bar before the night was over, none of which were Pierre and none died by Lucius¡¯ blade.

    Though he had been there at the start, he left with neither defending his honor nor calming the situation. He was just as drunk as the men he had fought with across the central kingdoms, letting each in turn pour him a drink and jest with the soon-to-be father. Many a tale had been told of wives and children and the younger soldiers spoke about lovers just as beautiful as Aisha but never more so. It was win one squire spoke admiringly of the new students of the academy that the hackles of the workers were raised.

    The catalyst of the night vanished almost without a trace. A handful eavesdropped the news that the time had come just before he went running out the back. It was when the porter called him a coward that the fists flew and the man who should have kept in check also left the bar. Sir Lyam of Jarnmark was the only member of the Warden Blades to accompany Lucius that night, out of deference to the importance of the night, but the Steel Blade lost sight of the boy not three blocks from the bar and could only follow his tracks back to Temple Cross East Manor. He found the gate flung open. Leomund had words for him when the knight tried to force himself into the building and no entry was permitted to him that night.

    Before Lyam could assert royal authority, the manor was filled with a cry and the Steel Blade relented. He abandoned his duty, expecting to be punished for it on the morrow. The door slammed behind him as he began forming a speech about how he couldn¡¯t be expected to fight Leomund Tolzi, the man who had subjugated an entire riot by himself.

    Such thoughts couldn¡¯t have been further from Lucius¡¯ mind that night as he found Aisha in their bed, exhausted. Cradled half in her arms and half in Lupa¡¯s, the two of them were working with Dr Samuel to clean off the newborn. Aisha laughed as he stood in the doorway. ¡°Hey Lu, meet Alexander,¡± she said, turning the babe¡¯s face to him.

    ¡°A son?¡± he asked, struck dumb by the ocean blue eyes taking him in. ¡°Is he¡­?¡±

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    ¡°Unmarked,¡± Sammy said, brushing clean the little tuft of blonde hair from the babe¡¯s head. ¡°I didn¡¯t find so much as a freckle on his body. He has no traces of a stigmata. There were no complications. Don¡¯t worry about the mess.¡±

    ¡°Good,¡± Lucius said as he strode over, eyes never straying from his son¡¯s until after he had the babe in his hands. When Alexander reached out and grabbed his father¡¯s wet tunic, Lucius sank into the bed beside Aisha and smiled. ¡°Good,¡± he said again.

    Lupa cocked her head. ¡°Why do you keep saying good? Wouldn¡¯t you want your son to be gifted?¡±

    ¡°Not at all,¡± he said as Aisha rested against him. ¡°He¡¯ll be free this way. How many people in this world have their lives warped by the arbitrary gift they¡¯re given? Men with no heart to fight are expected to if their stigmata is good at it. Craftsmen are shunned if their gift is wrong. You don¡¯t even want to know how many are killed if their gifts are dangerous. It¡¯s better this way. He won¡¯t be forced to do anything.¡±

    ¡°He¡¯s still your son, Lu,¡± Aisha said, letting the babe grab onto her finger.

    ¡°And I have a lot of work to do for him,¡± he said as Sammy peered out the window. Miss Lynnfield came trudging up the stairs with a fresh bucket of steaming water and congratulations were given as the cleaning began. Lupa vanished from the room as Lucius was ordered out of the bed and they did what they could to change the linens. She returned with bowls of soup and found him standing exactly where she had left him, still enraptured by the newborn.

    ¡°This is much better,¡± she said, handing the warm broth to Aisha, who drank it down like a sailor who had just made it to port. Life began returning to her as Lupa set the other bowls aside. ¡°In the desert, the father was rarely known, let alone present. This is how it should be.¡±

    ¡°It won¡¯t always happen,¡± Lucius said, returning to the bed, his smile growing forlorn. ¡°There will be times when I¡¯ll have to be away. The fact that I could be here was a blessing.¡±

    Lupa laughed. ¡°Already thinking about the next one?¡±

    Aisha snickered and waved the empty bowl at her. ¡°Honestly, we¡¯re all surprised you¡¯re still bleeding.¡±

    She snatched the bowl away, cheeks flushed. ¡°Shouldn¡¯t you be acting jealous or something?¡±

    ¡°What would I have to be jealous over? I¡¯m the first wife,¡± she said, snaking her hand into Lucius¡¯ embrace.

    ¡°Don¡¯t ever say that outside these walls,¡± he said, passing Alexander back to her.

    ¡°I know, I know, but I¡¯m in a mood to tease,¡± she said as her gaze fell upon the babe once more.

    Sammy stood from the wash basin and beckoned Sera over. ¡°I think I¡¯ll exchange duties now,¡± he said and moments later, Leomund was in the room.

    ¡°There¡¯s the little prince!¡± the northman said as soon as he saw Alexander. He kept a respectable distance until Aisha sat up and let him reach out to the newborn. Getting his finger squeezed made him fill the room with laughter and he soon began making declarations of a feast in the skaldish style. No one could imagine how he would get a pig given the circumstances in Forum, but nobody tried to dissuade him from the task.

    Soon enough, the new mother was on her feet. Cleaning the manor fell upon the lot of them because the boy¡¯s stipend barely kept their needs fulfilled let alone left budget for staff. It was an indignity Aria vocally despised but she knew as well as anyone else the other danger. Rumors swirled through the city that students of the academy were being targeted by their own staff. Every occurrence of food poisoning was a conspiracy and few dared walk the streets without armed accompaniment. Thus, she lived in the manor with them, but was the only one to not bother visiting the newborn. In time she would have to familiarize herself with the child because, officially, it was her bastard nephew, even if she knew she had no relation at all to Lucius.

    For that night, they had privacy in the manor and Aisha whispered to Lucius alone the boy¡¯s true name. She had learned a proper appreciation for a true name, even if her time studying in Tavina had not scratched past the warnings. There was nothing she could do with someone¡¯s true name, but she knew what theoretically could be done. To prevent a mere moniker from settling upon her son, she shared it with Lucius, adding a second name to the boy in the tradition of her people and named his second name after her father. Those syllables only once passed Lucius¡¯ lips, forming akin to a shield in the old manner of folk wisdom against curses and ill luck.

    It was hours later when Lucius laid awake in the bed, Aisha and their child asleep against him, that he brooded on the problems facing him. The new king had not truly pardoned him of his suspected role in the failed coup. Peace for him would only last so long as his strength was needed by the new king and his compliance was ensured by the blades pointed at Aisha and Alexander. Seven knights had been assigned to watch over him, with the knowledge that if Lucius could not be subdued, everything precious to him would be taken away.

 6-2 - The Failed Son

    Of all the denizens of Forum, it is conceivable that the professors of the academy were the most punished by the influx of new students. Many of them were royal engineers and had been happily employed creating new tools and devices at the king¡¯s behest, indulging an old man¡¯s fancies on what seemed to be a bottomless budget. The new king was merciless when he learned their contracts specified they would maintain the lectures for the academy without specifying the size of the academy.

    In the past, classes were little more than fabrications on paper to grab hold of students and bring them directly into workshops for additional labor, but the children of the nobility expected to be in classrooms, to have meaning and structure. More precisely, their parents expected such reports. The children had no better than average attentions, often finding the classes to be a mere formality while they conspired with one another and built their own networks for the future. The true men of learning could do little more than grit their teeth like sailors in a storm, praying it would be over soon.

    It didn¡¯t take long for them to learn that a few of their new pupils were not to be trifled with.

    One such man was Theo Montem, a knight at an age slightly above when it would have been expected he marry and yet with a status that explained the delay. Born to a family of professional soldiers, he had abstained from the company of women so long rumors of homosexuality had begun to circulate. The very day Fredrich von Arandall was crowned by the angel Acheliah, Theo was raised up from a mere retainer to the head of the newly formed Warden Knights. Among other duties, he was both Lucius¡¯ superior and his open-air jailor.

    To the frustration of the academy professors, he was also brilliant. Whenever called upon he had the answer in a flash, particularly when it came to the history of Vassermark. Low-born in comparison to his classmates, he knew more of heritage, honor, and symbology than the future rulers of the kingdom, much to their chagrin. Of course, such knowledge should have been expected of a man tasked with investigating and arresting any revolutionary sympathizers.

    He also sat next to Lucius whenever the opportunity arose, filling the back of classrooms with one-sided chatter as if the two were friends. ¡°I envy your brazenness, Solhart, to have a child with your mistress and act like nothing happened.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s not uncommon,¡± Lucius said, playing with the pages of his tome. He had it laid out before him to give the appearance of reading.

    ¡°It¡¯s rather uncommon to bring her in public. Particularly to a feast with the king!¡±

    ¡°She¡¯s something like a friend to the princess.¡±

    ¡°And beautiful too. Few men return from war with such a prize!¡±

    ¡°Few men return from war.¡±

    ¡°Now, now, a conqueror shouldn¡¯t be humble. Every man whose ever fought for you couldn¡¯t speak higher of you. Even the king acknowledges your skill. Should Skaldheim attack now, you would be called to the front.¡±

    ¡°They won¡¯t, though.¡±

    Theo leaned closer, a snake approaching a bird¡¯s nest. ¡°And what makes you say that?¡±

    The question was a threat. Not enough to convict Lucius by itself, but evidence to justify any narrative Theo or the king might wish to portray, and it was within earshot of half a dozen other students. The actual answer was thus the incorrect answer. It would be nearly treasonous to say that Skaldheim would see no point in declaring a war before it¡¯s enemy tore itself apart, so he answered, ¡°Just as Vassermark would not be able to march to war without Acheliah¡¯s blessing, the same can be said of Skaldheim. That is why she struck a deal with them. We¡¯ll have peace with them for a few more years.¡±

    ¡°Young Lord Solhart,¡± the professor called, a shaft of chalk crumbling within his grasp as he drew the entire room¡¯s attention to him. ¡°Perhaps you would like to inform the class a bit about Lady Acheliah¡¯s past. You were present at the feast where she utilized a most peculiar and famous spell. Considering your¡­ bardic company¡­ perhaps you know the name of the spell?¡±

    Lucius glanced over the board, finding it covered with dates and names he hadn¡¯t been paying attention to. Regardless, he answered, ¡°I don¡¯t believe she has a name for it, but others call it the rain of steel feathers.¡±

    The professor clasped his hands behind his back and began strolling toward him. ¡°Correct, but do you know why it earned that name? And I don¡¯t mean the simple similarity.¡±

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    Theo was still watching Lucius, as was the rest of the class. The moment the professor walked past her, Aria vi Solhart gave him a meaningful gaze as if to tell him it was something he should know. He answered, ¡°If you¡¯re asking how it first became famous, it¡¯s because she used it to quell the Naiad Cult Uprising in the two-hundreds after she developed it to quell the founding blood feud of the Feugards.¡±

    A chair toppled over as Jules II von Feugard rose at the front of the room, eldest son of the Feugard family. ¡°This is a place of learning, not of slander, Solhart.¡± Had he been the heir of the family, he would have been an embarrassment. As it was, everyone knew his sister kept him at arm¡¯s length, even for the short time he had been recalled from the Misty Isles so that a more suitable steward could prepare the plantations for planting. The boy was meant to be marriage material, but he had only learned a temper while away.

    ¡°It¡¯s been over five centuries. You¡¯re not even descended from one of the brothers, so what are you¨C¡±

    ¡°Repeating lies is an insult to my honor, Solhart!¡±

    It was Lucius¡¯ turn to rise and the professor found himself caught between two fuming nobleman. I believe he sincerely considered trampling over some of the other students to get away. ¡°Please inform me, since you must be an expert in this, it¡¯s your family after all, what did I say that was wrong?¡±

    Jules II jabbed a finger at him. ¡°You are repeating the known lies of a charlatan. Do you always get your history from foreigners? Isu came to our kingdom to grift.¡±

    Lucius couldn¡¯t help but smile, because he knew exactly what defense the Feugard boy was planning. ¡°Isu is the only firsthand account of the event unless you want to go ask Acheliah yourself. Or would you prefer the annals your family paid to have written some thirty years after the fact?¡±

    Jules II snorted. ¡°What an unscholarly attitude, as befitting a mere fighter. Professor, correct me if I¡¯m wrong, but is it not the job of the learned to take alleged primary sources and correct their lies? The truer texts are those produced with the benefit of hindsight. They remove such nonsense as claiming all were killed when it¡¯s obvious that if the writer had been there to see it they would have been killed as well! I would have you apologize, Solhart.¡±

    Lucius laughed in his face. ¡°Isu was a woman. That¡¯s not even her true name, just a moniker. And the meaning of that should be obvious to everyone here. How many of you were at the Bureaucrat''s Rebellion? You saw the spell she cast and yet I¡¯m the only one here who felt it. Anyone care to point out the obvious as to why that is?¡±

    Aria sighed, but it was her family¡¯s honor at stake, so she chimed in to say, ¡°Because you¡¯re a man, and the spell only targeted men.¡±

    Lucius rolled up one of his sleeves to show the lingering scars of stab wounds across his flesh as the Feugard boy stuttered for a response. ¡°Isu was in fact the only woman present. That was why the spell was made that way, so that there would be someone to warn others of such destructive idiocy. The fact that she re-used it during the Naiad Rebellion and again at the Bureaucrat''s Rebellion was simply convenience for her. It all comes from one angry brother unfit to rule.¡±

    Jules II struck Lucius in the chest with his glove.

    Theo was at his side in a flash. ¡°My lord, you need to pick that back up,¡± he said as Lucius could barely contain his laugh.

    ¡°You expect me to just stand here and listen to that?¡± the Feugard boy shouted, pushing past the professor who immediately retreated once more to the front of the room.

    ¡°Solhart serves at the behest of the king. If you wish to have a duel with him, throwing garments around is meaningless. You¡¯ll have to petition the king. If you write a letter now, perhaps it will be granted in a few weeks.¡±

    Jules¡¯s face flushed as he picked his glove back up and marched out of the room. The professor weakly cleared his throat and dismissed the class the moment the door was slammed shut.

    ¡°Perhaps that¡¯s enough for one day,¡± the scholar said, quickly closing his books as the other students rose. He was the next out the door while many of the youths lingered to watch Lucius.

    He stood tall, meeting one gaze after another with the knowledge there wasn¡¯t a single student in his class who had not lost a family member during the coup. There were at least a dozen he suspected had encouraged Jules to confront him, and a dozen others that wanted nothing more than to have Theo cut off his head. It was this animosity that made the professor nearly invisible and none would remark upon his absence even when it extended a full two days.

    ¡°Brother,¡± Aria said, gesturing with her head toward the door.

    Lucius noted which of the girls in the class scowled at the sound of Aria¡¯s voice but said nothing as he departed with her. Theo let him leave with only a comment that he was expected in the evening. The two siblings in name walked in silence, ascending to the second floor where the halls were unheated and the foot traffic absent. Then he asked, ¡°Should I have accepted the duel?¡±

    She turned on him, scowling. ¡°You shouldn¡¯t have provoked him in the first place!¡±

    ¡°Why? To give those people more time to find a thousand ways to insult you from behind smiles?¡±

    ¡°Have you been ignoring your mail?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s been rather busy for me. When people decide to pick a fight, I need to settle it quickly and move on.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m not worried about Jules!¡± she snapped. ¡°I know as well as you that you could kill that man, or any champion he names, in a duel. I¡¯m worried about what¡¯s going to happen when Mother gets here. Don¡¯t you realize she¡¯s on her way?¡±

 6-3 - Office Hours

    With Lady Solhart still riding north, delayed here and there by storms but doggedly endeavoring to see her grandchild, Lucius had no time to prepare for her arrival. The Warden Blades had been called to service by the Headmaster, not to merely patrol the city. That rather public duty was nothing more than cover to receive the trickle of information that Theo¡¯s network could extract from the whispers of the city. The headmaster demanded that if they were to be imposed upon his campus, then it would be their task to address the situation of his missing professor.

    To call him missing was nothing but subterfuge. They knew exactly where he was, for he had been found by his maid that morning, removed of his head. Given his proximity to so many valuable heirs of the kingdom, it was the Warden Blades that had jurisdiction to hunt down such threats to the nobility even though the victim himself was of common birth.

    ¡°A clean cut. Could you have done that?¡± the Blade of Night, Jon Brume asked. He was a slight man with little training in etiquette. His manners had been honed through a rough and violent life, including nearly five years in the prison island of Donjon. Theo had done everything possible to rehabilitate the man¡¯s appearance, but only an angel could have fixed the scars and nothing could have fixed his eyes.

    ¡°Obviously, I could have,¡± Lucius said, ignoring the body to join Theo at the desk.

    The knight laughed. ¡°Fearless, aren¡¯t you?¡±

    ¡°Your prodding is a waste of time,¡± Lucius said. ¡°It means you want to be able to justify yourself to the king after you kill me but both of you are smart enough to realize you can¡¯t pin this on me when the only evidence is that the killer is strong. It¡¯s not even a feat to cut the throat of an old man.¡±

    ¡°I couldn¡¯t have,¡± Brume said as he dug through the professor¡¯s pockets, but found nothing unusual.

    Lucius scoffed, but didn¡¯t call the man weak. The reason Brume couldn¡¯t have cut the man¡¯s head off was simply because the Blade of Night only knew how to fight with daggers. The man practiced dueling with sabers, but even the simplest of techniques were crude and wavering when he tried them.

    Theo said, ¡°After that stunt in class, I wouldn¡¯t be surprised if the Feugard boy had done this. He¡¯s quite childish. Do you think he has the cunning to do this, though?¡±

    Laid out across the dead professor¡¯s desk was a trio of books. The first was The Good Prince, an instructional text of some notoriety published some time in the mid 600s. Originally given directly to Feugard family, but later copied and republished with the more problematic chapters removed. Lucius had read the original text, pertaining to the uses of tyranny, but the abridged version was best known for espousing the utility of being seen to be religious and preferably by genuinely being faithful to the gods. While many men had written treatises on how a prince should conduct themselves, The Good Prince was the most famous and was unabashedly sycophantic to the nobility.

    The second book The Strategicon of The Dragon, a compendium of tactics and maxims written by the last emperor of Drachenreach. The man had been a genius, but had been forced to break relations with Aillesterra because of the rising theocratic faction. To fight a three-front war against the southerners, the central kingdoms, and raiders from Skaldheim, mercenary armies had been necessary and they were only as loyal as the pay was plentiful. Unfortunately for him, his most enduring legacy was nothing more than a standard element of noble libraries in Vassermark, all the way on the opposite side of the map.

    Finally, there was the historical edition of Sapphira¡¯s holy scriptures, that is an abridgement of the official text to only contain parts pertaining to the history of Vassermark. Still available to this day and little needs be said of it, beyond the impression the collection was intended to make.

    ¡°A loyal man,¡± Theo said.

    ¡°Perhaps. We don¡¯t know that he didn¡¯t buy these used. For that matter, we don¡¯t even know they¡¯re his. The books were placed atop the blood, so after he was killed,¡± Lucius said.

    ¡°There are gaps in the shelves,¡± Theo said, gesturing at the wall of books.

    Lucius opened each of the selected texts, merely flipping through to see if any parchment had been inserted, but he noted only a few corner folds to indicate chapters. He recognized most of the chapters immediately because they were the most useful for study in their respective fields. Snapping them shut once more, he picked up the books and carried them to the shelf. Aligning them to the gaps, two fit but nothing could be said of the third. Most of the shelf was barren, matching a stack of books by the man¡¯s nightstand. ¡°Brume, could you read me those titles?¡±

    The Blade of Night read through them, tossing one book after the next into the bed as he named a series of playwrights and poets, most of which were familiar to Lucius and some he couldn¡¯t recognize Theo did.

    ¡°Well read,¡± Lucius said, his gaze on a simple book squeezed between a pair of heavy codexes covering the exceedingly dry subject of mineralogical studies from across the kingdom. What captured his attention was the cheap nature of the text, not even with leather to wrap it shut, the publisher had bound the book in rough parchment unsuitable for anything other than starting fires, but it was a writer he was well familiar with.

    Jacque Mordare

    ¡°At least it¡¯s clear why the headmaster contacted me,¡± Theo said as he began walking around the room.

    Brume laughed. ¡°Gee, someone offed a royalist. Guess we should call the people protecting the royalists!¡±

    Lucius allowed himself a smirk as he joined Theo at the window. They were on a second story. The professor¡¯s pay either hadn¡¯t been much, or had been squandered on something other than a living space because the apartment sat atop a barber shop in a cramped road in the heart of the city. ¡°Do we know when the maid worked?¡±

    The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

    ¡°She found him when she came in for her morning duties, left the previous night after dining with him. About ten hours of cold night unaccounted for.¡±

    ¡°Simple man, no family?¡±

    Brume laughed. ¡°Men like you make it hard for simple men to get wives.¡±

    Lucius said, ¡°Keep your jealousy to yourself, Brume.¡±

    He laughed. ¡°Women aren¡¯t my type, Solhart. However, that¨C¡±

    ¡°Brume,¡± Theo cut in. ¡°If you touch that doctor, I¡¯ll personally cut your cock off and ship it to Donjon to be put back in your old cell.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯d have to take it off his corpse. Not me. I wouldn¡¯t be able to get there fast enough. Sera would kill him,¡± Lucius said as he walked to the other window in the apartment. Perhaps once, it had overlooked a proper alley, but now it was barely even exposed to the snow. Less than an arm¡¯s length away was the plastered wall of the neighboring building. The windows were misaligned, but close. ¡°They came in through here.¡±

    Theo said, ¡°Lucius, if you¡¯re going to say something about handprints in the snow, I¡¯ll have to teach you about the city¡¯s rats.¡±

    ¡°The only rats that can open windows are the kind I tend to crucify.¡±

    Brume walked over and joined him at the window. ¡°You¡¯d get along well in Donjon,¡± he said, breathing on the pane of glass and rubbing it off for a better view.

    Theo ignored them. ¡°In all likelihood, the killer was someone the professor knew and would invite inside without much fuss. There was no sign of forced entry and the killing blow, if we assume it was done by a trained fighter, would have been swift. We can¡¯t rule out the possibility a stigmata was involved to gain the man¡¯s confidence.¡±

    ¡°Sorry, boss,¡± Brume said before opening the window and leaning out. ¡°Killer came in through the window and didn¡¯t know what they were doing. Maybe a kid. There are gangs in the city that make kids do things like this to join. Whoever it was didn¡¯t clean up the mess they made,¡± he said, holding out a handful of paint chips taken from the opposite window sill.¡±

    Lucius strolled out of the room as Theo stared at the evidence. The man demanded, ¡°Where are you going?¡±

    ¡°Where do you think? Next door,¡± he said, and left. The next building over was derelict with signs of somebody abusing the furnishings. A number of chairs had been broken to splinters and used in the hearth and Lucius found the culprit dead in the study. Filthy rags were wrapped around the corpse, now frozen to the body with blood. He had been stabbed through the heart, his fall upsetting a small bookshelf empty of books. Lucius found charred leather in the hearth and shook his head.

    ¡°Must have been mad,¡± he said.

    ¡°Should have sold those books and bought better clothes,¡± Brume agreed. ¡°At least we don¡¯t have to smell the rot though.¡±

    ¡°Are we done here then? The killer came in through a house nobody watches, else the vagrant would have been arrested for trespassing. We¡¯re not going to learn anything unless someone brings in a diviner.¡±

    ¡°And report what?¡± Theo asked.

    ¡°Report to whoever owns the house that they have a mess to clean up. I¡¯m done wasting my time here. Have fun trying to dream up a thousand different blessings that might have helped somebody commit such a mundane murder. I have classes to attend,¡± Lucius said, leaving the residence. Brume was ordered to follow him and Lucius permitted that only so far as the doors of the academy. At the entry, he turned to face the other knight. ¡°Get lost.¡±

    Brume shrugged. ¡°I¡¯ve got orders.¡±

    ¡°And are you going to tell Theo you left me alone? Because, I¡¯m not. I thought I reminded you what I do to rats. I¡¯m headed to the library and if I catch you skulking about, they¡¯ll never find your corpse.¡±

    Brume grinned, but took a step back. ¡°I await the day I¡¯m told to kill you. I love seeing men confident in their blessings brought to their knees and made as weak as anyone else.¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t need my stigmata to fight you, and as soon as you¡¯re dead, it will be back,¡± Lucius said, and watched as the Blade of Night departed. Both knew who would win in an honest fight, but the Blade of Night was one of the few that could win in an ambush. His blessing was a curse. Dampening most other blessings and outright preventing many. A knife in the dark from him could be the end of Lucius, if the king so ordered. That was a roll of the dice not to be tested yet.

    To say that the observation of Lucius was not what the king had intended would have been an understatement. The knights had not been prepared for a son of a noble family to act like a bandit king. If he killed one of them, he would be put to death, and yet he kept them in check with the certain knowledge that the first to cross him would die. It wouldn¡¯t end with his death either, even if they could kill the undying.

    By all accounts however, the man had other things on his mind in those days. The man, who just a year prior had pickled himself in wine for lack of immediate duty in the Misty Isles, had his attention on his newborn. He expected to find the squealing babe disturbing the library, but Aisha¡¯s arms were empty save for a quill. Unlike nearly everyone else brought to the city by the surging nobility, Aisha had actually been employed by the academy nearly on the spot. The library was filled with donated texts, many of which were in the old Giordanan tongue which couldn¡¯t be read by any of the current scholars. She had the task both of copying the old text, as well as providing translation notes, and was paid well for it.

    ¡°What are you doing working?¡± he asked, leaning against her chair and scanning the documents.

    ¡°Earning favors,¡± she said, adjusting a magnification lens as she copied down another couplet from yellow parchment to white. The moment she dotted the punctuation, she turned to kiss him and asked, ¡°Why aren¡¯t you working?¡±

    ¡°There¡¯s a victim, but no killer to be killed, yet.¡±

    ¡°There¡¯s been a lot of victims. Leomund says there are more fights in the taverns. A grain merchant was trampled just yesterday.¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t want you going to the markets anymore. We¡¯ll figure something else out. Where¡¯s Alex, though?¡±

    ¡°He¡¯s safe,¡± she said with a sly smirk. ¡°Probably sleeping with Lupa right now, if Kajsa hasn¡¯t made herself at home.¡±

    ¡°So I have you to myself?¡±

    ¡°Mister Tullus has me first,¡± she said, wetting her quill again. ¡°If I get this finished for him by tomorrow night, he¡¯ll reserve a box for us at the theater whenever we wish. That should help solve at least one of your problems, won¡¯t it?¡±

    ¡°Ah,¡± he said, settling into a chair beside her. ¡°My dear¡­ sweet¡­ mother¡­ is about to arrive.¡±

    Aisha scowled. ¡°Aria says she¡¯s sweet, but if she treats me like a concubine¡­¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, I have a plan to distract her.¡±

    ¡°If she doesn¡¯t immediately do what Aria did.¡±

    ¡°Well, there¡¯s always plan B.¡±

 6-4 - The Blind Mother

    Lucius had prepared for hard negotiation, but no explanation was even needed when he invited Felicia vi Raymi to the manor. She was staying in a different neighborhood that had essentially been converted into a colony of Rackvidd. Every single room available for rent had been rented to soldiers that had fought for Lucius in the rebellion and they were in the process of convincing the rest to leave. The brewery Lucius had been in when Aisha went into labor was on the periphery of that enclave, making a clear line that sympathizers should not cross. There were, however, gaps in control, which meant Felicia expected to stay the night.

    The manor was soon to be packed, which was a delight to little Alexander. Felicia very nearly snubbed Lucius to get past him and see the baby.

    ¡°Wine?¡± Aria asked, pouring herself a glass as the two of them watched Aisha and Felicia.

    ¡°Only a bit. Will Mother be offended to learn I¡¯m doing the cooking?¡± he asked as he headed to the kitchen.

    ¡°That¡¯ll be the least of her concerns,¡± Aria said as she followed and gave him a drink. Prices were still extortionary, but Lucius had acquired an entire sheep. It was hardly larger than a lamb, but there would be many mouths to feed. Much of the meat had been relegated to a stew simmering away and he had packed what he could into the kitchen¡¯s hearth for roasting. ¡°How are you going to tell Felicia?¡±

    ¡°Tell me what?¡± Felicia asked, walking into the kitchen with Alexander in her arms.

    Lucius braced himself with the wine and turned from the food. ¡°Felicia¨C¡±

    ¡°Call me Liz. We don¡¯t want your mother thinking we¡¯re distant,¡± she said with a smile.

    Lucius was able to relax slightly. ¡°I¡¯ve been ignoring my mother¡¯s letters for over a year now. Aria kept her satisfied for a while, but now she¡¯s come to check on me directly.¡±

    ¡°Of course. You just became one of the most eligible men in the kingdom. Enough that nobody is even willing to gossip about your son. I swear, every girl at the academy is at least considering you, especially when you get compared to someone like Jules Feugard. They see a war hero, or perhaps a crazy man willing to get in a fight with an angel because you won¡¯t back down when protecting those important to you. It certainly helps you¡¯re a man who keeps his promises.¡±

    ¡°That helps both ways,¡± Lucius said. ¡°It means people know how dangerous it is to cross me.¡±

    ¡°You lose points for threatening the king, though.¡±

    Lucius scoffed. ¡°He shouldn¡¯t even be king. The crown should have gone to Kassie.¡±

    Aria poured herself more wine, her cheeks already flushed. ¡°That¡¯s more dangerous talk than sympathizing with the coup. I¡¯ve heard some people say you might try to marry her and take the crown.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯d have to fight Acheliah if I did that.¡±

    ¡°And you said you would,¡± Aria countered.

    ¡°Well, that¡¯s at least one problem I can put an end to,¡± Lucius said, setting his eyes on Felicia. Before more could be said, the front door was opened.

    Leomund¡¯s voice bellowed out, ¡°Announcing the arrival of Lady Solhart and company of five.¡±

    Lucius squeezed past Felicia. He called to Aisha to have her take the baby and had barely rolled down his sleeves when he stepped into the foyer and laid eyes upon the mother of the man whose identity he had stolen so long ago. Her cheeks were gaunt. Her slender frame was covered up by a voluminous fur cloak she needed assistance to get out of. Her hair was streaked with grey and tied back in a bun clad in a pearl net. Rouge lips wrinkled in a purse as she appraised Lucius. ¡°You¡¯ve grown up, son.¡±

    ¡°It has been a while since we¡¯ve seen each other,¡± Lucius said as he looked over the four men and one woman who had come in with her. The men were armed, three young and one old. He of course recognized none of them. ¡°Not to be impolite, but I would suggest a precaution first.¡±

    ¡°Quite a doorman you have,¡± Lady Solhart said, glancing at Leomund. A year prior, he would have scowled at her, but now the swordmaster remained stoic.

    ¡°The city is dangerous,¡± Lucius said. ¡°Leomund, could you show two of these fellows around back?¡±

    ¡°Certainly,¡± Leomund said, and when the old man gave the nod, he opened the door once more. ¡°Come on then, don¡¯t mind the cold. We¡¯ll get some mulled wine soon. It¡¯s good to have more eyes and ears,¡± Leomund said as he coaxed two of the guards back out of the manor and winked at Lucius.

    Turning away with a sigh, he called to Lupa for her to begin mulling some wine, then brought his attention once more to his mother. ¡°Food will be ready soon. The drawing room is this way.¡±

    ¡°Do you not have a bath prepared?¡± Lady Solhart asked.

    ¡°I drew water for it this morning, but it¡¯s quite cold at the moment.¡±

    ¡°Rose, it seems you¡¯ll have to help my son be a proper host,¡± Lady Solhart said, gesturing to the woman she had brought.

    The maid gave a quick bow. ¡°Your manor seems rather small. Is there a maid I should inquire with?¡±

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    ¡°We chose security over luxury. The bath is beyond the kitchen,¡± Lucius said, gesturing down the hall.

    His mother huffed. ¡°You¡¯ve been keeping your sister in such conditions?¡±

    Lucius patience began to fade as the maid left. ¡°As you may recall, mother, from Aria¡¯s letters? The last maid we had tried to kill me.¡±

    It was the old guard that responded. ¡°That won¡¯t happen again, Sir.¡±

    ¡°Good, because if there¡¯s someone in this house that I don¡¯t trust, they won¡¯t leave it alive.¡±

    The man smiled, but the words shocked Lady Solhart. ¡°Of course, Sir. You are the lord of this¡­ castle,¡± he said, giving the other guard a glance until he too bowed.

    ¡°Enough of this,¡± Lady Solhart said with a shake of her head. ¡°There¡¯s work to be done. Let me see the little one, and then let me see the hopeless one.¡± She strode past him and into the drawing room. She made no comment on the look Aisha gave Lucius, but set her eyes on Alexander. At once, her face softened and she bent forward. When the babe smiled back, she declared, ¡°Adorable. Befitting the family. Not officially of course. I¡¯m sure one of your subordinates will have a daughter appropriate eventually. Don¡¯t let him grow up spoiled. He¡¯ll have a lot of little sisters to take care of in time. And nieces and nephews if I have anything to say about it. Aria! Where are you, girl?¡±

    Aisha stood in shock. ¡°Nice to meet you too, Lady Solhart.¡±

    She dipped her head a fraction. ¡°My apologies, dear. I understand you¡¯ve befriended Kassie. My son could have done much worse with a mistress. Aria! Does your brother have you in the kitchen like a servant?¡±

    She emerged as Lucius slipped next to Aisha. She had a fresh wine bottle in her hand and a pair of glasses. ¡°That¡¯s where he keeps the drinks,¡± she said, her voice beginning to slur.

    ¡°Oh, wonderful,¡± Lady Solhart said, taking one of the glasses and a moment later both of them were seated with drinks. Her attention was wholly fixated on her daughter. ¡°What are you to do?¡±

    ¡°Exactly what I¡¯ve been doing. You know, the king¡¯s plan here isn¡¯t without¡­ usefulness. The professors here are much better than the tutors you¡¯ve cycled through.¡±

    ¡°As they should be! In group settings it¡¯s harder for them to dishonor themselves with the staff. But I¡¯m not worried about your education, dear. You can just hire somebody for the family finances. I¡¯m asking who you plan to marry. Who even is left? I can¡¯t make heads or tails of the rumors after so many were killed. Your brother here will surely make a fine alliance for the family but you need to snare somebody and not one of your letters has even implied you¡¯ve made such inroads. Who¡¯s this? A wetnurse?¡±

    Lupa flinched back from the kitchen doorway, but restrained herself from speaking her mind. ¡°Lupa,¡± she said.

    Lucius cleared his throat. ¡°She¡¯s been with me since my mission to the wastelands.¡±

    ¡°A savage? I thought her complexion was Skaldish,¡± Lady Solhart said, her tone continuing to be imperious. ¡°Son, don¡¯t tell me you¡¯re also sleeping with her. Trophies are only popular with men.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m not a trophy!¡± Lupa snapped.

    ¡°Mother,¡± Aria said before the women could respond. ¡°Lupa has kept me safe countless times. Her trustworthiness is beyond doubt. Or would you rather have Leomund accompanying me when I¡¯m with other ladies? Perhaps you¡¯d prefer I have a trollkin like the princess has?¡±

    Lady Solhart grimaced. ¡°That I can understand. However, she should be in a dress.¡±

    Lupa stayed only long enough to see Lucius¡¯ reaction. No words were needed to see he was thinking favorably of the proposition. When she retreated to the kitchen, the conversation resumed on Aria¡¯s prospects among her classmates. The mere mention of Jules Feugard caused the entire room to reject the idea, but it was clear that Lady Solhart was grasping for an option. ¡°What about those knights assigned by the king? It would be below our station, but such ties to the king have honor.¡±

    Finally it was time for Lucius to speak and he cleared his throat. ¡°The first point I¡¯ll make is that not all of the Warden Blades are men, and further I don¡¯t think she¡¯d be able to approach them. Need I remind you that they all believe I helped kill the former king? If ordered to, their job is to kill me and everyone associated with me.¡±

    Silence weighed on the room as Lady Solhart stared at Lucius. ¡°Son, you didn¡¯t conspire with insurrectionists, did you?¡±

    ¡°If I had, it would have worked.¡±

    She shrugged and finished her wine. ¡°Then, in time this issue will be resolved. If one of these knights is handsome and wise, I don¡¯t see why it should be ruled out. And for that matter, you¡¯re not exempt from this just because you¡¯re the talk of the kingdom. I understand you were invited to the Ashe family¡¯s table. Which of the daughters has her eyes on you?¡±

    ¡°Neither, the invite was to snub Gabriel for being a punk,¡± Lucius said.

    Lady Solhart shook her head. ¡°Nonsense. They could have picked plenty of people but they chose you for that. Which did you find prettier? Not to mention you saved them.¡±

    ¡°I saved more than them,¡± Lucius said as he rose. When he put his attention on the hall door, everyone else looked as well.

    Felicia vi Raymi lifted her skirt and bowed. ¡°A pleasure to see you again, Lady Solhart,¡± she said with a radiant smile. She would have captured a crowd at even the most elegant of balls, and it was clear she had been held up adjusting her makeup until just that moment.

    ¡°Oh, my poor dear,¡± Lady Solhart said, changing the mood in the room instantly. She rose, her face dark as she rushed over and threw her arms around Felicia. ¡°I¡¯m so sorry about your father.¡±

    Lucius¡¯ fist squeezed firm enough that the guards tensed as well. It was the shocked Felicia that stood within Lady Solhart¡¯s embrace and asked, ¡°Did something happen to my father?¡±

    ¡°Did the news not reach you?¡± Lady Solhart asked, holding the slim girl by the shoulders. ¡°The roads have been just dreadful. Those mountain men have turned to open banditry. I¡¯m not surprised the letters haven¡¯t made it.¡±

    ¡°What happened to my father?¡± Felicia demanded.

    ¡°He¡¯s sick, my dear. When I left, he wasn¡¯t able to leave his bed.¡±

    Felicia hung her head and pulled out of Lady Solhart¡¯s grasp. The rest of the woman¡¯s words were ignored. When Lucius approached, she shook her head. ¡°I have to go.¡±

    ¡°No, you don¡¯t,¡± Lucius said, reaching out to her.

    Just jumped away from him, then bolted from the room. She flung open the door and ran into the city as the sun set.

    ¡°Oh dear, I didn¡¯t think she¡¯d take it so poorly,¡± Lady Solhart said as she poured herself another glass of wine. ¡°You still haven¡¯t answered me about the Ashe girls.¡±

    ¡°Shut your mouth!¡± Lucius snapped. He called for Lupa as he ripped open the closet door and retrieved a dueling saber. It wasn¡¯t his preferred weapon, but it was the closest at hand. When she appeared from the kitchen, he tossed her a dagger. ¡°You¡¯re in charge until I¡¯m back,¡± he said, glaring at the room and letting the guards know perfectly well he had just allowed her to kill them all if she needed to.

    Alexander began to cry as his father ran into the night.

 6-5 - Faezels Man

    Even Felicia knew she had been stupid. Without even a coat to keep off the snow, the layers of her dress were quickly soaking through as she came to a stop on an unfamiliar street. Shadows of night obscured the town, shutters had been drawn down and she knew that she had missed her turn.

    Worse, she was alone. She never traveled through the city alone.

    Months of worry had broken free in her and made her stupid. Even before the Canta rebellion, her father had been worried about the state of the kingdom, but never confided much in her. Still, she had gotten a sense of his concern and that had come to life at the Bureaucrat''s Rebellion. Lucius had protected her there and she knew it was him leading the men from Rackvidd, but she had left him behind. She hadn¡¯t even asked for his help.

    Forum was supposed to have street lights, little braziers of flame to light every intersection, but the wind had gusted through and blown some out. Glumly, she recalled one of the lectures at the academy about combustion. It had been a discussion on the needs for smithing and the professor had talked about how difficult it could be to start a fire in winter, joking about how much trouble it was during war. All she could do was wrap her arms around herself as she stared at the cold coals within a dark brazier.

    The grey sky kept blowing in snow, muffling the noise of rowdy taverns and masking the approach of three men across the cobblestone. She saw them when she turned around to return to Lucius¡¯ manor. Tall and short, thick and scrawny, they wore only simple clothes and the scent of ale surrounded them. ¡°Well, that¡¯s unusual,¡± the man in the middle said, scratching the stubble on his chin.

    ¡°Bit late for an academy girl,¡± the largest man said, hands in his pockets as he looked her up and down, then put his attention on the shut doors around them.

    The shortest man grinned. ¡°Looks like she just came out of Jokers.¡±

    ¡°Excuse me,¡± Felicia said, head down as she grabbed the sides of her skirt, but her little knife had been in her other dress. There were no pockets in the dress she had put on for Lady Solhart. She turned and tried to head around them.

    ¡°Hold on,¡± the man in the middle said, smacking the short man on the shoulder and approaching Felicia, cutting off her path. ¡°She¡¯s too pretty to be from Jokers.What¡¯s your name, girl?¡±

    ¡°Why should I give you my name?¡± she asked, stepping back from him, but her back was to even more city she didn¡¯t recognize.

    He laughed. ¡°Where are my manners. The name is Louie. That hair of yours tells me you¡¯re from the south. One of those soldier¡¯s daughters, maybe?¡±

    ¡°I think you¡¯re right, Louie,¡± the large man said, squinting his eyes as he looked at Felicia. ¡°I think I recognize this girl.¡±

    Her heart raced as Louie shook his head, and the shorter man also moved to surround her. ¡°Paul, I swear, you and words are like the sea and the sky¡­ if they ever come together, no man has ever found it. Paul here does deliveries to the academy. He¡¯s seen just about everyone. Nothing untoward, you see?¡±

    The third man snorted. ¡°What¡¯s a girl like you doing out at this time of night? Get kicked out of your man¡¯s bed?¡±

    ¡°Manners!¡± Louie snapped. ¡°This is a lady in our company. You can¡¯t talk to her like I talk to your sister.¡±

    The man snarled. ¡°You talk to my sister like that and that¡¯ll be blood. You know that damn well, Louie.¡±

    ¡°Then why are you talking to her like that? However, again, may I have your name. My friend and I seem to recognize you and I think you¡¯re a long way from home.¡±

    Felicia raised up her head, letting the moonlight expose her features as she said, ¡°My name is Felicia vi Raymi.¡± All three of them rocked back on their heels, their eyes going wide. She spun on her heel and bolted into the night.

    Louie¡¯s voice exploded. ¡°Shit! Stop her, now! Lady, do not go that way!¡±

    When she glanced over her shoulder, all three men were sprinting after her. She was trying to run in heels with her petticoat bunched around her legs and it was obvious they¡¯d be on her in an instant. The first streetlight she passed she turned at and then she turned down the first alley she spotted. Plunging into the darkness and praying they¡¯d lose track of her she stumbled forward. She had to catch her breath, enough to scream. Sucking in the cold air burned her chest as she spun about to face the road.

    Her shoe twisted beneath her and sent her sprawling into the snow. There was nothing but a sack on the ground, but then it lurched up. A haggard white face appeared from within the ragged fabric. Irises like dark coins, like drops of blood on fresh snow. She screamed, but an ice cold hand clamped around her mouth, striking as fast as a snake. The man was atop her, his breath steaming as his other hand grabbed at her hips.

    ¡°Your money! You¡¯ve got money don¡¯t you? Where¡¯s your fucking money? I¡¯ll bash your fucking brains out!¡± the man hissed, his hand tearing her dress apart.

    She bit his hand, crunching the bones. He screamed in pain, doubling over before yanking away from her. She pushed, but his legs were still pinning her to the snow. The taste of warm iron soiled her mouth as she sucked in more air.

    Before she screamed, the light from the street was blocked out and calloused hands grabbed the man. He was lifted into the air and thrown to the ground as Felicia recognized the silhouette of Paul, the man who had been chasing her. The crazy man shouted, but the third pursuer, the short one, was on him with a knife. An instant later, his throat had been cut open. He choked as his blood melted the snow and steamed the air.

    ¡°Back off,¡± Paul growled, his gaze deeper into the alley.

    Felicia hardly dared turn around, but three more sets of eyes watched from the shadows, huddled together. They shrank at the man¡¯s command.

    Nothing had been said to her though. In fact, Paul stepped past her, making himself like a wall as the other pursuer wiped his knife clean, darting glances everywhere. It was Louie in the street who spoke while Felicia stood up. He had his hands up, facing the way they had come.

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    ¡°Now calm down, my lord. Everything is fine,¡± Louie said, backing away. He cleared his throat. ¡°Everything is fine now, isn¡¯t that right boys?¡±

    ¡°Yes, sir,¡± both men answered, causing Felicia to press her back to the wall opposite of them, her heart still racing.

    ¡°Dangerous times is all, my lord,¡± Louie said, his eyes still elsewhere. ¡°Very dangerous time for a lady to go running off on her own. We had to give chase is all. Had to make sure she was safe, you see? We¡¯re actually fans of you, my lord. Wouldn¡¯t want something happening to a friend of yours, my lord.¡±

    The second figure stepped into view and relief almost sent Felicia to her knees. Lucius, with a sword drawn, asked, ¡°Who are you?¡±

    ¡°A friend of a friend, I assure you. I am Faezel¡¯s man, and thus I am your man,¡± Louie said, and there was a glimmer of recognition in the boy¡¯s face.

    Lucius turned to the alley, his eyes taking in the scene before settling on Felicia. She ran to him and threw herself against him, clinging to his coat as one arm wrapped around her. He was taller than her, body unflinching against her wet body as she pressed tighter. Without a word, he turned and pulled her away. He put his chest between her and the alley.

    When he spoke, his words weren¡¯t for her. ¡°You¡¯re Faezel¡¯s man? Where do you frequent?¡±

    ¡°There¡¯s a cellar on Cooper Street. No sign, but it¡¯s a pub.¡±

    ¡°Clean this up well and I¡¯ll find you,¡± Lucius said and gently turned Felicia around. He faced her back toward his manor and began walking with her. When they rounded the corner, he stopped and sheathed his sword before putting his cloak around her. ¡°Did those three hurt you? Or just scare you?¡±

    She shook her head. ¡°They didn¡¯t touch me.¡±

    ¡°Then I don¡¯t have to go back there and kill them,¡± Lucius said. He was smirking as men began to shout in the alley. Their pleas didn¡¯t last long.

    She bit her lip and turned her gaze to the ground. When they walked, he kept his arm around her shoulders. ¡°You must be cold, running out here suddenly because of my stupidity.¡±

    ¡°I was boiling, actually. Holding my tongue all evening was worse than marching at the front of a vanguard. I would have come sooner, but I had words for that bitch that calls herself my mother.¡±

    Felicia found herself laughing and leaned against Lucius. ¡°Ever since you left that house, you¡¯re a different man, you know that? Even Aria said to not judge you by the brat you used to be. Father would have never trusted you just a few years ago, but you¡¯ve become quite the man.¡± His jaw tensed and he didn¡¯t look down at her. ¡°I¡¯m sorry.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m sorry there wasn¡¯t anything I could do for your father. I had to be at the capital and now I have to be here. If I breach contract, the king will arrest everyone associated with me, you included. He can¡¯t threaten me directly, so he threatens the people around me. It¡¯s infuriating.¡±

    ¡°So, I¡¯m close enough to you for that?¡± she asked. Thoughts about the new king were mere whispers in her mind as she held Lucius¡¯ cloak tighter.

    He laughed. ¡°I like brazen girls.¡±

    ¡°Brazen?¡±

    ¡°You outright asked why I wasn¡¯t courting you, and you sheltered Aisha when I asked you to. In fact, you should have been more brazen.¡±

    ¡°Oh really?¡±

    His voice softened. ¡°Your father was probably poisoned. You should have asked me to hunt down his killers.¡±

    The emotions inside her were an unfamiliar mess, but not quite enough to make her cry. ¡°What if I asked now?¡±

    ¡°One way to find out.¡±

    ¡°Why aren¡¯t you courting me, Lucius?¡±

    He stopped in the middle of the street, his arm slipping from her shoulder as he stared at her. ¡°Of all the times,¡± he said, laughter bubbling up from him. ¡°Thats what you ask of me? I swear, you could teach most tacticians a few tricks. Striking where the enemy least expects it! Felicia vi Raymi, don¡¯t you know I¡¯m a greedy man?¡±

    ¡°How could I not?¡± She was smiling again. ¡°The whole academy knows you live with two mistresses. Some say you¡¯re even sleeping with that alchemist girl. Of course I knew that before asking. I may not have a sister, but I¡¯m still Vassish. And you, Lucius, are a great man. You change history itself with a decision and a swing of your sword and unlike most of our peers, I¡¯m more impressed by the former than the latter.¡±

    Lucius put up his hands. ¡°You might be asking for more than you realize.¡±

    ¡°I know, but that¡¯s always the case. In fact, if it weren¡¯t, then that man would be a bore.¡±

    ¡°Felicia vi Raymi, would you join me for dinner tonight? I¡¯m afraid there will be a baby making more noise than would be desired, but if she wakes Alexander, then I¡¯ll just make her sleep with the horses tonight. And after, we¡¯ll have to make time for courtship.¡±

    Felicia burst out laughing. ¡°Of course, I humbly accept your offer,¡± she said, and the two of them returned to the manor.

    Leomund stood at the gate, quietly holding a mug of mulled wine. ¡°You¡¯ve a way with words, my boy.¡±

    ¡°I wouldn¡¯t say that was me. She outplayed me by far,¡± Lucius said, shutting and locking the gate behind them.

    ¡°I would never pass judgment on words of blossoming affection,¡± Leomund said as he gestured back to the house. ¡°You unleashed a monster in there.¡±

    Felicia arched an eyebrow, but Lucius flew into the house and found it nearly silent. A stilted conversation continued in the dining room and Felicia followed him in. ¡°He¡¯s back!¡± Lupa declared from the head of the table, grinning with a glass of wine. Aisha was nowhere to be seen, but Aria and Lady Solhart sat across from one another, the latter as stiff in her seat as a child learning etiquette.

    Lady Solhart twisted in her seat and said, ¡°Son, this woman¨C¡±

    ¡°Aria, do you think you could take Felicia upstairs and help her change her dress?¡± Lucius said, ignoring his mother. He stepped aside and when he put his hand on the back of Lupa¡¯s seat, she relinquished it to him, still holding the dagger he had given her.

    Aria jumped up. ¡°Did something happen?¡± she asked as Felicia opened the cloak and showed the torn strips of silk dangling from her sides. Without a word more, the two of them went upstairs, where Aria quietly pressed Felicia for details. It took a dozen assurances that she was fine as the evening dress was exchanged for something simpler that Aria had.

    ¡°He came for me in time,¡± Felicia said, looking herself over with a hand mirror.

    Her friend scrutinized her and said, ¡°What is that, three times now?¡±

    ¡°A reliable trend,¡± she said, trying to brush her hair back into proper form. Her makeup had survived the ordeal mostly intact.

    ¡°It¡¯s good you¡¯re back. I¡¯m afraid either he or Lupa would have killed my mother if something serious had happened to you because of her. That bitch came to pick a fight. It¡¯s unbelievable!¡±

    ¡°You do need to find a man though,¡± Felicia said.

    ¡°As if you know how to pick a man.¡±

    Felicia just laughed and returned to the dining room, where Lucius gestured for her to sit next to him at the table. A feast had been laid out, though the meat no longer steamed and the butter had begun to congeal once more. Everything had been left to wait because of her.

    Lupa sat at the foot of the table and said, ¡°Is it the custom here in Vassermark for the guest to do the serving? Or is that Giordana?¡±

    Lucius grinned. ¡°I think it¡¯s a good custom.¡±

    ¡°Agreed! Lady Solhart, you know how to serve, don¡¯t you?¡±

    The woman looked appalled but there wasn¡¯t one face of sympathy for her. Whatever thoughts were on her mind, she kept to herself as she got up and began roughly carving the meat and putting slices on everyone else¡¯s plates.

    Lucius poured Felicia a glass of wine as Lady Solhart seated herself again. He said, ¡°See? Living without servants isn¡¯t an issue, so long as everyone enjoys each others company.¡±

 6-6 - Blood At The Theater

    Courtship proved difficult for Lucius. The first day he arranged to meet with Felicia was a week after she got the news of her father, not for lack of interest but to give time for Lucius to arrange an investigative party to head south. Golden still shadowed the boy and had taken up residence in the local temple district. He made no claims to divinity, but his simple knowledge of scripture gave him a home both performing rights for the Shepherd as well as assisting during disputes of a more legalistic nature. His exchange in the desert had given him the tools he desired, but not the power to use them, and it would be much longer before he could break open the seal upon the world even for himself alone. In fact, when Leomund explained what Vi had done, he fell into a malaise and spent a week drinking until the nuns berated him enough. While he was the key figure that would head back to Rackvidd, Lucius arranged for a small cohort of soldiers to accompany him from among those with a desire to return to their families.

    And then he had to postpone his evening with Felicia, though he spent it at the theater regardless.

    He prowled the backrooms of the Quartz Bowl along with Theo and the Gorgon Blade, interrogating the actors and picking through their props, though there were few true suspects. The company had been performing a rendition of The Wayward Knight when the lead actress collapsed, during her famous plea to the angel Acheliah. Even though it had been merely an afternoon rendition, presaging the evening event, the gossip had already swept through the city with more than a few viewers shaken by the convulsing woman upon the stage as crew rushed to her side.

    She was not the one to die, however. It was the director of the play who was found dead mere moments later. Because The Wayward Knight was considered a cultural touchstone, the director was assumed to be a royalist, though the lead actor bluntly answered, ¡°Politics? The play¡¯s a love story with a good duel in the end. The people love it and he loved money. He¡¯d have put on an eastern style kabuki farce if he could have convinced the actors to crossdress for it.¡±

    Perched upon a vanity desk, the Gorgon Blade frowned. She was the youngest of the Warden Blades, barely an adult. Born out of wedlock to the Montisferro family, however, she had been given proper martial training and her blessing was of particular note to the king. She could blind her foes, which had limited application in war but was so potent in a duel that she had been banned from all martial tournaments before even being allowed to enter one. She asked, ¡°But you have women. Why would the men crossdress?¡±

    The actor winced and wrung his hands. ¡°It¡¯s a foreign style,¡± he said.

    Lucius said, ¡°The plays are typically about when somebody has done something stupid, so they have the idiot put on a dress and bad makeup, then all the other actors have to pretend it doesn¡¯t look ridiculous.¡±

    The Gorgon Blade clapped her hands together. ¡°I get it, so you put big burly men in ladies clothes. Lucius, they should do one of the siege of Rackvidd. You could even play the lead! It¡¯d be great to see you stabbing some oaf in a skirt.¡±

    ¡°Rey,¡± Theo said, his voice cold. ¡°I think the late director made the right decision by avoiding current events, don¡¯t you agree?¡±

    ¡°Yes, of course,¡± she answered immediately.

    ¡°We can speculate about motive, but method is more concrete,¡± Lucius said, gesturing to the glass jar that had been found in the director¡¯s office. It hadn¡¯t even been hidden. After a taste test by Lucius, who had no particular reason to fear poison and liked demonstrating that fact to the Warden Blades, he had identified it as a compound of opium.

    ¡°It¡¯s medicine,¡± the actor said, dabbing sweat away with his kerchief.

    ¡°Do you perform surgeries back here?¡± Lucius asked and the man shook his head.

    ¡°Josephine, she has attacks like what was seen on stage. Her body will shake like a spirit is possessing her. We¡¯ve taken her to priests but they say nothing is wrong with her. We know the drug is addictive, but that¡¯s why the director kept it, only ever giving her a taste to smooth things over. It tends to keep the attacks from happening, but she only takes some for the big shows, when there¡¯s lots of people.¡±

    Theo picked up the jar and turned it over in his hands as he spoke. ¡°So, you have this drug that you have very little reason to need. No normal person would be expected to have this, and it just so happens that it matches the way the director died. Lucius, you¡¯ve been in opium dens, haven¡¯t you? You take too much of this stuff and your heart stops, correct?¡±

    ¡°That is correct, but my experience is of a more surgical nature. I¡¯ve had limbs amputated more than a few times as you may recall,¡± he said, getting a queer look from the actor before recognition struck him.

    ¡°So,¡± the Gorgon Blade said, slumping against the wall. ¡°What are we wasting our time for? This is nothing more than accidental suicide.¡±

    Theo set the jar back down. ¡°Because this troupe was slated to perform for the king in a few week¡¯s time. And what show were you going to be putting on for him?¡±

    The actor said, ¡°The headliner show was to be The Wayward Knight, and we were awaiting requests from the king whether to additionally prepare The Witch Hunts, Journey Into The Mist, or another request at his pleasure.¡±

    Theo thanked the man and then took the director¡¯s wine goblet. He handed it to Lucius, ¡°Would you mind?¡±

    He took the goblet and peered at the port wine swirling in the bottom. ¡°You think he took it this way?¡±

    ¡°How else would he have?¡± Theo asked.

    Lucius didn¡¯t offer him the alternative, and neither did the actor. ¡°I could, Theo, but perhaps I should provide better evidence than merely stating the fact. If I were to drink this, you¡¯d have nothing but my word one way or the other. If I take this to an alchemist, anything dissolved into it could be removed.¡±

    Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

    Theo scoffed. ¡°And then what? They¡¯re word has more weight than yours?¡±

    ¡°Their word is the integrity of the academy, responsible for educating half the nobility in our kingdom,¡± Lucius said.

    Theo held his gaze and said, ¡°Fine then. Rey, accompany Lucius on his way to the alchemists. I¡¯ll continue the investigation here. I¡¯m curious if there¡¯s overlap between this and our recent professor.¡±

    ¡°Searching for a mythical stigmata?¡± Lucius asked, although he agreed with Theo that it wasn¡¯t a suicide.

    ¡°A theater likely isn¡¯t the most secure of buildings, but there is a different kind of security in people. If somebody came back here to poison the man, somebody would have seen them, and if not then a stigmata must have been at play. I suspect we have a face changer of sorts.¡±

    Lucius nodded as he listened. Rey, the Gorgon Blade, slid off the desk to leave, but he stopped at the door. ¡°Theo, remind me what your stigmata is?¡± he asked.

    The head of the Warden Blades had moved to the director¡¯s book collection and begun inspecting it. ¡°Eiditic Memory. Why do you ask?¡±

    ¡°Common men typically need to write down details if they wish to remember them. I think I¡¯ll be putting in a few requisitions. And perhaps you should remember that regular people don¡¯t typically recall things they found unimportant,¡± he said, and left the director¡¯s room. He didn¡¯t leave the theater immediately, but headed to the staging room. When Rey asked why, he sent her into the lady¡¯s rooms to fetch Josephine.

    The actress was beautiful, but stricken and much of her makeup had been ruined by tears. She composed herself with the skill due to her profession and asked, ¡°What is it, sir?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m not here to accuse you of anything. Just to give you a recommendation for your condition. There¡¯s a doctor that works in the Hospital of The Ascended Saint, his name is Samuel. If you describe your condition to him, I believe he can prescribe better medicine for you.¡±

    She crossed her arms over herself and checked how close any of the other actors were. ¡°Non-problematic?¡± she asked in a quiet voice.

    ¡°Yes, unless you prefer it that way.¡±

    ¡°What¡¯s your name?¡±

    ¡°Lucius.¡±

    ¡°I may have to thank you, Sir Lucius. Is that all you came for though?¡±

    He swirled the goblet. ¡°Just on my way out actually. I was supposed to see your performance tonight, hopefully things will be running again soon,¡± he said and left.

    Rey shadowed him and when they emerged into the snowy streets, she asked, ¡°What was that? Buying favors?¡±

    ¡°Of course. The best seats in the house are kept in reserve. They don¡¯t want to have to kick somebody out to seat the duke or something. But, if the play comes and the seat is open, then it goes to a friend and I quite like the idea of being that friend.¡±

    ¡°When the king said you were a conniving bastard, I never imagined he meant it this way.¡±

    Lucius laughed. ¡°The king only knows me by report, like the ones you send about me.¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t send reports about you,¡± she said, almost making him stumble off the sidewalk as he turned. ¡°Only Theo does.¡±

    ¡°Good to know. I must say, most of you don¡¯t strike me as the kind of killers you¡¯d think the king would use to keep me in check.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯d just kill those kinds of people. And don¡¯t think I won¡¯t do it if I have to. Whoever kills you will be made the lord of the Solhart territory.¡±

    ¡°Want to try your luck?¡± he asked, turning to glance back at her. The last thing he saw was her smirk before he was blinded. An instant later, there was steel to his throat and his hand was around her wrist. She wasn¡¯t pressing it into his skin and he didn¡¯t crush her arm.

    ¡°Just checking,¡± she said, releasing the magic from his gaze and pulling back. ¡°Also, without justification, we all think the king would renege on the deal. Might even lock us up for murder.¡±

    Lucius let go of her and continued on to the academy. ¡°So you¡¯re in it for the money and status. That¡¯s good to know.¡±

    The girl laughed. ¡°Think you can outbid the king?¡±

    ¡°Only if he were to do something extremely stupid with the royal treasury. Have you ever been to the alchemical labs?¡± he asked as he headed into one of the industrial districts of Forum.

    Rey shrugged. ¡°I don¡¯t even really know what alchemy is. Dad always called it nonsense witchcraft for people who wished they were gods.¡±

    He laughed at her answer and guided her in among rows of stone longhouses like giant bricks laid beneath the sun. Chimney pillars belched smoke into the sky as fuel was continually shuttled in for everything from cook fires to smelting furnaces. The district had become a refuge for the original students of the academy, where no nobility would soil their feet save for one. He knew the building he sought, a fresh-built expansion turning four old structures into one fortification with a new blast furnace at the heart. The doors had been flung open and heat billowed into the street. The slate roof hid careful arches of stone built to an exact geometry that would make a castle crafter envious, now stained black.

    A cry went up from voice to voice as Lucius stepped into the workplace and many greasy workers swung their arms through the air in greeting. Ultimately, one of their member came rushing over, peeling out of layers of leather coats and gloves until the petite form of Kajsa was revealed from the smithy cocoon. ¡°Lu! How¡¯s the baby?¡±

    ¡°Being a menace in the library, or so I¡¯m told. You¡¯re welcome to stop over any time, you know.¡±

    ¡°I was there just the other day you know.¡±

    ¡°That was two weeks ago,¡± he said, much to her shock. ¡°Don¡¯t worry about it, you¡¯ve avoided my mother so far. We¡¯ve just about entirely vacated the manor until she leaves. Came to ask for a favor though.¡±

    ¡°What kind of favor? We¡¯re in the middle of melting a new batch of ore and trying a new way of separating the impurities. The liquid metal is too hot for me to touch, of course, but we¡¯re hoping this time if we pour it into a salt bath that I¡¯m already applying my stigmata to, the metal will be separated from the contaminants.¡±

    ¡°Won¡¯t take but a moment. Could you separate this?¡± he asked, handing her the goblet.

    ¡°Wine?¡±

    ¡°Laudanum.¡±

    Her brow furrowed. ¡°Where did you get this from?¡±

    ¡°A crime scene, would you mind?¡± he asked, nodding his head back toward his shadow.

    She sighed and assented, quickly pouring off pure water from the goblet into a glass. A moment later, she returned the goblet containing only opium and the residue of fermented grapes.

    Lucius handed both to Rey. ¡°Why don¡¯t you return this to Theo? You can taste the water for yourself. It¡¯s pure as springwater.¡±

    ¡°Purer,¡± Kajsa corrected. ¡°Springwater actually has some bits of earth in it.¡±

    Rey took both with a frown. ¡°Why do I have to?¡±

    ¡°Because I¡¯m done. I¡¯m calling it a night. This was supposed to be a personal day for me, but here I am running errands for a man not half as smart as he thinks he is and a quarter as smart as he¡¯s conned people into thinking he is just because he can recite facts,¡± Lucius said as he departed from the workshop. When she followed him back out, he added, ¡°And I won¡¯t forget the price of your loyalty is one small territory.¡±

    Rey asked, ¡°Is that supposed to be a threat or an offer?¡±

    ¡°Both.¡±

 6-7 - The Kings Order

    The king¡¯s first direct command to Lucius came as a soft-spoken letter. The response it garnered was not. Holding their child like a totem of power, Aisha demanded, ¡°And what are we supposed to do? Go with you?¡±

    Lucius had been caught on his way to the academy and abruptly turned around by the parchment. He had no distress about missing lectures from the professors, but the king¡¯s command was exactly the kind of punishment he had been suspecting. The only reason it hadn¡¯t come sooner was because there hadn¡¯t been opportunity. The difficulty it posed occupied his mind and Aisha¡¯s frustration did little to rouse him from his writing desk. His first reaction was that he needed to send messages, but when he had ink and quill at hand, he fell short of friends to contact.

    ¡°You won¡¯t leave Forum,¡± he said. ¡°You¡¯ll be safer here, with Leomund. I¡¯ll ride by myself, won¡¯t even bring a retinue. No, I¡¯ll have to bring one of the other knights with me. In a moment I¡¯ll have to find Theo and get a line of credit. May as well spend his money. It¡¯s the king¡¯s command afterall, no time to lose.¡±

    She sighed. ¡°He¡¯s trying to use you like a butcher.¡±

    ¡°Trying to,¡± Lucius agreed. ¡°Where¡¯s Lupa?¡±

    ¡°Shopping with Aria and Felicia,¡± she said as she took a seat across the room from him.

    ¡°The three of them?¡±

    Aisha rolled her eyes. ¡°For clothes. Aria is showing her gratitude.¡± That it was for Lupa¡¯s treatment of Lady Solhart didn¡¯t need to be stated, not when the woman was still in the manor and conspiring to arrange a marriage for Aria.

    Lucius settled on what to write, dashing down commands in his understanding of the ancient tongue. The language was better than any cipher at concealing his intent. While there were a handful of people throughout the kingdom that could read it, he had only modest concern. At the head of the letter, he began with, ¡°If this message is not for you, read at the peril of your life.¡± The body of the text was instructions on how Lupa could contact Faezel¡¯s men within the city and what coordination would be needed.

    The king had commanded him back because of unrest at the ports. At the time of the summons, there had been petitions, attempted legal action, and the threat of escalation to a general work strike among the shoremen. Food prices had been rising, pressuring the lowest classes, and several fishing companies had come together to demand the abolishment of the prohibition on whaling, citing that the current monopoly on the harvest was held by the temples and they were negligent to the needs of the people. They only sanctioned enough whaling to procure the oils they needed for their alchemical purposes. The meat was growing more precious by the day and they didn¡¯t even sell the meat. Every pound of it was kept for themselves.

    Given the time constraints, he had no choice but to entrust the letter to Aisha and leave for the headquarters of the Warden Blades. Theo was not available, but there was a scribe who both sent a runner to fetch the commander as well as gave Lucius a provisional line of credit for the day. If Theo didn¡¯t affirm the credit, it would be treated as a loan and taken out of his wages, but it gave him enough money to procure supplies and have them sent to his manor. When he returned to the headquarters, Theo had returned and read the letter.

    ¡°The king¡¯s will be done,¡± he said, not interrupting his meal. The food almost resembled soldier¡¯s fare, grilled meat and tubers, but was accompanied by a selection of chocolates from different importers in the city. ¡°I¡¯ll send Valerie with you.¡±

    ¡°Will she slow me down?¡±

    ¡°A former smuggler? Hardly,¡± Theo said and sent him on his way with a letter of credit in that only Valerie could sign for.Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

    Lucius had no choice but to find her himself and inform her that her days off had been rescinded. It had been the Blade of Steel¡¯s duty to oversee Lucius¡¯ patrol through the city that day and Valerie had already begun drinking in a gambling den. Like Jon Brume, if she was dismissed from the Warden Blades, she would be sent to Donjon, so she had little choice but to take her losses and leave to procure horses for the ride.

    The sun had set when Lucius returned to his home. Only cold food remained to fill his stomach and there was no sign of Lupa. Lady Solhart demanded that he bring back a schedule of ships leaving for Rackvidd so that she could plan her return that spring, which he agreed to. He had been planning to get that information regardless because those ships would likely continue on to the Misty Isles to expand the plantations. Furthermore, the captains would be able to inform him of pirate activity. If his mother wanted to risk becoming a foreign slave, it was of no concern to him.

    The Aillesterrans would practically be doing him a favor.

    Despite being travel companions on a quick ride for two days, Lucius learned little of Valerie. They rode fast, swapping horses like postal couriers. Time resting the horses was spent filling their stomachs. The one night spent on the road was not camped outdoors but in the hospitality of a temple. Lucius was recognized by a pair of retired soldiers, not from firsthand acquaintance but through reputation. He spent the night retelling how he had traversed the Giordanan desert and Valerie only made a handful of comments pertaining to the ragtag fleet that Medorosa Canta had assembled.

    They rode hard again the next day, reaching the gates of the capital while the sun was still up. Navigating the city took until sunset, with people thronging the streets and milling about only to avoid the ire of the guards. They were like shambling ghouls, moving to keep themselves warm and afraid to be beaten if they dared to sit down and loiter. Pickpockets were rampant, more interested in food than coin, but none could reach into their saddlebags.

    Lucius needed no introductions at the palace, but he had to vouch for Valerie despite her crest of the Warden Blades. The institution was so new and specific, that the castle guards didn¡¯t know that so many knights had been assigned to keep Lucius in check. Their arrival was announced to the king while they were stabling their horses but they were made to wait for an audience, eating in the barracks mess hall like any other soldier of the realm.

    When they were finally let into the minor audience chamber, King Arandall sat upon his throne. Their footsteps echoed against the stone and a dozen guards watched the pass in silence. Despite the winter chill, the king wore only dueling leathers embroidered with the royal heraldry as well as the golden crown of the kingdom. The rumor was that he had not smiled since the day his father died and in front of Lucius, he did not falsify that rumor.

    ¡°I received your summons,¡± Lucius said, for lack of an introduction from an attendant.

    The king said, ¡°Do you know why I summoned you?¡±

    ¡°To bring throughput to the port once more.¡±

    ¡°Yes, but why you specifically?¡±

    Lucius frowned. ¡°I can think of several reasons you might have chosen me, but they would be mere speculation. I¡¯m not privy to all the needs of the kingdom. To guess who else could have been called on for this would be a slight upon them.¡±

    ¡°Because whether I like it or not, your actions during the Jemeaux Rebellion showed you are not negligent to the needs of the kingdom. Those aren¡¯t my words, they¡¯re the opinion of the main instigator of this incivility. When they submitted their demands, they named you specifically to be the negotiator.¡±

    ¡°If they think I will favor them, they are mistaken,¡± Lucius said.

    ¡°Then end this matter.¡±

    ¡°Do I have your authority to command the guard?¡±

    ¡°Do you need it?¡±

    ¡°My lord, I am a soldier. A soldier without force is one in name only.¡±

    At last the king smirked. ¡°Are you saying you couldn¡¯t kill them all yourself? What was that command you had in the rebellion? Fabia was it?¡±

    Lucius matched his smirk. ¡°Not at all, but that would be my only recourse. A port without workmen is hardly a port. To subdue takes many hands.¡±

    ¡°You may speak with the Watch Captain. If he has men to spare, it is his choice. You have three days, Solhart. Resolve this issue before my fiancee is left sitting at anchor on the waves.¡±

    Lucius had been expecting a deadline, but lost his tempo nonetheless. ¡°I wasn¡¯t aware such an arrangement had been announced. I congratulate you.¡±

    ¡°A sweet congratulation to hear from your mouth, Solhart. I thought you might be upset to learn that Frederika Ashe was to be my queen.¡±

 6-8 - Revolt At The Port

    The port was not entirely shut down. Men sat upon every pier, their rears weighing down crates and barrels as they watched but a small subset of sailors ready their ships and depart. No mercantile vessels were changing sails, only fishermen. Many had already returned with holds full of herring and cod collecting ice as they were ported to the awaiting markets. Surrounding the port  was half as many men clad in steel, armed with the vague order to prevent violence when their only tools at hand were weapons.

    Lucius did not go to the protestors first. He queried a guard who summoned his superior, who in turn summoned his superior and so on until at last Watch Captain Hartley greeted him. The man¡¯s hair was half grey and half snow, his station marked by silk plumage across his sleeves and trousers that ballooned from the edges of his hauberk. ¡°So, the friend of the merchants has arrived,¡± the Watch Captain said, neither offering his hand nor saluting.

    ¡°By the king¡¯s order,¡± Lucius said. ¡°What can you tell me about this?¡±

    ¡°And could we speak inside?¡± Valerie asked.

    Hartley grunted. ¡°We won¡¯t be able to hear each other anywhere that¡¯s warm. Our headquarters for the district is under siege by bards with drums and horns. We¡¯ve tried arresting them, but as soon as they¡¯re given to the judge, they¡¯re let back out. The man organizing this mess is Suther. He¡¯s something like a guild master for the warehouses. Bulk negotiations for labor with the merchants but got a bit too much bulk at his beck and call if you ask me. He expects the king to bend over for him by the sound of it. Tell me, what hope do you have of resolving this?¡±

    ¡°One way or another, it must be resolved in three days'' time, and the king has given me no authority to concede anything.¡±

    Hartley laughed. ¡°Then it is impossible.¡±

    Lucius did not laugh. ¡°Watch Captain, I advise that you meet with your requisitions officer at the castle.¡±

    ¡°What? You expect me to bring in more men? That¡¯s impossible too. Even if we had more funding, the men get most of their pay in food and ale and it¡¯s nearly impossible for us to get any more of that.¡±

    ¡°Cannons. At least two functioning. Also ask for every broken cannon, every prototype. They don¡¯t need to work, but they need to look like they can work. Don¡¯t load them with slugs like you¡¯re trying to sink a ship, but with bags of gravel. Pack the ends with cloth to keep the ammunition tight against the hammer. They¡¯ll be your only hope of not being torn limb from limb if this becomes a riot. You¡¯re already outnumbered two to one, and that¡¯s just the men you can see. I¡¯d wager twice as many are willing to come in from behind you once killing starts. If they think it¡¯s a matter of strength, they¡¯ll overwhelm you. I¡¯m the only man alive that can face a cannon and live.¡±

    Hartley¡¯s dry mirth faded as Lucius spoke. ¡°I¡¯ll see what I can do. I don¡¯t like the idea of using such things against citizens though. They¡¯re weapons of war.¡±

    ¡°They¡¯re weapons of force. I suggest you pray that my negotiations succeed, or the king will tell you to clear this port, riot or not. Three days, captain,¡± Lucius said and headed into the port as soon as the man nodded.

    Lucius didn¡¯t make it far into the port before a pair of trollkin blocked his path. The larger of the two, with long hair braided down to his chest, stated, ¡°No business in the port today, sir knight.¡±

    Lucius had to crane his neck to stare back at the man¡¯s sunken eyes. ¡°I have business with you lot.¡±

    ¡°Is that so, sir knight? Because I don¡¯t know you and I don¡¯t do business with people I don¡¯t know.¡±

    ¡°I have no interest in doing business with the doorman. It¡¯s your guild leader or chief negotiator or whatever title he wears that I want. I¡¯m here on behalf of the king, at the request of you people. I am Lucius von Solhart and I¡¯m here to bring this standstill to an end.¡±

    The other trollkin nudged his comrade. ¡°He¡¯s the one,¡± he said. ¡°I¡¯ll go get Kerouac.¡±

    ¡°Hold up,¡± the larger trollkin said, but his comrade had already left. ¡°Who¡¯s she?¡±

    Lucius looked to Valerie, but she didn¡¯t introduce herself. ¡°The accountant,¡± he said, getting an unmasked look of puzzlement from her, but the nuance was lost on the workman.

    The trollkin crossed his arms and leaned back. ¡°The leader will be the judge of whether you have business here.¡±

    Lucius clasped his hands behind his back and waited, not flinching even when several groups of other portmen wandered over to see what the issue was. At first they asked what was the matter in feigned threat, but confusion soon became genuine. Then the guildmaster of the portmen came striding through the port in robes fit for a scholar. He kept his grey beard trimmed and oiled, with an energy in his step befitting a youth.Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

    ¡°The Gambling Lion! I¡¯m delighted to have you here. In truth, I didn¡¯t think the king would assent to that humble request. You know, I thought there was a chance. This sort of business is typically handled by the Montisferros but they¡¯ve been in a terrible way since the incident. Your reputation precedes you, m¡¯lord. Shall I guide you to the office?¡±

    ¡°If it¡¯s warm and quiet, otherwise we can discuss the matters here,¡± Lucius said.

    ¡°Nonsense! The middle of the street is no dignified place for business. We¡¯re not hawking apples to orphans. Come, come, my wife is in the process this very moment of preparing food. You haven¡¯t eaten, have you?¡±

    ¡°Enough fit for a soldier.¡±

    ¡°I won¡¯t have it. Come, let us be civilized. Your comrade is welcome to join the meal of course,¡± Kerouac said, beckoning for them to follow. Half a step ahead of them, he took them to an old house squeezed at the corner of the port, butted up by a warehouse lacking the characteristic odor of sea life. A quick summons of his wife brought out a plate of flatbread and cheese while the scent of the kitchen presaged fish of some culinary variety. He partook of the food only nominally, soon clasping his hands together across the table from Lucius and Valerie, who was gorging herself. ¡°I fear I¡¯m late on introductions. John Kerouac is my name. Born in Portacheval, trained in Jarnmark, and now the representative of the workers here.¡±

    ¡°Lucius von Solhart.¡±

    ¡°Valerie, knight serving the king.¡±

    ¡°A pleasure. Might I ask if our letters were provided in full to you? They were some ten pages given in duplicate.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m afraid they weren¡¯t.¡±

    Kerouac frowned. ¡°As I¡¯m sure you know, winter is always hard for men of the sea. Sailing is more dangerous with ice on the lines and outright hazardous when ice floats upon the surface. The oil we must spread to clean the routes gets stuck in the ice and serpents become bold. The schools of fish are still out there, but in aggregate, business diminishes. This makes for a terrible time when the price of food keeps rising. Many of the men come here every day to bring coin back to their families and leave with never enough.¡±

    ¡°Clogging up commerce won¡¯t help that.¡±

    ¡°But the food would! Almost the entire city eats out of the fishmarket, we aren¡¯t stopping the fishermen. Only the merchants, the ones still shipping hard goods for the nobility.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re pressuring the king when it¡¯s the temples that hold that monopoly.¡±

    Kerouac scoffed. ¡°The angel Acheliah is the head of the temples and the king is her second. They may be independent of the nobility, but not of the crown. He has the authority.¡±

    ¡°But not the desire,¡± Lucius said, pushing the plate of food aside. ¡°I¡¯m afraid that I must be blunt. This interruption is to come to an end. As I already mentioned, I wasn¡¯t given your full list of demands, but I imagine it wasn¡¯t ten pages of explanation as to why bringing more meat into the city is a good idea the king should support.¡±

    The man across from him wetted his lips. ¡°I certainly could have filled that and more with such justification.¡±

    ¡°But?¡±

    ¡°There is the matter of pay as well. It won¡¯t do to have the workers passing over food when their children grow gaunt and cold. Thievery would be unstoppable if nothing else.¡±

    ¡°Nobody is forced to work at these docks. They¡¯re not slaves.¡±

    ¡°Pay everywhere in the kingdom is too low! Except the military, of course. The men who defend the peace are taken care of, and I understand you are an exemplar of keeping them fed even on the march. That was one of the first stories about you, you know? When the news of the siege at Rackvidd first came, we of course heard about how you broke the backs of those mountain men, but we also heard how you kept your little army from feeling the pangs of hunger, even at the expense of your own comfort.¡±

    Lucius drummed his fingers on the table. ¡°Tell me what happens when a ship comes to port and there are travelers aboard. Do you tell them too that the port is closed and the must stay upon their ships with the cargo?¡±

    Kerouc retreated in his seat. ¡°That would be inhumane.¡±

    ¡°So you turn them out into the city without their belongings? Or do you at least leave them their coin purses so they can have a roof over their head? Perhaps you send them to the temples for sanctuary and burden their charity? Is that why the temples have rebuked you? Or is it that you give them their belongings and take their coin as a special favor to get them through the port?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t understand what you¡¯re accusing me of!¡±

    ¡°You have two days, Kerouac. Return to work or the fist of the crown will sweep you away.¡±

    The guild leader rose, shoving his chair back as he did so. ¡°I can see you are not the man I believed you were, Sir Solhart. I don¡¯t see how anything will be accomplished more today.¡±

    ¡°Not here, no,¡± Lucius said as he too rose from the table.

    Kerouac shook his head. ¡°I think you¡¯ll find that society is changing, Sir Solhart. The people relied on the temples for all manner of learning in the past, but guilds have become repositories of knowledge in their own right. Furthermore, we have a mere fraction of the nobility we once had. Not just because of the massacre this past season, but the old bloodlines have not maintained their fecundity. Wars have depleted the stock of good men from all classes and so those that rule over the common people no longer have a sufficient quantity of excellence to lead. There are those who believe it is time for every man to stand on his own feet and think with his own head. The writings of Jacque Mordare might be of interest to you.¡±

    Lucius laughed. ¡°I¡¯m already familiar. I¡¯ll be back tomorrow and I suggest you make time to meet with me, for your own good.¡±

 6-9 - Incentivized Help

    The Cathedral of The Sea stank of bodies. The grand cleansing pool had people sitting upon every inch of the rim while dirty hands passed bowls of soup. Earlier in the day, chants and hymns had run through the vaulted halls, but any pretense of religious service had ended when the sun set. Despite the congestion, the crowd found room to squeeze away from Lucius when he marched through the doors. He didn¡¯t even need to announce himself. Father Mosser came to greet him and brought him to one of the offices and was of sufficient standing in the church to address Lucius¡¯ needs.

    Lucius said, ¡°Don¡¯t explain it to me like I¡¯m a child. Explain to me like I am the noble in charge of resolving this dispute. Why won¡¯t you given them a whaling license. Don¡¯t say you can¡¯t. You certainly can. Why won¡¯t you?¡±

    The priest rattled a spoon through a cup of tea and sipped it, his eyes marching over Lucius and Valerie. ¡°If I were to say it was the dictate of Acheliah, it would be correct to say that I cannot.¡±

    ¡°From what I hear, Acheliah is still grieving. I doubt she¡¯s even heard of this protest.¡±

    ¡°And I wouldn¡¯t have brought it to her attention,¡± Father Mosser said with a shrug. ¡°I believe you want me to speak frankly, Sir Solhart? Those port men are communists, they¡¯re no better than savages. I¡¯ve actually had the unique experience of speaking with one of the wastelanders you brought north. Quite surprising you turned so many of them loose, but they, at least the one I met, proved to be like large children. Utterly voracious of the world and quite teachable. In fact, the only issue I encountered was explaining to the man that he couldn¡¯t become a priest by fighting. That¡¯s something only Aillesterrans do. But these communists would destroy all hierarchy entirely. The idea that all they want is food in the city is a facade to attack the temples. It would be far easier to petition the king to increase the dole from the granary reserves but they¡¯ve never broached the subject.¡±

    ¡°You dodged the question,¡± Lucius said.

    The priest cleared his throat. ¡°Like all creatures of the sea, whales are the progeny of our goddess and caring for the seas is one of our duties as humans. If the men wished to go into open seas, we would grant them an unlimited license to bring in fanged whales.¡±

    Valerie said, ¡°You can¡¯t linger in open seas without serpents coming.¡±

    The priest frowned. ¡°You shouldn¡¯t cross them at all.¡±

    Lucius held up his hand before Valerie revealed herself as a former smuggler. ¡°So it¡¯s lobed whales they¡¯re after, I assumed as much. Continue.¡±

    ¡°Creatures of the sea breed like any cattle. No, that¡¯s not a good comparison. We have no direct control over their breeding and they don¡¯t do so often. There is no yearly rut as far as we¡¯re aware. To maintain our production of holy oil for safe shipping, we only permit the harvesting of mature whales, this prevents the stock from depleting over time and the seas becoming uncrossable. I¡¯m sure you understand what kind of disaster would await us then. Should the whales become a food source, it would be perhaps a single generation before the species was lost to us.¡±

    ¡°But you could harvest some.¡±

    The priest nodded. ¡°Some, yes, but not the amount they¡¯re asking for.¡±

    ¡°How many would it take to, for the winter, clear out the serpents from a fanged whale region? And how many sailors and workers would you need?¡±

    ¡°I confess I don¡¯t understand where you¡¯re going with this.¡±

    ¡°Just answer the question please.¡±

    The priest frowned. ¡°It would depend on the ships that I could acquire for such a task. That is outside the coffers of the temples at this time. Suppose that we targeted a modest fifty, no thirty whales, then it would also depend on how long a period is given for the task. One ship desires about twenty sailors for the task, and they have to be hardy men to whale in the winter. Even returning with a single carcass could take over a week.¡±

    ¡°So, six-hundred men,¡± Lucius said.

    Valeria laughed. ¡°You¡¯d best triple that number. Not one in three will be up to that.¡±

    Lucius grinned. ¡°If I might ask another estimation, how many men are coming to the temples to beg support for their families? I can think of few hardier men than those with children to feed. In fact, I wager it would be enough to fill the entire port and keep it busy for a time.¡±

    Father Mosser¡¯s eyes lit up. ¡°But, there¡¯s the problem of ships.¡±

    ¡°Problem?¡± Lucius said, rising from the man¡¯s desk. ¡°There¡¯s an entire fleet of ships lingering at anchor right now with entirely spiteful owners right now. It seems you¡¯ve caught on to how all of these problems can be fixed?¡±

    The priest rose with a smile. ¡°I believe I have.¡±

    ¡°I must ask that you hurry. The king has only given me two days. The ships won¡¯t need to sail two days from now, but we must be ready to begin the work on that day. Is that a problem?¡±

    ¡°Hardly! Any more time and people would have time for second thoughts. Truly, the goddess has blessed you with wisdom, Sir Solhart,¡± the priest said, giving him a bow then extending his hand as a merchant would. Lucius clasped his hand around the mans and then was gone.This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

    He marched through the city with his shadow at his side, aimed at the old town of the capital. The moment they rounded the corner from the cathedral, Valerie asked, ¡°How did you know that would work?¡±

    ¡°I didn¡¯t. I didn¡¯t even have that plan when I arrived,¡± he said. ¡°Do I strike you as a man with a master plan? I¡¯m making this up as I go.¡±

    Valerie frowned. ¡°When I was briefed on you, the king said to treat you as the most cunning and deceptive strategist in the kingdom, and not to believe a word you say. Looked me dead in the eyes and told me to doubt anything I said, even if you said you were yourself.¡±

    Lucius stopped and arched an eyebrow at her. ¡°So if I did tell you I wasn¡¯t Lucius von Solhart?¡±

    She laughed. ¡°It was hyperbole. Where are we going anyways?¡±

    ¡°To get ships,¡± he said, and took her to the front gates of the Montisferro manor. The guards at the gate were shocked to see him, but quickly unlocked the door and let him in. The steward rushed out, making apologies that it was too late for either of the ladies of the house to greet him, but beds could be made available. He thanked them for the hospitality and quietly made himself at home in the manor. Servants drew a warm bath for him, but before he could retire for the night, the steward knocked at his door.

    ¡°The ladies request your presence in the blue room. Will your friend be joining?¡±

    ¡°She only knows half of her manners. I¡¯ll join the ladies alone.¡±

    It is difficult to overstate the accumulated opulence among some of the noble houses. Earlier in the tale of Lucius¡¯ life, there was a glimpse into the Ashe family¡¯s estate, but that was filtered through the impressions of a child, furthermore, the accumulated wealth of the Ashe family has always been primarily in land. The Montisferro family owned businesses. They took gifts from merchants and hosted exotic auctions from which they reaped the most benefit, privileging themselves with a right of first purchase whenever a collection was brought in. In effect, they were the very image of decadence that people had when they thought about the nobility, even more than the king.

    I have always put little value in material wealth. I see it as a fiction of the economy. A golden goblet holds as much wine as one made from fired clay. Their total wealth could be calculated to astronomical sums, but it existed in a manner that made it illiquid. The two sisters didn¡¯t even think of trying to sell their collection because there were no buyers for any quantity of their assets. Should they attempt to sell even one of their rooms of art¨Cand I don¡¯t mean the pieces they had on display, but the ones kept in storage¨Cthe final auction price would have been a fraction of the theoretical worth.

    Thus, they were in effect among the poorest of the noble houses, comparable to the Solharts, but had a manor almost entirely gilded in gold. The splendor of the room blended into one impression and sharply contrasted the simple, black dresses both women wore, even months after the death of Matteo.

    Lucius had not been too shocked by the sight the first time he saw it, and he had perfect composure that night. He bowed, ¡°Lucius von Solhart greets the ladies of the house. I thank you for your hospitality.¡±

    Anna Montisferro, the biological mother of Matteo, said, ¡°We told you at the funeral that you would always be welcome here, Lucius.¡±

    Her sister, Caroline, said, ¡°You work directly for the king, do you not? What brings you to the city?¡±

    ¡°The business in the port,¡± he said, getting confused looks from both women.

    ¡°Is there something happening in the port?¡± Anna asked.

    Her sister grabbed her hand. ¡°The king¡¯s betrothed is coming, don¡¯t you remember?¡±

    The boy grimaced. ¡°You don¡¯t oversee it directly then, do you?¡±

    ¡°No, I believe Mister Sanders handles that,¡± Anna said.

    Her sister shook her head. ¡°Don¡¯t you remember? Matteo insisted we relieve that man of his duties. It was the old fellow who likes to play the fiddle.¡±

    ¡°But that man took ill over the summer. I asked Mister Sanders to come back.¡±

    Caroline sighed. ¡°That¡¯s terrible. Yes, rest is very important in such an elderly man. Then it would be Mister Sanders. Why do you ask, Lucius?¡±

    Lucius asked, ¡°Does he stay in the manor?¡±

    Both women scoffed. Caroline said, ¡°Certainly not. How could he oversee the port if he¡¯s all the way over here? He stays in the house at the corner.¡±

    Lucius described the house Kerouac had taken him too and Anna nodded her head. ¡°That¡¯s the one, yes. A fitting place, don¡¯t you agree? I didn¡¯t realize you¡¯d be familiar with it.¡±

    The boy frowned and sat down across from them. The chair appeared to be made of golden flowers, but the cushion was firmer than most saddles he had ridden. He considered explaining the whole of the protest to them, but suspected that they were so disconnected that he would never get help from them in time. He said, ¡°I¡¯m working with the temples right now to expand our viable fishing territory and bring more food into the city. They have plenty of manpower for the task, but asked me to help acquire ships for the work.¡±

    Anna nodded. ¡°How many do you need?¡±

    ¡°As many as wouldn¡¯t inconvenience you.¡±

    ¡°And we¡¯d be doing the temples a favor?¡± Caroline asked, not even attempting to conceal her interest. Though it wasn¡¯t an advertised fact, Lucius knew through me that whenever the Montisferro family needed spending money, they turned to the temples. Officially, they donated a variety of art pieces and jewelry to the temples which eventually disseminated through the various monasteries and similar establishments, often getting resold quietly.

    Lucius smiled. ¡°They would be extraordinarily grateful if you could help the people of Vassermark in this way.¡±

    ¡°Of course we can help,¡± Caroline said. ¡°We have quite a few ships on hold at the moment. The traders will need them as soon as spring comes, but I¡¯m sure some of them can be put to use!¡±

    ¡°Your generosity will be known by all,¡± Lucius said and helped the two ladies draft him a letter of authority, being sure to have it put in his name should Mister Sanders be indisposed. They shuddered at the slightest explanation of the butchering process that would be needed for whales and gave him all the unused space available in their warehouses for the assistance of the people until the spring thaw. He was insistent on the wording of space not being used for other commerce, which the women were happy to use.

    Thus armed, Lucius enjoyed their hospitality to the fullest and returned to Mosser after breakfast. The priest laughed and poured the three of them full goblets of fine liquor. ¡°When I was a younger man, I would have called you the most dangerous devil of a man I had ever met. Today, I call you blessed by the wisdom of the goddess.¡±

 6-10 - Cannons and Courtship

    Having reported to the king the day prior, Lucius arrived at the dawn of the third day with five hundred men at his back, none of them armed. The men with weapons were under the command of the watch captain, standing in ranks around half a dozen cannons pointed at the port, cutting off all escape for the protesting workers.

    Valerie was not with Lucius. Her stigmata was not conducive to close quarters, but under the right circumstances was more powerful than the ley cannons. The king had ordered that she take post on one of the rooftops. Although Lucius was not privy to her orders, he operated under the following assumptions.

    First, the workmen of the port would not step away peacefully, no matter what legal rights he brought to bear. The reason the men still occupied the warehouses was to have force at hand. This was the reason the guards had not been able to simply round them up and send them to the prison island of Donjon. Second, the king wanted things to go bloody so that he could kill the ideological leaders of the movement and put the blame on Lucius.

    Third, if Valerie had any justification of Lucius working with the rebels, then she would kill him. With a bow in her hand, she was able to imbue immense kinetic force into an arrow, enough that she had been able to sink pursuing ships when she was a smuggler. With that amount of energy, no shield would protect Lucius. Of course, he wouldn¡¯t die from simply having his body ripped apart, but in such a state, there was any number of ways he could be permanently disposed of if the king wished. Sent to Donjon at the very least and kept in chains for the rest of his natural life.

    As such, Lucius proceeded as though he had no expectation of violence whatsoever. He walked up to the grunts protecting the perimeter and informed them that such and such ships had to be made ready for whaling. He introduced the various seasoned sailors that had been taking refuge in the cathedral and happily informed the workers that the food situation would be resolved.

    The protestors were not of a single mind. The volume of them relied on the fiction of virtue that Kerouac wore about himself. When Lucius began assenting to the demands, many of them cheered. They had already begun clearing out one of the warehouses to handle the dismantling of carcasses when the rabble leader came rushing over.

    ¡°What is the meaning of this?¡± the man asked.

    Lucius scanned the rooftops, looking for the shadow that was Valerie. ¡°I told you to get out of here, didn¡¯t I?¡±

    The man¡¯s face darkened, his hands balling. ¡°You have no right to do this, you have no power to do this! You there, stop that at once. Put everything back!¡± he barked, pointing to a man harnessing a horse to a cart laden with barrels.

    Lucius took out the letter the Montisferros had given him and handed it to Kerouac. ¡°I actually do have the right to use every warehouse in this port.¡±

    Kerouac nearly tore the parchment as he ripped it from Lucius¡¯ grasp. ¡°This is only for unused warehouses.¡±

    ¡°Warehouses not occupied by current commercial activity.¡±

    ¡°You are emptying them of commercial goods! What nonsense are you spewing?¡±

    Lucius pointed to the confused man with the horse. ¡°You there, what¡¯s in those barrels?¡±

    The man popped one of the lids, peered inside, and said, ¡°Iron ingots from Jarnmark, packed in sawdust, m¡¯lord.¡±

    Lucius nodded and turned to Kerouac. ¡°Bit useless sitting in a warehouse. Those need to be sent to the smithies to be put to use. But, that¡¯s exactly the kind of commercial activity your protest put a stop to, isn¡¯t it? Which means these warehouses aren¡¯t being used. It¡¯s just trash collecting rot and rust. Meanwhile, I¡¯ve got over five hundred men ready to sail into the sea under the blue flag of the temples. Hungry men, with hungry children, who have the legal right to use this port. Mister Kerouac, I think you¡¯ll realize I have both the right and the force to do this.¡±

    ¡°You think you can just march in here and do this?¡±

    ¡°Yes, I do,¡± Lucius said, and continued standing in the middle of the port as ship owners began to arrive, surrounded by personal guards, to direct the new sailors to various vessels. They sneered at the portmen. They denounced sympathetic captains and discharged officers. Oaths to Sapphira were made flippantly and the whole port soon realized what was to become of the men who had worked their entire lives there.

    It wasn¡¯t long after Kerouac stormed off that the first cannon was fired. Shrapnel cut a path through dozens of men, men who had squared off against the guards without any understanding of what had transpired between Lucius and Kerouac. With the single strike of a hammer, fifteen lives were snuffed out. Watch Captain Hartley gave the order to draw steel before the portmen could consolidate and the bloodshed began.

    Lucius made no move to intervene. He stayed in full view of everyone, calmly directing new sailors to old ship owners. Contracts were hastily arranged with the backing of the temples, all confident no malfeasance would occur. The only men who had been chosen from the masses of refugees were those whose families lived by the charity of the clergy and thus their loyalty far surpassed the men who had been convinced to lay down their work.

    No kinetic strike rained down upon Lucius from Valerie¡¯s bow.

    It is an assassin¡¯s lot to be in the shadows, where few if any will see or hear, and woe to the assassin that must work in an unfamiliar city. With the blue sky above, there were only a handful of vantage points she could have taken. More than a typical bowman, but with the knowledge that she would be further, the options were in fact limited more. While she had to wait until Lucius gave her justification, others had no need to wait further than the turmoil of the cannon shot. Arrows and knives emerged from shadows deeper still and her shouts and cries went unnoticed as the guards put down the last embers of riot.

    Some men asked why Lucius was smiling as the guards marched through the port and he remained untouched. He had only to say, ¡°Because tomorrow, I go home to my woman and my child.¡± The new sailors laughed and called him a womanizing bastard with a bastard.

    Kerouac was formally arrested, irons clasped around his wrists and ankles. Hartley was too harrowed from the effectiveness of the cannons to bother shutting his mouth as he ranted. The man¡¯s eyes were on Lucius as they took him away, and he swore, ¡°Justice will come for you! For all of you. Your throats will be slit. Your coffers will be spilled into the streets. None of you will know peace until the day you are tried and hanged!¡±

    When the man¡¯s voice could no longer be heard, Watch Captain Hartley said, ¡°The king will expect you to report to him.¡±

    Lucius said, ¡°The king expects his fiancee to be safe.¡± He gestured to the great sailing ship approaching the dock. But a few sails were open and a handful of oars helped guide it. The flags of Jarnmark billowed. At once, guards marshaled upon the dock and stood at attention as mooring lines were tied.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

    Despite the sailors running about her to tie lines and work the ship, Frederika Ashe stood at the prow. Even with a wool cloak wrapped about herself, it was obvious who she was by the mere glimpse of her face. Likewise, she stood watching Lucius upon the dock. A carriage was pulled up as a small retinue of guards descended the gangplank. A young man, his armor enameled sky blue, approached Lucius. ¡°Was there a problem here?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s been taken care of. I¡¯d recommend you don¡¯t loiter.¡±

    The guard nodded, inspected the state of the docks and smelled the blood in the air. Then, he gave quick orders to split the company. Some were to accompany Frederika and a pair were to bring the luggage separately. The heir of the Ashe family was thus allowed to disembark and she strode to the carriage. She entered quietly, sat down, and asked, ¡°You¡¯re coming, aren¡¯t you?¡±

    Lucius forced a smile. ¡°I¡¯m glad to see you¡¯re well, but the king has tasked me with resolving the issues here at the docks.¡±

    ¡°If there are issues in the city, then I think my safety is most important, and I can think of nobody in the entire kingdom more capable than you for such a task. Now, must I ask again? The carriage is growing cold waiting for you, Sir Solhart.¡±

    Lucius was¨Ccorrectly¨Cof the opinion that there were several people more capable of protecting another than he was. Leomund first among them. He stepped into the carriage regardless. The driver snapped the reins as soon as the door was shut and the young guard seated at the front. The moment they began moving, the stiffness in Frederika¡¯s posture vanished. ¡°You would not believe what has been happening back home in Jarnmark this winter. Mother is still utterly useless  the death of my father. Auntie has been forced to take all the meetings and she¡¯s getting absolutely bombarded by merchants with the most outrageous demands. It¡¯s like they want to overhaul our entire system of taxation. What does means-tested even mean? Do you know?¡±

    Lucius could only turn his hands up. ¡°It sounds like an obfuscation. I couldn¡¯t possibly tell you their intent.¡±

    ¡°They want a new judicial body, have you heard about this? There¡¯s this group calling themselves cartographers that are arguing that the official maps are inaccurate and have led to our Ashe family seizing land owned by the common people. They want all iron mines in the region to be held in common by the people and that the head tax should be replaced by an export tariff of all iron, even within Vassermark. The king would call that a revolt if we implemented that!¡±

    ¡°Do not implement that,¡± Lucius said. ¡°What they would do is undermine every acre of land your family owns and seize it, calling it an iron mine.¡±

    ¡°Tell that to Edvin! That shit of a brother of mine was ordered to the academy and he¡¯s been utterly delinquent. He¡¯s been cohorting up and down the western coast sleeping with everything with tits and a pair of legs he can get his hands on. I¡¯d say he wants to get disinherited, but he¡¯s been more flagrant than ever, because Auntie Ruby doesn¡¯t have the heart to cut off his credit. Please, if he ever does show up to the Academy, it¡¯ll be to seduce women like Aria.¡±

    ¡°If my sister wants to¨C¡±

    ¡°She¡¯s not your sister,¡± Frederika said, leaning forward abruptly.

    He tried to gauge her and said, ¡°What are you talking about?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t know how you changed your face, but I know you¡¯re not the real Solhart. Half the kingdom is trying to figure out who you really are. I¡¯ve heard that you¡¯re a northern spy. I¡¯ve heard you¡¯re a demon from another world. People were surprised when you suddenly became competent down in Giordana, but most wrote it off as you simply maturing. But, the real Lucius von Solhart would have never stood up to Acheliah.¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t believe gossip.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ve been in the room with the king for these conversations! You lied to King Charles about killing the rebel. You could be tried for treason.¡±

    Lucius scoffed. ¡°Try me for boasting? When they don¡¯t even have proof? They¡¯d have to bring Rodrick out in chains for that, and they can¡¯t because he¡¯s no longer of this world.¡±

    She shook her head. ¡°You¡¯re right that they can¡¯t, but it¡¯s not for lack of evidence. The king thinks you¡¯re a spy, but he also believes it¡¯s better to use a known spy than to get rid of one and have another.¡±

    Lucius couldn¡¯t contest the logic of that. He knew perfectly well how useful it was to control information going to the enemy. ¡°If I was a spy, you¡¯d hang right beside me for what you¡¯re saying right now.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re not a spy. I know that. I¡¯ve known since I saw you fighting to protect me.¡±

    ¡°A spy would do that, you know. Protects his identity.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re not a spy. You¡¯re a little boy from Jarnmark who was sold by his parents to a circus and learned how to act. A boy who protected two dumb noble girls that treated him like a toy for their own amusement. One who can¡¯t be killed by any wound and only chooses to be part of society because he very well could survive in the wilderness, with all of its monsters, on his own, under his own strength. Perhaps you could be called a spy, but not for Aillesterra. You¡¯re a spy infiltrating Vassermark for the kingdom of You.¡±

    Lucius frowned as the cobblestones smoothed and the carriage arced over one bridge after another, approaching the palace. She had run out of breath by the end, and said nothing more, awaiting his response. ¡°The king thinks I¡¯m working for the Aillish?¡±

    She sighed. ¡°You were let go from an Aillish pirate ship and then, reportedly, met with one of the commanders of the army, a one-eyed woman known to work for the Aillish.¡±

    He laughed. ¡°She¡¯s not Aillish. She¡¯s a mercenary. She¡¯d work for me if I could pay her what she wanted.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re not helping yourself, saying things like that.¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t need to help myself. The king can think whatever he likes because he knows he can¡¯t afford to do anything against me. He needs me, even if I¡¯m not the real Lucius. He needs to use me like a lightning rod to attract the attention of his enemies, and I¡¯d suggest you keep your little theory to yourself, Erika. If people were to start thinking that the greatest military commander of the kingdom, currently alive at least, was a low born usurper, they¡¯d start asking what else a low born could do better than the nobility. They¡¯d do more than try to change a few laws.¡±

    The carriage came to a stop as the gates of the palace were opened. She pulled the curtain back a moment to show her face to the guard, then shut it tight again. ¡°I won¡¯t tell anybody.¡±

    ¡°Keeping secrets from your husband?¡±

    She scowled. ¡°We¡¯re not wedded yet. And you¡¯re right. Whether or not you¡¯re the real Lucius, the king needs you regardless. Who else would he send to fight our wars? Gabriel?¡±

    ¡°The king would go himself, if he had to.¡±

    Frederika sighed. Both of them could hear the carriage coming to a stop. ¡°I told my father about my suspicion, did you know that?¡±

    ¡°The duke made no such implications to me.¡±

    ¡°He admonished me for it. Said that poor boy was sent to his death by the stupidity of my mothers. He regretted not killing Jacque himself, but perhaps you heard that Acheliah beat him to it?¡±

    ¡°What? That bastard?¡±

    She smirked. ¡°He went to go complain a number of years ago, but that¡¯s not important. Jacque was wrong about so many things. We humans can¡¯t live without each other. Congratulations on your child. I think I forgot to say that earlier. I can¡¯t stop my fiance from threatening the women around you, but if he ever threatens your child, I¡¯ll slit his throat in his sleep.¡±

    Lucius smiled. ¡°Jacque was half-right. I could thrive alone in the wilderness. I just wouldn¡¯t be a man, I¡¯d be a monster.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re not a monster.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll become one, if I have to; and, I need everybody to know that,¡± Lucius said as their carriage stopped and the men outside got off.

    ¡°I hope you never have to,¡± she said as the door was opened. She rose and exited, her face stoic and dignified. Before she proceeded into the palace, she said, ¡°Lucius is a good name. It suits you.¡±

    Lucius exited the carriage after her, letting her proceed. With a mind to have a meal before reporting to the king, he started toward the barracks but one of the serving staff came striding toward him.

    He was an older gentleman, but bore none of the royal heraldry embroidered upon his clothes. He had the symbols of Sapphira instead. ¡°The angel Acheliah has requested your presence, Lucius von Solhart.¡±

 6-11 - The Next War

    Elsewhere in the city, men were dragging the corpse of Valeria out of a canal. Her marks of identification had been taken and burned, but her divine sigil could still be read upon her shoulder. She was almost taken directly out of the city walls and buried a pauper beneath an unmarked stone, but the watch captain thought he might earn himself some rapport by bringing the body in for study. The new king¡¯s interest in stigmata was well known and the mark upon her was of a curious size. He had no notion of the importance of his action, nor that it would result in him being given a sizeable raise in pay when the body was ultimately identified as no mere criminal.

    While the king greeted his bride-to-be, Lucius was brought to the very same garden wherein Aisha first met the princess. No guards patrolled the perimeter and no serving staff lurked. The angel sat alone, her wings spread like a wall behind her as she watched him approach. She said nothing until he arrived at the table. ¡°Vi changed your face, didn¡¯t she? I didn¡¯t realize when we first met, but she¡¯s one of the few in the world that could do something like that.¡±

    ¡°Vi?¡± Lucius asked.

    ¡°Don¡¯t be coy. The wizard picked you up at some point, like he picked up that barbarian you use as a house guard. Your stigmata is astounding. I¡¯m sure he used you to kill more than a few demons. What¡¯s more, you were right. The wizard is gone. I can¡¯t rip his heart out and feed him his own entrails no matter how much I want to. But, that leaves a problem for the whole world.¡±

    ¡°And what would that be?¡±

    ¡°I said don¡¯t be coy. There¡¯s nobody here but us. I¡¯m offering you a deal, Lucius. The same deal that abomination was given centuries ago. I am willing to overlook your crimes. I¡¯ll even give you the things you want. Money, women, status, anything.¡±

    Lucius sat at the table across from her and folded his hands together. ¡°So, there¡¯s another demon?¡±

    The angel nodded. ¡°There is. We haven¡¯t been able to locate it yet, but we will soon. So long as you play the role of our hunting dog, we can get along.¡±

    ¡°The king made me much the same offer.¡±

    ¡°And you took the deal.¡±

    ¡°And I¡¯ll take yours, but I don¡¯t think you can give me the things I want.¡±

    ¡°Name them.¡±

    He smirked. ¡°What if I said I wanted Kassie?¡±

    Acheliah had been holding a cup of tea, though she had offered none to the boy. The cup shattered in her grasp, the simmering drink getting blasted to the ground by a pulse of energy from the bristling angel. ¡°The answer would be no. The kingdom is filled with women. You can pick another.¡±

    ¡°I could pick Ericka.¡±

    ¡°You could,¡± Acheliah said, brushing shards of ceramic to the ground. ¡°The alliance to the Ashe family could be secured with either of those girls. Fredrich was merely giving Annika consideration for her recent loss. You¡¯d become one of the most powerful men in the kingdom, so long as you¡¯re my hunting dog.¡±

    His eyebrows rose. ¡°Then I want information.¡±

    ¡°If I have it, it is yours.¡±

    ¡°On how to kill souls.¡±

    Acheliah paused, her eyes narrowing. ¡°And why would you want that?¡±

    ¡°I only have a crude understanding of it right now. I know that you angels, divine beasts, emissaries, whatever title you like, are no different from the demons. I know that the reason I¡¯m dangerous to you is subtle. Sitting here across from you, my stigmata only has the faintest affect on you. If you even notice it, you ignore it¨Cdemons try to kill me. But, then it gets stronger. It pulls them in and crushes them. That¡¯s why you didn¡¯t fight me at the coup. There might come a day I have to fight somebody who understands my stigmata better than I do, and how to counter it. I need a way to fight them.¡±

    ¡°You think Aurum will come for revenge?¡±

    Lucius took the tea kettle and poured himself a drink as he tried to keep his temper in check. ¡°When I was in the Misty Isles, there was a time when Amurabi thought a friend of mine had learned too much, that she was a danger. He broke her mind, and there was nothing I could do about it. If I had attacked him, he would have fled and there would have been nothing I could do to stop it.¡±

    ¡°You don¡¯t have to worry about him. The moment he returns to Lumisgard, I will personally kill him.¡±

    ¡°And if you fail? He has been plotting to kill all of you for ages. Do you really think he would come back to Lumisgard just to get cornered and slaughtered? You will only be walking into a trap. Your only advantage will be that he told me not to kill the demons without using them to exhaust you first. He might misjudge your strength, but it¡¯s also possible he will account for that. I might be forced to deal with the demons without you, for example. I might even choose to. What I want is for my life to not be at the mercy of somebody else, and thus I want whatever power is necessary to ensure that. So, what I want is the ability to kill anybody that threatens me. Those are my terms. If you¡¯ll meet them, I¡¯ll even tell you exactly where the wizard is when he returns. You can think them over until you find the demon, I suppose. If you¡¯ll accept, then you can either give the information to me, or to Aisha. She was getting tutored in such matters by Vi, until circumstances intervened. Now, she¡¯s gone too, so you are the only option available to me.¡±This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

    ¡°You ask for much, Lucius.¡±

    ¡°So do you,¡± he said. ¡°You¡¯re asking me to kill monsters to protect your kingdom, but Vassermark is on the verge of collapse. What do you think would have happened if you hadn¡¯t killed the rebels at the feast? If you had been forced away by Amurabi? Not just the royal family, but every noble in the kingdom would have been hanged by mobs, their coffers plundered, and a thousand low born tyrants would have risen up. You saw the same thing happen in Giordana after the fall of the Yellow King.¡±

    She slammed her fist on the table. ¡°That man was a monster. He fed pregnant women to animals. He raped children! Nothing like that happens in Vassermark, and I would never be appeased by blood sacrifices.¡±

    He laughed at her. ¡°I have to ask, did you really kill Jacque Mordare?¡±

    ¡°Who?¡±

    ¡°Middle-aged philosopher, was sleeping with Ruby Ashe. Liked to talk about social contracts and the rights of men.¡±

    ¡°Oh, that cretin. Yes. What of it?¡±

    ¡°I think you made a martyr of him. It¡¯s no feasting on the livers of the innocent, but it might turn out to be just as dangerous. Just this morning, about a hundred men were slaughtered on the king¡¯s orders to put down a disturbance caused by people who think the nobility are no longer good enough to rule over them. I think Charles von Arandall will be remembered in history as brilliant. We can hardly imagine the impacts that ley will have on the world, but it has already made cannons.¡±

    She scoffed. ¡°These are trifling matters. I¡¯ve watched ships evolve from rafts to great sailing vessels that can carry armies. Nothing changed because people didn¡¯t change.¡±

    ¡°Time will tell. I¡¯d tell you to wait and see, but for once, you might not have all the time in the world. I¡¯ve given my terms and now I must report to the king. You know where to find me.¡± Lucius finished his drink and rose from the table.

    She waved him off. ¡°Giving that kind of knowledge isn¡¯t worth a few mere demons.¡±

    ¡°And if it¡¯s more than a few?¡±

    ¡°Then perhaps. Time will tell,¡± she said, and Lucius departed from the garden.

    He spoke to the first servant he found and in due course was seated in one of the palace¡¯s studies. There was a collection of trivial books, one of which he began reading until the king arrived. A guard came in first, inspected the small room, then departed, and King Arandall joined Lucius.

    ¡°You have interesting methods, Solhart,¡± the king said as Lucius put the book away.

    ¡°No simple solution was available to me, my lord.¡±

    ¡°Where¡¯s Valerie?¡±

    ¡°I have no idea. Your fiance demanded that I return to the palace with her. I wasn¡¯t able to rejoin with my companion. I thought by now she might have returned here.¡±

    ¡°She hasn¡¯t.¡±

    ¡°Then, I don¡¯t know what to say. She left me during the confrontation. Her stigmata isn¡¯t suited for close encounters. I thought nothing of it. Perhaps the watch captain knows more.¡±

    The king frowned. ¡°The man is indisposed, dealing with the deaths you caused.¡±

    Lucius¡¯ eyebrows rose. ¡°I caused? I did nothing of the sort. Every action I took was fully legal and peaceful. I found new workers motivated to bring the port back under operation, acquired the proper legal authority to use the facilities, and connected willing workers with eager capital owners. I even helped solve the food strain in the city, and did so while safely bringing Lady Ashe to your castle. I did hear of the confrontation, but Hartley¡¯s inability to control a riot can¡¯t be blamed on me.¡±

    ¡°He had cannons, because of you.¡±

    ¡°And? Are you saying you would have rather your guards been thrown into a brawl? That the protectors of the peace themselves be injured and killed?¡±

    The king stared back at him. ¡°There will be more riots after this.¡±

    ¡°If you¡¯re implying that you don¡¯t trust your own men to handle those, I would be happy to address further matters in the future. I am your loyal servant, my lord. It does raise the question fo whether you expect me to remain in Forum or come back here, though. You¡¯d have to uproot all the Warden Blades if you want me permanently in the city.¡±

    ¡°So you can continue bankrupting the nobility?¡±

    ¡°Bankrupting? What do you mean?¡±

    ¡°You seized every warehouse owned by the Montisferros.¡±

    ¡°The workmen did that, not me. It¡¯s a problem easily solved now that control of the port is back to normal. I¡¯d say I helped them. And why would I wish harm upon the Montisferros? I owe them a continual debt for failing to protect their son.¡±

    The king pulled three letters from his pocket, both sealed with his mark. ¡°Return to Forum. This is for Theo, and the others are for you. I¡¯d suggest you wait to open it.¡±

    Lucius picked both up, turning them over in the light of the window. ¡°Can I ask what¡¯s in it?¡±

    King Arandall smiled. ¡°The terms of the duel between you and Jules, as requested. I think you¡¯ll find them to your liking. You consider yourself a master of the blade, don¡¯t you?¡±

    ¡°In matters of war, but I¡¯d be at quite a disadvantage if the duel is to first blood.¡±

    ¡°Death or surrender, with the clarification that death includes impalement of the heart or removal of the head. Given what my brother did to you, I understand you don¡¯t much mind having your heart pierced.¡±

    ¡°Not by a man.¡±

    The king laughed. ¡°Well, I suppose you are human after all. You¡¯ve made it clear you value your friends and your women more than status. Open the second letter if you win the duel.¡±

    Lucius tucked the letters away and rose when the king rose. ¡°Am I to return to Forum, then? Or am I to wait for Valerie?¡±

    ¡°Take that letter to Theo at once. I am to assume that Valerie is either dead or has run away. When I formed the Warden Blades, I assumed that at least one of them would make a run for it. Let¡¯s hope she¡¯s dead. In the worst scenario, she found a way to escape to Aillesterra. Those slavers have gotten bolder than ever.¡±

    Lucius was almost too shocked to speak, his assumptions about the king faltering as he wondered what was in the letter to Theo. He at once thought of bypassing the sealing wax, but there was no reason to think the king¡¯s intent would be writ plainly and not enciphered either cryptographically or through allusion. ¡°You¡¯re worried about Aillesterra?¡±

    ¡°They¡¯re a concern,¡± the king said as he left the room. He kept speaking as Lucius followed him. ¡°We think of them as the small kingdom, but they are actually quite large. They have a frontier to the east. My sources say it is flat fields of grass further than human eyes can see, with enormous animals dotting the horizon. It¡¯s perfect farmland. I must assume the Aillesterrans have spread throughout it, feigning weakness as they probe our defenses. It will be the next war, Lucius¡­ if we don¡¯t fight one amongst ourselves first.¡±

 6-12 - A Widows Spite

    Theo refused to see Lucius. He didn¡¯t even assign him patrols through the city. Orders from the king reached Forum before Lucius¡¯ leisurely return and while he was able to surmise what the king had ordered, it wasn¡¯t until weeks later that the Steel Blade asked him, ¡°How did you do it?¡±

    The two of them were in the academy library, the Warden Blade flipping the pages of a mythology book while Lucius read histories on Aillesterra. The entire winter had been passing with a lack of privacy and growing boredom among the knights tasked with keeping Lucius in check. Boredom, and irritation that it wasn¡¯t even impeding Lucius in the slightest. The man plainly was doing exactly what he told everyone he was doing. He was preparing to go to war with the pirate empire, for the good of Vassermark.

    And he was doing it with blood on his hands.

    ¡°You¡¯ll have to be more specific,¡± Lucius said, jotting down logistical notes and calculations. For lack of access to the king¡¯s spy network, he had to guess the military strength of Aillesterra and construct variable equations that could be quickly updated when proper intelligence was given to him. No matter how he ran the numbers though, the cost in blood of subjugating Aillesterra would be too high even before factoring in the divine beasts. As long as the clans were united, the land could not be taken without inviting Skaldheim to march south.

    Lyam shut his book. ¡°How did you kill Valerie? How did you do it and get away with it?¡±

    ¡°I didn¡¯t,¡± Lucius answered.

    The Steel Blade rose. ¡°How did you do it?¡±

    Lucius sighed and began tidying up his space. He stoppered the ink pot and shut the books as he said, ¡°Lyam, you and I both know that Theo gives you lot contradictory orders to what he tells me. I was told by the king to fix the situation at the docks. When the time came to act, she went off on her own. I assume to put an arrow through my skull the moment she could justify killing me. Unfortunately, she went off on her own during a bloody riot that got over a hundred people slaughtered. She was hardly a passing duelist, you know that. If even two men had gone after her, I would have had to save her but I wasn¡¯t able to because she left!¡±

    ¡°She was a smuggler. You think she would have been done in by thugs?¡±

    Lucius stood up and faced him. ¡°Don¡¯t you think that was exactly her issue? She was used to being treated like scum because she used to be scum. She used to look like it. But, when she arrived at the docks with me, she was seen wearing official marks. Even if she ditched them, someone would have seen her. They followed her. They did her in precisely because Theo is trying to kill me, and I will not stand here arguing with you about it.¡±

    Lyam¡¯s nostrils flared. ¡°Don¡¯t call him scum.¡±

    ¡°Or what? Going to hug me for a few hours until somebody realizes we¡¯re late? And who do you think will notice first? Theo? Or Leomund?¡±

    Lyam snarled, but backed off. ¡°I hope Feugard kills you. I really do. I may understand why the king is leaving a bastard like you alive, but I don¡¯t like it.¡±

    ¡°Would you like front row seats? It¡¯ll be quite the show. Happening at the Quartz Bowl tomorrow. Everybody who¡¯s anybody will be there, or so they say,¡± Lucius said as he began returning books to their shelves.

    ¡°A proper duel should be outside.¡±

    ¡°Spectators don¡¯t like the cold.¡±

    ¡°A proper duel has witnesses, not spectators.¡±

    ¡°Come on, get with the times, Lyam. War is diplomacy and dueling is politics. You can tell the Wavefront Corporation I sent you if you want to watch. They¡¯ll put you right up front.¡±

    Lyam threw up his hands. ¡°And why is a business sponsoring a duel!¡±

    ¡°To make money. They fronted the cost to rent the theater and are charging for entrance. The winner of the duel will be getting half of the profits too. I thought an additional wager was appropriate. Gives Jules an excuse to hire somebody who¡¯s actually good in a fight to put on a show,¡± he said as he shook out his parchments, then rolled them up into a scroll case.

    Lyam had to follow as he left the library. ¡°Where are you going, Solhart?¡±

    ¡°Home. You¡¯re welcome to follow. I hear the stables are warm enough, with all the horses shitting in there. Just be nice to the stableboy I hired.¡±

    Lucius had in fact expanded his domain in the city. Before leaving the capital, he had gone back to his various allies and¨Cbased on his success¨Cleft with purses of silver from each of them. When Lady Solhart had been given the ship schedule, she had agreed to write a letter of credit and the neighboring house had been bought for her and Aria to move into.

    When Lucius returned to his manor, and Lyam left to report to Theo with a pair of guards to watch the street, Aria greeted him in the front hall. She had declined her mother¡¯s invitation, and her insistence. ¡°Back from your tea party already?¡± he asked.

    She winced. ¡°I don¡¯t want to talk about it. Why are you back from the library already?¡±

    ¡°Unpleasant company. Anyone else home?¡±

    ¡°Just Lupa. She¡­ was in the kitchen,¡± Aria said, looking up the stairs.

    Lupa leaned across the bannister in a thin dress entirely unbecoming of the season, or of polite company. The hem of the skirt was high and the neckline low. ¡°Welcome home, Lu,¡± she said, playing with her hair which had been tied into a long braid.

    ¡°And here I thought you were wasting my money.¡±

    She laughed and hurried down the steps, but fell into his arms at the bottom when her heeled shoe betrayed her. ¡°How can I still not do that?¡± she complained as she pulled the shoe back onto her foot.

    Aria rolled her eyes. ¡°Girls who wear those don¡¯t go running in them.¡±

    ¡°Why would you wear shoes you can¡¯t run in?¡±

    Lucius cleared his throat. ¡°How¡¯s Alexander?¡±

    ¡°Sleeping. He¡¯s as greedy as his father, you know that?¡±

    ¡°What? How is a baby greedy? You mean he¡¯s eating well?¡±

    ¡°Milk, getting carried, play, everything! You have any idea how lucky you are that I¡¯m here?¡±If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

    ¡°You know I¡¯m grateful,¡± he said before kissing her.

    Aria coughed. ¡°You¡¯re courting Felicia, aren¡¯t you?¡±

    Lucius looked up from whispering compliments on the dress. ¡°She knows.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m sitting down,¡± Aria declared, leaving the hall.

    Reluctantly, Lucius followed her and Lupa let him go. Aria had sat down at a desk with a history book she was supposed to be studying for one of her lectures, but it was uncharacteristic of her. Like most students at the academy, the knowledge was secondary. He didn¡¯t have to say anything upon entering. Without looking at him, she said, ¡°She still doesn¡¯t know you¡¯re not you.¡±

    Lucius sat in another of the chairs. ¡°Let me ask you a question. If your brother had tried courting Felicia, would she have even considered him?¡±

    ¡°No,¡± she said. Then she turned to face him. ¡°I know you¡¯ve told me before, but you didn¡¯t kill my brother, did you?¡±

    ¡°It wasn¡¯t me. I was busy stealing his armor when he marched into a riot and got his head cut off in the mess.¡±

    ¡°Mother must have asked me a hundred times while you were away just what happened to change you. She wants me to go back home when she leaves. The only reason she hasn¡¯t already gone back is because I won¡¯t go with her. I keep telling her I don¡¯t want to go back just to get poisoned. Speaking of, have you heard anything.¡±

    ¡°Nothing. I imagine I won¡¯t hear from him until he¡¯s back himself.¡±

    ¡°And what if he¡¯s dead?¡± she asked, almost jumping out of her chair.

    Lucius scoffed. ¡°He¡¯s not dead.¡±

    ¡°Damn you, Lucius, or whatever your real name is! Do you even realize what you¡¯ve done? I¡¯d say I should have never gone to see you, except I know that I¡¯d probably be dead within the year even if I had stayed home. The entire world is falling apart right now!¡±

    His expression softened and he looked at Aria. The cracks were finally enough for him to see through. ¡°What¡¯s happening now would have happened regardless. Maybe not this year, but it would have happened. I assure you.¡±

    Tears brimming, she asked, ¡°And how do you know that?¡±

    ¡°Birth rates. The point of no return was passed before either of us were even born. When Vassermark was founded, over seven hundred years ago, everyone was considered nobility. A blip quickly rectified as criminals were stripped of their status. Because the reason for class divide was manifest, the difference was absolute. The temples ruled back then. Their role changed as they developed their alchemy. A division formed between temple and state. Divine right was maintained through the crown, but it wasn¡¯t always the Arandalls. They¡¯ve only ruled for the last two centuries or so. In the beginning, the duty of the nobility was war and prosperity. The great had to lead. Every conflict winnowed their numbers until the lower class had to be levied. They were granted rights in exchange. Again, a further class of undesirables was created to separate the citizens from the criminals. Generation after generation, the ratio of nobility to citizen shrank until your generation which didn¡¯t even replace itself. Farmers are having seven kids per coupling and even after disease takes its toll, the fate is for the citizens of Vassermark to be all that there is. Even now, they constitute the vast majority of all positions, both in state and in temple. They form their own unions and corporations to govern their own affairs. There is no competency difference between the children of nobility and the children of the people. You see it for yourself in every lecture. Tests are graded fairly. The common students exceed the nobility nearly every time. There are no blessings reserved by the gods for the nobility, none that are manifest at least. Most don¡¯t even have stigmata. That¡¯s one of the reasons people accepted me. They wanted to believe that a noble miraculously discovered an innate talent, both in terms of war and from the gods. They wanted to believe that their children could surge forth. Until recently, not one family would dare suggest that my stigmata was evidence that I was not Lucius¡­ Aria, this is a storm that was coming, and all anyone can do is grab hold of enough strength to weather it.¡±(1)

    She wiped away her tears and composed herself. ¡°And that¡¯s what you¡¯ve done, is it? Grabbed power?¡± All he could do was smile and turn up his hands, which hardly satisfied her. ¡°Why do you even put up with me? I could testify against you.¡±

    ¡°By the time you met me, I was beyond worrying about some sort of court case. I can¡¯t be brought to trial. Perhaps another man would have killed you before an issue could arise, but I had wronged you and the thought of compounding that crime sickened me.¡±

    ¡°He¡¯s just weak to a pretty face,¡± Lupa said from the doorway. ¡°Lu, there¡¯s someone at the door. She said she¡¯s here to apply to be a maid.¡±

    ¡°And you didn¡¯t turn her away?¡±

    ¡°You should see her,¡± Lupa said, and that got him on his feet. He made a few strides to leave, turned back to Aria and said, ¡°If it puts you at ease, I promise you that I have no ill intentions toward you and never have. If I was worried you¡¯d conspire against me, I would have prevented you from coming here to Forum at all, much less have tea with the other nobility.¡±

    She sank into her chair. ¡°If only that was what the gossip was about.¡±

    She didn¡¯t elaborate and Lucius exchanged a look with Lupa, which she understood to be him asking her to get the explanation out of Aria. Then, he returned to the front hall and found a woman the age of Lady Solhart standing with her hands clasped to keep them from shaking. She was still in a traveling cloak, snow dripping off of it. Her cheeks and nose were both rosy from the cold, but there was no luster of life in her eyes, only sorrow. ¡°I¡¯m not here to be a maid,¡± she said.

    Habit drew Lucius¡¯ hands to his sides but he had no weapons on him. They were close enough at hand however. ¡°Is that so?¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re being monitored. I thought an excuse would be prudent.¡±

    ¡°Only if you have something to conceal.¡±

    Her lips pressed into a line. She attempted to speak several times before she said, ¡°You investigated the murder of a professor recently. Three of you, I¡¯m told, but I was told that you were the only trustworthy one among them, so I¡¯ve come to you.¡±

    ¡°Why don¡¯t you come into this room? We¡¯ve a fire going,¡± he said, and brought her to the dining room where she could sit down.

    The woman revealed her fatigue as she sat down and took off her gloves. Her skin was pale for lack of blood, but she made no complaint. ¡°You don¡¯t know this, but the man who was killed was my husband.¡±

    ¡°The professor?¡±

    ¡°The neighbor. I¡¯m sorry, but everyone was tight lipped about it¡­ you won¡¯t be happy with the reason. My husband was a soldier, but he deserted. They didn¡¯t catch him, but they did seize the property. It was supposed to be auctioned off, but I think the person responsible was killed back at the rebellion. The property was just locked up and forgotten, so my husband returned to it and was living in squalor while he tried to find some kind of solution. I was ashamed of him, living with my uncle instead. I know he should have been sentenced to death, but to be stabbed and left like that. That¡¯s not justice, Sir Solhart!¡±

    Lucius¡¯ eyes had narrowed as his thoughts deepened. ¡°Which army did he desert from? Was it mine?¡±

    She shook her head. ¡°Certainly not. He served under the prince. Prince Gabriel that is. In a few of his letters, he said Gabriel had lost his way, that he was insulting the kingdom with his actions. I believe there was some trouble with a troll at one point and in the confusion, he escaped in the night. Apparently many men had been killed in a swamp and he thought he wouldn¡¯t be missed. He may have been right, but¡­ it doesn¡¯t matter anymore.¡±

    ¡°Did you come here to confess on his behalf?¡±

    She shook her head. ¡°I have a description of the men that went in and came out of my former home. But what was strange was that the man who went in, he had the look of the east and was short but not unnaturally short, was never seen again. Instead, it was my husband who was seen leaving, before his body was found in the very house he had left!¡±

    Lucius smiled and began interrogating the woman on every detail she could provide. She hadn¡¯t been the witness, but she gave him directions on how to contact the firsthand witness. When she had relieved herself of the information, he offered her some food and sent her on her way with a recommendation to the Wavefront Corporation for employment. He couldn¡¯t hire her as a maid, but he made a promise that he would repay her in time.

    When he returned to Aria and Lupa, his smile was hardly appropriate for the mood, but he couldn¡¯t help it. ¡°I¡¯ll be dueling Feugard¡¯s champion soon. Will you be in attendance, Aria?¡±

    ¡°I will be,¡± Lupa declared.

    Aria nodded. ¡°Felicia asked me to go with her. You¡¯re going to win, right?¡±

    ¡°More than you can imagine. If you can, you should prepare a wager on me. What I¡¯ll do to the Feugards is something you can actually blame me for. In this case, protecting the Solhart family honor is in my own best interests. I simply suggest you capitalize on it.¡±

    <hr>

    <ol>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">An entirely correct analysis. Any reporting to the contrary is either a fool¡¯s mistake, or propaganda.</li>

    </ol>

 6-13 - The Duel of Blades

    ¡°Good evening, ladies and gentlemen and the people they pay to spend time with,¡± Lucius said. His voice filled the theater before laughter in the back filled it even more. He stood with his hands clasped behind his back and smiled, not out of cordiality with his peers at the academy who had come to see him cut down, but out of distant irony. Of all the skills he possessed, showmanship he learned before he met me.

    The night of the duel had come, the Quartz Bowl was more packed than an evening ball put on by the king himself, even the former king. The children of the nobility had come in part to see Lucius humiliated, but primarily to judge the Feugards. The Wavefront Corporation had done an excellent job driving up demand for the tickets with a simple scheme. The theater only had so many box seats and when the first nobles sent runners to buy them up, they were told they had already been reserved. This was true, but the reservations hadn¡¯t been put by the respective users destined for the box. The corporation had pre-emptively reserved them on their behalf, and when those nobles did ask, with a sly smile they were told that one of the reservations had just been cancelled and a box had opened up. Intrigue blossomed around who had been the first to get their seats and eventually, a good portion of the entire student body had arrived to the duel, with their guards in tow. The guards required tickets as well, of course.

    The row of seats closest to the theater stand had been removed, ostensibly for the safety of the viewers. In the heat of the duel, a blade might go flying and injure someone. It was purely coincidental this allowed gambling bookies to swarm between the seats and vanish like stagehands with their purses full and their receipt books empty. Some were betting with their guts and others were hedging their bets.

    Lucius had them all in the palm of his hand.

    ¡°Our kingdom is distressed, fracturing from within. We¡¯re turning on one another when our blades should be pointed out. Spring is nearly upon us. The people of Vassermark will be busy in the fields, plowing and planting and much other work foreign to those of you who bought seats here tonight. Fret not, I¡¯m not here to harangue you. One of the roles of nobility is to do as the king bids, and the king himself approved of this duel knowing that it would be a spectacle.¡±

    ¡°Lucius von Solhart, your impudence proves no end,¡± Jules Feugard declared as he marched out from the back of the stage. His timing was nearly that of a script, unintentionally mesmerizing the audience as he tried to suck away Lucius¡¯ presence. He appeared in no armor, though Lucius was similarly ungirded. ¡°You must be running your mouth now because you know they will be your last words.¡±

    ¡°Master Feugard, what do you mean?¡± Lucius asked, his tone plainly sarcastic. ¡°This duel is only to the first blood. Has Vassermark not shed enough blood this winter?¡±

    Jules¡¯ face darkened to the color of wine. ¡°Because of filth like you! You poisoned the king and stand here like a hero. All of you, don¡¯t think for a moment that he was the one that arranged this theater. He let commoners do it for profit! He doesn¡¯t even have his own domain. After tonight, if I ever get my hands on the owner of the Wavefront Corporation, I¡¯ll have him chained up for treason, for letting you act like this.¡±

    Lucius laughed. ¡°Still having trouble with shipments? How strange. Everyone was eager to do business with me¡­¡±

    ¡°Because you were giving away land claimed by the king!¡±

    Lucius shrugged. ¡°I never heard him complain about it. I was facilitating the expansion of the empire, denying refuge to pirates, and helped to make the winter garden of our kingdom. Even today, crops are being grown in the Misty Isles and eaten on the border with Skaldheim. Unless your control of the shipments has so vanished¡­¡±

    The room was filled with murmuring and Jules knew he didn¡¯t have the wit to duel with words, so he changed tactics. ¡°We¡¯re here for a duel. Honor will be sated with blood. I see you aren¡¯t armored, so I presume you have nominated a champion? Perhaps that northern brute you use as a doorguard?¡±

    Lucius turned to the premier box and called out, ¡°Leomund, was I supposed to wear armor tonight?¡±

    The swordmaster leaned out from the box and called back, ¡°You said it wouldn¡¯t be sporting.¡±

    ¡°Well there you have it,¡± Lucius said, turning to the crowd as he spoke before facing Jules once more. The reaction was mixed, but that was no worry.

    Jules raised his voice. ¡°You have insulted my family. You spoiled the king¡¯s lands in the south, and you are making a mockery of this duel. When this fight is over you will be nothing, Lucius von Solhart.¡±

    Lucius lowered his voice and looked into Jules¡¯ eyes. ¡°I¡¯ve been nothing before. You think I¡¯m afraid of that?¡± Then he crossed the stage and had his blade tossed up to him. He had opted to use the familiar weight of an infantry blade rather than a dueling saber. All with martial training knew the heavier blade only had an advantage in a fight to the death. It would be slow to defend against the minor cuts that could win a duel to first blood. ¡°Well, Jules, you¡¯re the one that wanted this indoors. When do I get to meet your champion?¡±

    ¡°Come out,¡± Jules ordered, and a fully armored woman walked out from the curtains at the back of the stage. She was in ornate armor, cladding her head to toe without any skin showing. Where the plates didn¡¯t cover, white silk puffed out. While they seemed like good targets, the silk was there to ensnare the blade and hide chain underneath. The female knight was a testament to the Feugard¡¯s wealth, a display of their power.

    Lucius took his shirt off and tossed it aside. He stood bare chested in the candlelight of the theater and smiled at his opponent. He smiled because his guess had been correct. He knew who she was.

    ¡°If you¡¯re expecting sympathy from me when you lose, you¡¯ll regret it, Solhart. I will take from you your lands, your property. I¡¯ll even have you on the street with those whores you live with!¡± Jules shouted.

    ¡°Oh no, I might have to move in with my mother¡­ wait, isn¡¯t that what you did after you were recalled? No, I must be mistaken. The mighty Feugards must have an excess of vacation homes they leave empty.¡±

    The room laughed at first, but it died off as a representative of the Wavefront Corporation walked up the steps to the stage. He cleared his throat and addressed the crowd. ¡°Tonight, I have the distinct honor of officiating this duel with the approval of his majesty the king. As both the challenger and the challenged have partial ownership in the Wavefront Corporation, that stake is included to equal degree and to the victor they will go. Additionally, some fifty acres of farmland have been put on the line, in each other¡¯s domain. The victor will be decided by first blood.¡±This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

    The land was unknown to Lucius, but confirmed by Lady Solhart in the weeks prior. It meant little to him regardless, for there were much greater things to be won as he faced Jules¡¯ champion from ten paces away. Both drew their blades and discarded their sheathes as the crowd whispered that there was no penalty for killing the other, as was typical for duels.

    ¡°Both parties have brought their own medical services? Well then, you may commence at the drop,¡± the officiator said as he took off the felt cap he wore, held it out, and released it.

    The female lunged forward, her foot crashing against the stage as her blade feinted forward but met no opposition. Lucius took a leisurely step forward, his stance lowering. The woman lunged again, blade shooting out like a spear. Lucius tracked back, circling the stage as he refused to meet her blade. He let his own dip and circle and he never flinched from steel darting a mere hand¡¯s spawn from his own nose not only because of his typical callousness to the threat of death but because he trusted his judgement of their distance.

    She wasn¡¯t trying to cut open his face, and the reason why manifested the moment she did force Lucius to defend himself. Their steel clashed and Lucius leaned. He had to jump about, landing so haphazardly he should have fallen. Again, their steel clashed as he turned aside her blade and his lean swung the other way. On the third clash, Lucius tore a patch of silk from her elbow, exposing the chain below but he was unable to press the attack. He had to throw his hand back and grab onto one of the pillars holding the viewing boxes.

    His feet lifted off the ground and he dangled like a flag, swinging himself onto the side of the pillar as the woman cut her sword toward his boots. The theater gasped as he stood, perched like a bird, perfectly perpendicular to the ground.

    The fight continued, with Lucius leaping about like a circus performer, but the secret was out. From mouth to ear the whispered name spread. The woman was Ashlynn Schwarz, the Flying Blade and one of those tasked with killing Lucius should the king order it. Among the nobility of the north, she was the most famous of those scouted by the king. Her stigmata did not only work upon her enemies. When turned upon herself, she had the appearance of flight.

    When he leapt down, which was actually across the stage, she delivered the coup de grace of her skill. Their blades crashed and Lucius careened upward until his boots landed upon the roof some forty feet above the stage.

    Jules guffawed, clapping his hands together as he jumped back on the stage. ¡°You¡¯ve lost, Solhart.

    Lucius stood up, craning his head to look down at Jules. ¡°I¡¯m not bleeding yet,¡± he declared.

    Ashlynn stepped to the side and ended the spell. At once, gravity returned to normal.

    Lucius plummeted, twisting around in the air. Women cried out as he fell to apparent death. When he hit the stage, it was feet first, hard enough to shatter the wood of the stage as well as his shin. He buckled with a grunt, ending up on one knee.

    ¡°There!¡± Jules shouted. ¡°First blood!¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m not bleeding,¡± Lucius growled.

    The officiator cleared his throat. ¡°He is correct. A broken bone is not enough¡­¡±

    ¡°Finish him,¡± Jules hissed, and Ashlynn stepped forward. She made a simple cut, cleaving down at his face since he couldn¡¯t possibly retreat.

    Lucius caught the blade in his hand and held it. She yanked it back, drawing a cut across his palm, but he rose up on his one good leg, still gripping her blade, and hammered his own sword down on her shoulder. Ashlynn buckled to the ground and he pulled the sword from her grasp before falling atop her. With his knee to her chest, he grabbed her helmet and ripped it off. He smirked at her surprise then pinched her lip with his thumbnail hard enough to break the skin and make her bleed.

    Jules flew into a rage as half the room cheered. ¡°The duel was to first blood, you animal. You¡¯ve lost. You¡¯ve lost twice over!¡±

    ¡°Giorno, care to take a look?¡± Lucius said as he shifted his weight off Ashlynn.

    The officiator ignored Jules and peered down at the dribble of blood now adorning the shocked face of Ashlynn. ¡°Blood has been drawn, and I don¡¯t think medical attention will be¨C¡±

    ¡°His hand!¡± Jules demanded.

    Giorno gestured and Lucius released the blade. When he turned the palm up, he looked down at it, then announced, ¡°There is no blood. The winner is¨C¡±

    ¡°He just healed it. When my champion pulled her blade I saw it move. It would have sliced his palm open.¡±

    Giorno frowned such that his mustache could easily be seen to curl in condescension to all the crowd. ¡°I am quite familiar with Master Solhart¡¯s ability. I didn¡¯t say there was no cut, I said there was no blood. He might be able to heal wounds but he doesn¡¯t suck the blood back into his body. Had the blade drawn blood, you would be able to see it. Look for yourself.¡±

    Jules did. His rage deepened. He scowled at Lucius. ¡°What did you do to your hand?¡±

    ¡°A swordmaster¡¯s hands are quite calloused, like any working profession,¡± Lucius said as he reveled in the reveal.

    ¡°This aren¡¯t callouses. That can hardly even be called flesh!¡±

    Lucius shrugged. ¡°Even if it wasn¡¯t my own flesh, and I assure you it is, then what would be the crime? Your champion emerged in a cage of steel about every inch of her body. I had to strip her of her helmet merely to nick her.¡±

    At a loss, Jules demanded the medics appraise it, and both physicians hurried on stage. Sammy didn¡¯t even need to take a look at it, though the other doctor made a number of faces as he prodded the hardened flesh. ¡°It¡¯s scar tissue from chemical burns,¡± Sammy said, and a moment later the other doctor concurred.

    ¡°A most ghastly wound, my lord. I¡¯ve seen similar injuries before, from working in the alchemical labs. A few men have tried to make stronger concrete and ended up reducing their own flesh to stone. The fact that he can move it at all is a miracle. Much more and amputation would be required. Behold¡­ if I may,¡± the doctor said as he produced a small knife. With Lucius¡¯ consent, he flicked the blade against the scar tissue, producing a chipping sound as if he had struck stone.

    Jules shouted, ¡°You conspired with that bitch you brought from my gold factory!¡±

    ¡°Master Feugard,¡± Theo Montem said, standing up from one of the viewing boxes. ¡°On behalf of the dean of this academy, I suggest you retract your statement. It is unsightly to insult the faculty, just as it is unsightly to hire one of the king¡¯s own knights for your personal gains.¡± His second comment was for Ashlynn, who had gotten to her feet and stood glowering.

    The officiator cleared his throat. ¡°The honor of victory goes to Lucius von Solhart! Master Solhart, congratulations on your additional five percent stake in the corporation, your new home and I thank you for such a splendid display of god-blessed fighting prowess. Both you and the lady were dazzling.¡±

    Lucius turned to the crowd as Jules began to come to terms with his defeat. ¡°The gods may have blessed me, but now would you all allow me to bless you with more entertainment this night?¡± On his signal, Miss Lynnfield stepped onto the stage and handed him the envelope the king had given him. ¡°This is from the king, to be opened after the duel,¡± he said and beckoned over the officiator. He cracked the seal and stifled a laugh.

    The contents were better than he could have hoped. As much the king hated Lucius, he also hated the Feugards, the family that had been almost absent from the slaughter that had taken the life of King Charles von Arandall. Their father had been there as a sacrifice to the younger generation.

    In a quavering voice, Giorno read out, ¡°A second duel has been approved by the king, between Lucius von Solhart and Jules II von Feugard, for dishonoring the dignity of the kingdom at a time of crisis. The duel is to be fought immediately and to the death. If¡­ if either side surrenders, they relinquish all of their holdings and status unto the king.¡±

 6-14 - The Second Duel

    While Jules struggled to believe the king had turned on him, and in a sense his suspicion was correct but I will return to that matter, Lucius gave his attention over to Ashlynn. The theater was so loud he could have a quiet conversation with her and not worry of being overheard. None could believe what had happened.

    ¡°Was it money?¡± he asked. Despite the slight rise to her heels that her armor gave her, she was of modest stature and he could loom over her. ¡°I know you¡¯ve fought for the Feugards before, but the reason you joined the king was because you quit their forces. You must not have liked the way they put down dissent. So, money?¡±

    She refused to look at him, but answered none the less. ¡°Yes.¡±

    ¡°Next time, choose a master with actual power. Now, a gift!¡± His voice rose, the incongruity drawing attention. Even Jules looked up, thinking the second duel but a ploy and Lucius was then revealing his intentions. ¡°The duel was exhilarating, the links of which I haven¡¯t felt since I was at war for our kingdom. In pure skill with the blade, I have met few better but, as at the Wallows last year, skill is never enough on its own. My gift to you, Lady Ashlynn, is a lesson earned with but a drop of blood.¡± He held out his scarred hand. When she tentatively accepted and squeezed the calloused mass of flesh that had made her lose the fight, he said, ¡°May you not forget the value of it.¡± In a voice only for her, he added, ¡°Or who has real power.¡±

    Lynnfield¡¯s blade rang out from its sheathe, sweeping up and cleaving through his forearm. Lucius did not even grunt in pain and Ashlynn was left holding his severed hand. She shrieked and jumped back, dropping it to the ground.

    Lucius grinned and held out his stump. Sammy had already rushed back to the stage and wasted no time in applying a tourniquet. ¡°Calm down. It had to be cut off regardless. Forgive me for my showmanship. You get up on this stage and you just want to make a scene.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯ve lost your mind, Solhart!¡± Theo Montem roared as he clambered onto the stage.

    ¡°This?¡± Lucius asked, holding up his arm. ¡°You see much worse than this at war, even at riots. Much, much worse. This is nothing compared to the Bureaucrat''s Coup. At least my hand will come back in time. Besides, my opponent needs an advantage. He has few enough of his own,¡± he said as he turned to face Jules Feugard.

    Ashlynn recovered herself, she had seen far worse. The heat of battle had merely waned and surprise seized her. The women in the audience did not compose themselves as well. Indeed, the seating area was a mess of people attempting to excuse themselves from the impending duel. The idea that Jules Feugard might win the fight was in nobody¡¯s mind.

    Not even his own.

    ¡°Take up your sword, Feugard! Defend your family¡¯s honor, your own honor. I¡¯m down one arm and already tired from a fight. You¡¯ll never get a better chance. This is the king¡¯s order!¡± Lucius roared as the others cleared the stage and left the nobleman alone. Theo put a hand to his own blade, anger brimming up through his feigned stoicism.

    Jules had not the strength to move.

    Lucius pressed him. ¡°This whole duel was your idea, you trembling coward. Giorno! Are you going to just stand there? Officiating is your job, isn¡¯t it? Come now. We two are to fight!¡±This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

    The commoner was every bit as surprised by the affair as anyone. Rather than feeling the danger to his own life, he acutely sensed that he had just been made party to the downfall and disgrace of one of the heirs to the second most powerful noble family in the realm. ¡°Yes, of course¡­¡± he said, edging closer.

    ¡°Theo!¡± Lucius snapped, setting his gaze on him. ¡°Perhaps you¡¯ll offer Jules your blade? Since you seem about to draw it regardless. I don¡¯t think he brought one for himself. If you don¡¯t, perhaps I¡¯ll give him my own sword. Two advantages for him! That would almost make it a fair fight.¡±

    ¡°I surrender,¡± Jules said.

    All upon the stage turned to him, though he had said it too quietly for the audience to hear. They could see the dead stare in his eyes though.

    ¡°Come again, Master Feugard?¡± Giorno said, yearning to hear those words again.

    Jules reached to his breast and pulled off the golden broach bearing his family¡¯s sigil. He dropped it on the ground. Lucius put down his arms. Theo relaxed. Giorno nearly leapt for glee as he turned to the crowd and announced, ¡°Jules Feugard has forfeited the match. Thank you all for coming. Bets will be paid out in the west exit hall.¡±

    The former Feugard walked solemnly out the back of the stage. Some among the crowd had been so enraged by the terms of the duel they might have charged the stage had Lucius killed him, but his soft surrender quenched the fires. No applause filled the Quartz Bowl, but some lingered in their seats longer than others.

    Lucius was able to retire to one of the actor¡¯s rooms. The theater¡¯s director was supposed to be there, but excused himself citing the stress was too much for him to handle. While Sammy was complimenting his lover¡¯s ability to cut off an arm, the whole household piled into the relatively small room.

    Leomund took one look at the wound and shrugged. ¡°You could have just grappled.¡±

    ¡°I would have looked like a brute,¡± Lucius said as he drank down a glass of wine laced with laudenum to help with the pain.

    ¡°You looked like a brute regardless,¡± Aisha said, cradling their sleeping child to her chest.

    Lucius grinned. ¡°When I was to fight Jules. Being a brute to an oaf is acceptable, but not to a lady.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re insane, and¡­¡± Felicia said as she squeezed around the edge of the group.

    ¡°And?¡± Lucius responded.

    She sighed. ¡°And I¡¯m far wealthier because of it. What is Austin going to say about this?¡±

    ¡°Nothing at all. You think the king isn¡¯t having discussions about what the future of this kingdom is? There¡¯s two women to every man at this academy, but Jules could never be married off safely. To any woman in the kingdom with a mote of power, he wouldn¡¯t make an alliance, he would inevitably make an enemy. I doubt I¡¯ll be getting any public appreciation from them, but I don¡¯t expect any problems.¡±

    Lucius was correct in his assessment of the Feugards, but his life would hardly have been worth writing about if there were no problems. That night there were none however.

    Lupa asked if he needed help regenerating, but Leomund didn¡¯t let her. ¡°Don¡¯t let his blood get your nice dress,¡± he said before wrapping an arm around the boy¡¯s throat. Aisha turned away and encouraged Felicia to do so as well, but she insisted on watching as the blood was cut from Lucius¡¯ head. He thrashed as Sammy quickly undid the tourniquet and the raw flesh soon rippled and bulged. Fat was sucked off his body as his stump regrew into a thin hand. The process took a good deal of time even after he was set back in the chair, half-conscious while the pain-killer was expelled from his body.

    When it was done, he looked as if he had spent weeks marching on half-rations and he once again looked around the room. ¡°Where¡¯s Aria?¡±

    ¡°With your mother,¡± Felicia answered. ¡°I think she fainted when you were screaming at Jules.¡±

    ¡°Lovely. Well, I say it¡¯s time for some food and some drink,¡± Lucius declared, and led them out of the theater.

    When they were out on the street he turned back, seeking the eyes of Theo Montem. He knew the man was furious with the night¡¯s events, but no eyes glared back at him. Not that he saw.

 6-15 - Interruptions

    Felicia and Lucius were having dinner together a few days later. Their restaurant of choice was a recently refurbished restaurant purchased by the Wavefront Corporation built around a trio of chefs intent on proving their culinary worth. One old, a former chef of the Ashe family, and two young, brother and sister from Portacheval but learned of southern style cooking. Lucius liked the latter because his campaigns through Giordana had given him a taste for the spices, and he liked the former because the man was filled with memories of serving the young Ashe children.

    Indeed, I would have seen to this man¡¯s dismissal because he was the very chef present in the palace when Lucius kept there like a toy soldier in his youth, but the boy was getting reckless. There wasn¡¯t very much time left before the subterfuge of his stolen identity would be at an end so he evaluated the risk low and knowledge of the queen-to-be high.

    I would have further advised that such a location was not a fitting place to court another woman, but as he told me in later years he wanted to make her familiar with his true past, even if she didn¡¯t know it. As for how his courtship fared, I know little of the specifics. I have neither his memories nor hers but this fateful day I know rather well.

    They had naught but bones left in the bowl between them. Lamb bones picked clean of their marrow and but a small pile of tomato sauce covered in congealing fat that resisted the mopping touch of bread. Their gossip of the other students had run its course, and Lucius had little to say of recent murders in the city. At last she asked from deep inside her heart, ¡°How did you get used to dying?¡±

    Lucius hadn¡¯t drunk enough wine to lose his wits, but after months of relative sobriety, compared to his time in the Misty Isles, his tolerance had waned. For a moment, he stared at the soft flesh of his left hand, dotted with fresh blisters as though he were a novice swordsman just taking up a blade once more. ¡°I had to. Everything changed that night in Puerto Faro. We were overextended, in hostile territory. The uprising was far beyond what we could have dealt with in open battle, let alone when half the men were ambushed. I had to lead the men west, to Rackvidd, but not just on a march. We were harried and chased. We fought and fought and I had to do it from the front. I had no reputation for battle to rely on then. When I got in the melees, it wasn¡¯t like fighting a duel. They¡¯re horrible, bloody things. You get attacked from behind the moment ranks break. I was probably killed more times than I even realized. It¡¯s easy to miss injuries once the healing has begun. And then there were incidents like the scorpion. When I lose a limb, the healing might stop short the way a regular man would scar over a stump. The stigmata has to be instigated to do more.¡±

    She was leaned heavily on the table, her eyes fastened to him. ¡°It¡¯s one thing for a man to be brave enough to fight from the front. Foolishness can suffice. How do you intentionally kill yourself, though?¡±

    Another had joined them in the room, the old chef. Lucius adjusted his attitude at once. ¡°Well, I¡¯m not really dying, for one thing.¡±

    ¡°A most god-blessed power you have, m¡¯lord,¡± the old chef said as he circled the table, taking stock of what had been eaten and in what proportions. ¡°I still pity that lad¡­¡±

    ¡°Jarnpojke?¡± Felicia asked.

    ¡°Yes¡­¡± the chef said, before his white brow furrowed. ¡°Are you familiar with him?¡±

    ¡°You¡¯ve spoken of him before,¡± she said.

    ¡°Yes. Yes, I have, but I always struggled to remember his name.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s a common name,¡± Lucius said as he refilled his glass. ¡°Not the kind of name you find in palaces, but many a child at the bottom has it. You probably dismissed it as wrong, like you would dismiss a Louie or a Jon.¡±

    ¡°Frederika Ashe remembers him too,¡± Felicia said, watching Lucius from the corner of her eye.

    ¡°Maybe he died recently,¡± Lucius said.

    Felicia grimaced. ¡°Why would you suggest that?¡±

    He tapped his chest. ¡°I wasn¡¯t born with this stigmata, and it¡¯s very unusual. In fact, nobody else has even heard of a healing ability as strong as mine. Maybe the reason I got the power when I did was because the original user perished. Not even the angels know how the gods distribute these powers. Then again, mine seems to be stronger than his¡­¡±

    The chef cleared his throat, ¡°Perhaps the two of you would care for dessert?¡±

    ¡°Something with a cream topping, please,¡± she said, her mood brightening at once.

    Dessert did not arrive however. The rigorous marching of iron boots echoed through the restaurant. Lucius set his drink down and ordered Felicia to the back corner. He faced the door, one hand on his blade, and was entirely unsurprised to see Theo Montem enter with four of the Warden Blades. An entire contingent of the town guard filled and surrounded the establishment.

    He smirked. ¡°Did I miss a shift? I swear I took this time off on the schedule.¡±

    Theo smirked back at him. ¡°Lucius von Solhart, I am placing you under arrest.¡±Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

    ¡°For what? And under whose authority?¡±

    ¡°He hasn¡¯t done anything!¡± Felicia shouted, but she didn¡¯t approach. She knew Lucius might need to draw his blade and gave him the room he would need.

    Theo held out a signed writ of arrest. ¡°Conspiracy against the crown, for your speech at the Quartz Bowl. This is under the king¡¯s authority, but a dozen different noble families reported your stunt and demanded action be taken against that slanderous tongue.¡±

    ¡°So, the king is arresting me? I¡¯m to be taken back to the capital? And here I thought I was being kept away. He must appreciate my games.¡±

    ¡°There¡¯s five of us, Lucius, don¡¯t make this hard,¡± the Steel Blade, Lyam, said.

    Lucius scanned the group once more. ¡°Well, I suppose we did lose one friend, haven¡¯t we? Don¡¯t tell me Miss Ashlynn was afraid to come for this? I barely hurt her.¡±

    ¡°Hey now, I like foreplay but if you¡¯re going to lead us on you¡¯d better be planning to put up a fight,¡± the Blade of Night, Jon Brume said as he pulled one of his daggers.

    Theo made no move to stop the man, but Lucius merely shrugged. ¡°Did I give off the impression I was going to resist? I have nothing to fear from the king.¡±

    There were many scenarios that Lucius had come to expect for the day Theo would simply try to have him killed, but he knew the man would be meticulous and would never rely on a brute force confrontation. To simply barge in with superior forces was the plan of the king, because it was a plan that had the least amount of time between delivering the order and either succeeding or failing. Theo, he expected, would ambush him. A cannon hidden in the back of a cart perhaps, or poison in his food. To simply march the warden blades up to him, and among them the most dangerous to Lucius, was not Theo¡¯s style.

    ¡°You could end up in Donjon,¡± the Troll Blade said, his voice rumbling through the visor of his helm. He alone stood as if not poised to fight. He was armed as he had been in the north where he had served the Ashe family hunting the fire-worshipping beasts for which he had been named. He had been most useful there, and for the same reason was the most dangerous to Lucius as he possessed the power to prevent healing. Against trolls, it meant their moss-covered hides could not close up with scar tissue and it was believed that Lucius¡¯ stigmata would be similarly inhibited.

    The particular interaction between their abilities had not been tested however.

    ¡°If he wished to send me to Donjon, then perhaps then there will be a fight. But, if he just wants an audience with me he could have just sent a letter.¡±

    ¡°In chains?¡± Theo demanded.

    ¡°Until I rip them off,¡± Lucius responded.

    The Steel Blade stepped forward, and Theo snarled at him. ¡°What are you doing, Lyam?¡±

    ¡°Arresting him. That¡¯s my job, isn¡¯t it,¡± the knight said as he took his hand from his blade and produced a pair of steel manacles.

    Then all watched as Lucius held out his wrists and allowed the irons to be fastened onto him. It escaped nobody¡¯s notice that the steel merely covered his wrists, far less than he was willing to have hacked off just to make a point.

    By the end of the night, everyone who mattered and most of the rest in Forum had heard that Lucius had been arrested. While most correctly assumed it was for the duel, theories ranged from conspiring with the enemy during his previous campaign, to rape. Little effort was needed to quell such rumors because those most offended by his display flaunted the fact that their complaints to the king had resulted in his arrest.

    Lucius made no demand of saying goodbye to his family. Such a request would have been weak and he presumed he would be back shortly. He never imagined how long it would take.

    It was seven days later when he was finally brought before the king in chains. There was little by way of audience. Guards and a view advisors whose faces he memorized, were in attendance although the grand hall had been used for the occasion. The king sat upon his throne and listened to the banal introductions. When the guard began announcing the crimes, the king interrupted. ¡°I don¡¯t need to hear those. I¡¯m the one who wrote them. You¡¯re making yourself an enemy of your peers, Lucius.¡±

    The boy shrugged. ¡°My peers, as you call them, are not equipped for the reality we¡¯re facing. You told me that we must prepare for war. The academy can barely hold their attention for the most basic of educations. Their violent vindications are entirely turned inward. We can¡¯t raise an army like this.¡±

    The king gestured and a piece of parchment was handed over to him. He didn¡¯t read it, just held it up. ¡°One of the complaints I got was most curious. It wasn¡¯t merely a request to lock you up or have your head cut off. It was a request that I detain you for your own good, that you had lost your mind and were a danger to those around you.¡±

    ¡°Most creative.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s from your mother.¡±

    The room was silent and in that moment, Lucius resolved himself on his course of action. What he said was, ¡°I¡¯m not on good terms with her. She wasn¡¯t happy I took a mistress.¡±

    The king scoffed. ¡°Of all the complaints, I¡¯d say it holds the most weight. She bothered to come to me rather than simply disowning you. You¡¯d have lost your rights. You¡¯d no longer be eligible to lead armies. The only money to your name would be whatever you¡¯ve stolen away while you were in the Misty Isles. Speaking of which, just how much of the Wavefront Corporation do you own?¡±

    ¡°Enough,¡± Lucius said. He scanned the room once more, but did not see the face of Frederika Ashe. ¡°It¡¯s not going to be a good look for you, my lord, if you punish me for fulfilling the terms of the duel you set out. Jules has been disgraced.¡±

    ¡°Yes, and he¡¯s making an uproar that such a decree is illegal. He thinks he still has the backing of his family.¡±

    ¡°Now, why would Austin want to share that power?¡± Lucius asked with a grin.

    Before the king could respond, the doors were opened with a bang. Acheliah strode in. She swept her gaze across the room as she crossed the hall. ¡°Don¡¯t look so smug,¡± she ordered as Lucius grinned at her.

    ¡°What brings you here, God-mother?¡± the king asked, his posture immediately poised.

    ¡°I have work for your hunting dog,¡± she said, and flicked her hand. The chains connected the manacles at Lucius¡¯ wrists shattered. She turned and strode back to the door.

    ¡°I¡¯ll need supplies,¡± Lucius said as followed after her.

    She glanced over her shoulder. ¡°The king will provide them.¡±

    Lucius turned at the door and gave an exaggerated bow. ¡°A pleasure to spend the king¡¯s coin,¡± he said, and left with the angel.

 6-16 - The Obsidian Grave Feaster

    The demon was in the south. Lucius was given only enough time to write letters recalling his soldiers and apologizing to his household. Of course, nothing of the purpose of his travel could be explained. Even more rumors spread throughout the kingdom when he was seen riding south under royal flags and they only grew more exaggerated when the king refused to explain the purpose.

    Lucius recalled one hundred of the wastelanders, choosing several of sound mind but primarily those who had barely moved past their slave-like existence in the desert. It slowed his pace to the Ashfall Mountains, but they stood the most to gain from the battle. They were also the most expendable.

    They travelled off the beaten path, to regions which only had the smallest of shrines to the water goddess, where clan heritage mattered more than loyalty to the crown. Several villages girded their walls only to watch as the company marched past them. Others prepared grand welcomes only to find themselves hosting the hero of Rackvidd, the one who slew the lord of the black keep.

    Half a dozen men challenged him to duels, but he deferred them all until after his duty was fulfilled, he even arranged to have their travel expenses to Forum covered so they could duel him there once the winter ended, though it was unlikely any would bother. Once planting season came, they would have their fill of excuses to not seek their own deaths.

    The further into the mountains they travelled, the less touch of Vassermark could be seen, until at last they came upon the village of Glasspeak. To the best of my knowledge, there exists nowhere in the world a map that still shows the way to Glasspeak. The people were reclusive to their little valley. Occupied with the raising of goats and the simple quarrying of stone to build their mansions. By size, they each rivaled the estates of nobles, but while they had gardens both for food and for pleasure, everywhere was stone and sand. Textiles were prized beyond measure, but the merchants demanded a high toll for the work of driving carts across the sloped roads.

    It was this isolation that made it so difficult for Acheliah to track the source of the demonic intrusion.

    There was much confusion upon his arrival. His name meant nothing to the locals save for two shepherds that had tried to sell their flocks close to Rackvidd. All recognized the royal seal however, and many weapons were secretly prepared with the expectation that they were to be put to harrowed for some unknowable reason. Lucius knew that he had to find the beast first, however, and had prepared.

    Among the packs carried by horse and ass were great heaps of textile bolts he had purchased on the way. Had he sold them anywhere, carrying the mark of the king, he would have made a profit, but nowhere in the kingdom could he have found more eager buyers than those with herds to slaughter and fill the stomachs of his men.

    The first night was a farce and he allowed them to believe the local temple was operating properly. This was despite the priest, as he was called, only having a crude translation from Vassish to the only Giordanan tongue, which even that he could scarcely pronounce, let alone preach. Pews were covered in sand and the idol of Sapphira was simply a carving of a woman made from a dried out stump some years prior.The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

    The true religious leader of the town was a grey bearded dwarf who didn¡¯t say a word to Lucius that first day. He pretended at senility, but never quite let the cadre of soldiers from his sight. It was him that rallied the local men the following morning when Lucius marched his men east to the old lava fields.

    It was a grand cemetery, in a sense. Other cultures have left their dead to be picked apart by vultures and drakes upon the stones of mountains, but the people of Glasspeak dug shallow graves amid black sand so that, in time a fresh layer of lava would flow over them. They believed the dead would thus be preserved for eternity(1). It was through one of these molten fissures in the firmament that the eager germ of a demon passed through. One can only guess how many centuries it took to become dislodged from the channels and break free beneath the sun, but when it did the ground could not have been more fertile.

    Centuries of souls beneath comparatively soft stone were like mother¡¯s milk to it.

    Lucius had to merely cut himself and cause the barest tremble of pull upon the power beneath the stone for it to burst free. I confess, when I learned of this I couldn¡¯t help but be proud of him. The method was simple enough, true, but he did it on his own.

    He described the creature as part worm and part insect. Chitin plated legs that tucked to the belly when not digging and scratching at the ground like a vermin chewing the shell from a nut. It was too big for its own good, the long tail struggling to unfurl from its nest as Lucius retreated from the undulating, lamprey like maw.

    Then, he used a strategy I can only describe as a slavish use of brute strength to quell and slay the beast. The cannons he had taken from the king¡¯s armor were a peculiar design intended for whaling, and thus launched tethered harpoons at speeds comparable to siege ballistae. Rather than have the other end tied to barrels to eventually exhaust the beast, the wastelanders grabbed onto the rope and pulled in every direction. If it tried to move forward, they pulled it back. Retreat was met with similar resistance. Thus, they held it in place with the combined strength of nearly a hundred men while a small crew loaded a single standard cannon and blasted slugs through its face.

    They had to replace the leyrods four times as they drove steel balls through the demon¡¯s twitching brain. When it collapsed, the fight wasn¡¯t yet done. Axemen were sent to the beast and they hacked through exposed muscle until they could rip off the legs, one by one until it was naught but a chitin-plated eel. The mindless savages had no desire for fire to cinder the meat. They tore into it with tooth and claw, filling their stomachs as the sun began to set.

    Lucius stayed close to the demon as it was butchered, but after a time, he exchanged cloak and helm with one of his subordinates and stole off into the hills. Up from the village came a skulking horde of vindictive men led by the wretched dwarf. True, the town¡¯s graveyard had been defiled, but more importantly the new patron god of their valley had been laid low. I believe they thought it was the second coming of their angel, a lesser creature whose name I don¡¯t even recall as they perished centuries prior.

    The boy, who had not exerted himself in the least against the demon, fell upon the traitorous locals. Between the obsidian hills, the only escape was into the arms of well fed wastelanders. All were dead by nightfall. Those of the village who resisted were crucified and the settlement put to the torch. As such, it is no longer upon any map except perhaps some apocryphal scraps to be sold to desperate treasure hunters gullible enough to think goat herders kept a stockpile of gold that Lucius von Solhart didn¡¯t bother to plunder.

    When Lucius returned to the north, it was with one hundred demonic soldiers at his back. They were thralls no more, but their minds were still like empty cups to be filled with the world.

    <hr>

    <ol>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">A nonsense belief. Their dead were quite thoroughly reduced to mere carbon by the heat.</li>

    </ol>

 6-17 - A Dangerous Game

    Murder had conspicuously stopped during the absence to the south. Between the time journeying and a few days in the capital seeing to the employment of his demonic troops, roughly a month had elapsed before Lucius returned to his family. Winter had begun to melt but buds refused to blossom. It seemed that only gossiping lips opened in Forum, for nobody could understand just what was the relation between Lucius and the king.

    The news that Acheliah herself had sent him on a mission contradicted with the story that the king had arrested him. The royal family was never in disharmony with the angel, despite the long history of disharmony. Even the belief that the letter ordering the second duel had been forged faltered with Austin Feugard arrived in Forum and slowly let the whole city know that he was grateful to Lucius for securing his control over his family¡¯s estate. Indeed, the report Lucius was given while in the capital, courtesy of the Wavefront Corporation, was that the Feugards were acting as though they were firm allies of the Solharts.

    Once he was on the road to Forum, Lucius couldn¡¯t help but ride through the night, changing horses three times and arriving at the city gates before the sun rose. There was no trouble at the walls, but an unknown man stood guard outside his manor. He approached slowly, as the guard wore an unmarked cloak of white rather than any noble house colors. Then he met the man¡¯s gaze and recognition flittered across both their faces.

    The guard snapped to attention, bringing a fist to his chest in salute before barking out, ¡°A pleasure to see you again, m¡¯lord.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re one of Raymi¡¯s men.¡±

    ¡°A joint assignment, m¡¯lord. Lady Felicia loaned me to your manor on account of her frequent visits and because I fought with you through the Wallows, m¡¯lord.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll have to get the full story in the morning. I¡¯ve yet to sleep. Is everyone who should be here, here?¡±

    ¡°Yes, m¡¯lord,¡± the guard said, pulling a key from his hip and unlocking the gate.

    Lucius urged his horses inside and guided them to the stables. Two would have to be returned, but that was a matter for the morning. The stables had a guard as well. A younger man with two cloaks wrapped around his slim frame as he huddled near a lamp. Much the same conversation repeated before Lucius could step inside his own home. When the door closed, Leomund said, ¡°Not very quiet, are they?¡±

    ¡°Guards shouldn¡¯t be quiet. Is everything good?¡± he asked, trying to pick out the features of his sword instructor from the shadows.

    ¡°No, but nothing can be done about it before the morning. It¡¯s a political matter. Don¡¯t lose sleep over it, and don¡¯t wake the kid.¡±

    Lucius was too fatigued to argue and crept up to the master bedroom. The door creaked as he opened it, but the bed didn¡¯t stir. There were two people sharing blankets and he recognized both. He grinned when he realized it was in fact three. Alexander was asleep in the arm of his mother and Lupa was on the opposite side. With a sigh, he accepted there was no room for him and sank into one of the chairs.

    He thought only a moment had passed but steel touched his throat. ¡°How did you get in here?¡± Lupa hissed, using the dagger to lift his chin.

    He scoffed. ¡°And who could stop me?¡±

    He could barely see her face in the pre-dawn light, but he heard the sharp inhalation. ¡°You!? You just show back up in the middle of the night like a burglar?¡± she demanded, slapping her hand on the desk.

    He winced. ¡°Don¡¯t wake¨C¡±

    Alexander began to cry and Aisha immediately rolled onto her side to comfort him. A moment later, both were fast asleep again. Lupa grabbed him by his shirt and pressed her forehead to his so she could whisper. ¡°Leomund was ready to go bring the palace down on top of the king himself!¡±This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

    ¡°Glad he didn¡¯t. Can we talk about this after I¡¯ve slept?¡± he asked. When she didn¡¯t respond, he gently pulled the dagger from his throat and kissed her. Promises of talking in the morning were exchanged and she helped him slip into the bed without waking the others. Lucius was once again asleep before he could even appreciate the peace.

    It was merely a few hours later when Aisha¡¯s hand found his arm and the familiar yet unexpected size. Her waking was anything but stealthy, bolting upright and flinging the blankets off. The whole manor was soon up with the mundane chaos of returning home and for a time there was simple peace.

    Leomund broached the news after they finished breakfast. ¡°The Feugard boy made his play while you were gone, and he did it publicly. Wasn¡¯t much we could do.¡± Lucius asked if he meant Jules, but Leomund said, ¡°The younger one, Austin. He¡¯s courting your sister.¡±

    Lucius felt the day¡¯s joy drain out of him and he shoved his plate away. ¡°I suppose I¡¯ll have to pay him a visit. When did this happen?¡±

    ¡°A day after the news arrived of you riding south under the king¡¯s banner,¡± Leomund said.

    ¡°Most people think it¡¯s a genuine interest in alliance,¡± Aisha said.

    Lupa snorted. ¡°It¡¯s not good for his image, if you ask me. Makes it look like you ruined his brother on his behalf.¡±

    ¡°I basically did,¡± Lucius said. Discussing what other people thought of the association was one part of it, but the greater issue was that Aria knew everything the king wanted to know about Lucius. Coercing answers out of those close to him wasn¡¯t something the king would do, especially now that Acheliah¡¯s position on the matter was known, but courtship wasn¡¯t coercion. ¡°I¡¯ll have to act before word gets out that I¡¯ve returned. Call in one of the guards. I¡¯ll exchange clothes with him,¡± he said, and the disguise was soon made.

    Alexander wasn¡¯t happy to see his father leave so soon, but there was little choice. With his face covered and the colors of the Raymi¡¯s upon his body, he strode through the mercantile district. The Wavefront Corporation had a storefront for selling various luxury goods such as winter fruits from the south. The building had offices, whereas the larger facility elsewhere in Forum traded like a warehouse at bulk rates. After a short meeting, Lucius was armed with enough coin to suit his purposes as well as the proper tavern to arrange a meeting.

    Bringing the men he needed while staying discrete necessitated a great expenditure of time. He made the most of it, after sending a preliminary message, by arriving at the manor of Felicia. Once through the door, he made no attempt to keep his appearance hidden and much the same excitement of reunitement occurred. While I won¡¯t labor the point of a young girl weeping with relief, there was eventually more purpose to their meeting than merely creating a red herring ruse for any that might have sniffed out that Lucius had snuck through the city in disguise.

    A letter had arrived from Golden. It read simply, ¡°I send this to you merely because word flies faster than horses. My return journey is by necessity circuitous. All will be explained.¡±

    Lucius understood the situation at once. Golden had committed some crime. The reason he had to take a long route north was to evade the authorities of the region. The former angel wouldn¡¯t be worried about dealing with bandits and the like, because they could just be killed, but Lucius opted to not explain the issue until he had to.

    Ultimately, he stayed long enough to relieve Felicia of her worries, then melded into the dusk foot traffic. It weighed on him to spend his first day back in Forum away from his family, but the anonymity was necessary. With the moon small upon the northern horizon, he was able to enter a shabby pub within a city block. The fires were warm and smoky, staining the rafters black as an old man played upon a truncated piano. His right hand played a dance melody too slow to stir anyone to their feet while his left handled his mug of ale. Lucius caught a glimpse of milky eyes staring at faded sheet music when he dropped a coin in his hat.

    Most tables were spread out, the customers hunkered down among one another. Most still had snow upon their cloaks and coats, but some had long since warmed up. That didn¡¯t mean they sat easily. Louie, Faezel¡¯s man in the town, was rigid when Lucius took his place across from him. ¡°I¡¯ve got a job for you. Pull it off, and you won¡¯t have to work for a long time.¡±

    ¡°The price of that has been going up.¡±

    ¡°I know. You and I know why that is, too. Why everything has been falling apart these last years.¡±

    Louie nodded. ¡°And I know you¡¯re not the only one working to change that.¡±

    ¡°I need you to remove a threat to me and my family.¡±

    ¡°Did you come with a plan? Or is that part of the job?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ve come with the opportunity you¡¯ll need to figure the rest out.¡±

    Louie drained the last of his ale and said, ¡°I¡¯ve already bet everything on this. No point in backing out. I told you if you needed anything, I¡¯d be there. I¡¯ve got my boys too, though.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯ll all profit, but this is a dangerous game.¡±

    Louie grinned. ¡°Life is dangerous.¡± He took the money.

 6-18 - The Merchants Cap

    Austin Feugard was mentioned in the previous installment of this history, at a time when he still appeared as a nobleman. During this time he demonstrated the skills of the Aillesterran curiosity called a chameleon. He dressed in the manner of the common student at the academy, although he was not enrolled there. With a simple wool coat embroidered with his family¡¯s heraldry, an embroidery of blue thread rather than an audacious gold for example, and a matching cap the only eye-catching feature of the man was his handsomeness.

    When Lucius met the man courting his sister, a gold broach had been pinned to his chest. With his older brother cast down by the king, and the spate of deaths surrounding him, it was he that was the Duke of the East. Normally, such an audacious usurpation of power would have brought the region to political civil war, but the Bureaucrat''s Coup had caused so much damage that nobody could yet oppose the young lord. Especially when he had the backing of the merchant guilds in the east.

    They met on the street, but exchanged no more than pleasantries before retiring to an office owned by the academy roughly between the main campus and the alchemical work houses. With the door closed, Lucius scowled. ¡°Is this your way of thanking me?¡±

    Austin laughed. ¡°It¡¯s good for you, isn¡¯t it? I¡¯m letting the whole world know that you aren¡¯t my enemy, Lucius.¡±

    ¡°I was forced into that position.¡±

    ¡°And I apologize,¡± the man said magnanimously.

    ¡°So, you plan to dazzle Aria with attention and then leave her? Aren¡¯t you supposed to marry the princess?¡±

    Austin sighed. ¡°You¡¯re as familiar with the angel as I am, aren¡¯t you? Kassie is like a pet. I won¡¯t be allowed to put my dirty, male hands on her for years. The world will have changed by then. I applaud your¡­ brotherly reaction, but I assure you that if I were to take advantage of a rural lady, it would do more harm to my reputation than to your honor. If I find myself in need of companionship, I think I¡¯ll follow your example and win myself a mistress or two. I¡¯d like to prove that we can be friends. Let¡¯s talk business for example.¡±

    Lucius cocked an eyebrow. ¡°The Feugard wealth comes from grain and from trade, and is largely spent provisioning the northern garrison.¡±

    ¡°The same can be said of yours, though your food comes from the Misty Isles, while my people reap the bread basket of the empire¡­ when it isn¡¯t trampled and burned by armies. Farming needs to change, however. It needs to modernize in ways that the common folk aren¡¯t equipped for. For the past few decades, we¡¯ve been experimenting with different cycles of crops and comparing our yields to other farms and would you like to know what we¡¯ve learned?¡±

    ¡°The soil perishes.¡±

    ¡°Precisely,¡± Austin said, steepling his fingers. ¡°We never quite noticed before because cities were always growing. New cemeteries had to be plotted. New roads cut and the rivers would ripple across the land. Floods left some fields fallow for years and some wars harrowed regions to the man. Vassermark is bursting with people now and the demand for grain is insatiable. Some families have poured their wealth into buying up land and wringing it dry of its fertility and they are now deep in debt while people fight for food. It¡¯s quite the disaster, isn¡¯t it?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s why we¡¯ll be going to war again soon. Either we¡¯ll conquer more land to plow, or we¡¯ll have less mouths to feed,¡± Lucius said.

    ¡°The king wills it, but personally I have no desire to go to war. Not in the traditional sense. If Aillesterra bends the knee, we¡¯ll just have more people in need of food, unless you believe that legend. And even if it¡¯s true, I would still leave that work to others.¡±

    Lucius mirrored him, elbows on the desk between them. ¡°Go on then, what is it you¡¯ve wanted to tell me?¡±

    The nobleman laughed. ¡°Am I that transparent? Lucius, I intend to support you as the general of our armies. A leader who can lead from the front and never be slain. A clever one too. There will be those that oppose it, but most will weigh your¡­ possible involvement in the coup against the work you do for us. Bring us victory and the dissenters can be silenced. You already have the most important asset of power. The people are enraptured by you. The only thing you¡¯re missing is what I can provide you.¡±Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

    ¡°And that is? Because the only thing I want is an official pardon from the king, and you can¡¯t give me that.¡±

    Austin crossed his arms and shrugged. ¡°Truth be told, I thought I could offer you that but nobody expected you to have allied yourself with Acheliah. She humiliated him through you. He¡¯s quite furious. I hear he won¡¯t even see his fiancee some days. That pardon is a future problem. What I¡¯m offering is the wealth necessary to arm an army. To pay the wages of the soldiers, to buy their food and sharpen their weapons. Whether we are attacked by Skaldheim first or wage against the fey folk, you¡¯ll be spending an amount of money incomparable to anything you¡¯ve done before. Together we will be unstoppable.¡±

    Lucius made a show of looking around the office. It was plain but it wasn¡¯t empty. The sound of smith hammers could be heard, beating beside the roaring furnaces as coal smoke streaked up to the bleak sky. ¡°You have a money making scheme, don¡¯t you?¡±

    ¡°Not a scheme,¡± Austin said with a laugh. ¡°A technology! Invented by none other than King Charles himself and made possible by your expeditions to the south. It¡¯s ley energy. You¡¯re already familiar with the cannons his engineers made, but what he devised is a new paradigm. The cannons transmit and amplify impulses, turning a small hammer blow into a great thrust. For centuries, people thought it was more dangerous than it was useful. A stone that could strike you back. But there are principles to the magic at play. With nothing but some clever geometry and a spring, wheels of ley can produce continual rotation.¡±

    ¡°Until they are exhausted,¡± Lucius interjected. He knew full well how long a ley rod could take to renew its store of energy. It was a troublesome matter to store quivers of the stone shafts, as they fought for energy like too many wells in the same city.

    Austin nodded. ¡°Multiple wheels are needed, this is true. But it does not require men to turn, it does not require animals nor the flow of a river. You can build one of these machines anywhere and have it spin and spin. Such as at the mouth of a flooded mine to run a pump draining the shafts.¡±

    Surprise got the better of Lucius. ¡°What mine did you buy?¡±

    ¡°One that the Ashe family had no use for. I had to sell quite a bit of farm land to do so, but people have been clamoring to own the land they work for generations. Let them. The wisest will thrive and spread their cycling of crops. I will be putting my family¡¯s finances into the ancient mines. First, it will be a silver mine, but the kingdom hungers for coal and I¡¯ll supply that too. I imagine some people will have quite an adventure seeking out forgotten mines for the bounty I¡¯ll put on them.¡±

    ¡°Have you tested the machine?¡±

    Austin the same shrug that every conman in history has given, when challenged on their claims. ¡°There¡¯s a matter of craftsmanship that needs to be refined. It works in principle, however. We have a model in one of the workshops.¡±

    ¡°And has it occurred to you that you might be making an enemy of the king by extending this friendship to me?¡±

    ¡°You think the king will have you killed?¡±

    ¡°No, I think he keeps half a dozen blades to my throat because it¡¯s funny.¡±

    Lord Feugard laughed. ¡°Am I to believe you haven¡¯t been dulling those blades these past months? Lucius, I¡¯ll make a more firm display of my intent to collaborate with you, for the good of the kingdom.¡±

    ¡°And what would that be?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m sure the king will recall you once more. I¡¯m not sure which group will riot next, but someone is bound to when the weather breaks and the farms clamor for laborers. My gift will be prepared when you return. I assure you I will do what is in my power to stay any dramatic events from occurring before the king is prepared to march his armies. Enjoy the first year or so of your son¡¯s life. When you aren¡¯t being dragged around the city to look at murders.¡±

    Lucius scoffed at the man¡¯s rueful grin. Just that morning, Lucius and Theo had apprehended a man half-dead in the cold who had murdered a royalist during a brawl. Some nearby soldiers had allegedly found him with injuries sustained, allegedly, during the attack. I have skipped over the details of this case because it was but one of many bloody incidents that Lucius encountered, but had little narrative appeal to it. The man died before they could hang him and was soon forgotten by all but the record keepers.

    ¡°Well, unfortunately there are always more corpses for me to see. If you find yourself in need of many ships to outfit your mines, I believe you¡¯ll find aid through the Wavefront Corporation. Toying with a woman¡¯s heart isn¡¯t good for your reputation however. I¡¯d suggest you find yourself a proper spouse,¡± Lucius said as he rose from the desk.

    ¡°I may have to look outside the empire¡­¡±

    ¡°Care to join me when we march on Aillesterra?¡±

    ¡°A people led by a mercenary commander? I doubt I¡¯ll find much there. Perhaps this summer I¡¯ll travel to Jumeaux¡­ I hear there¡¯s quite a beauty there.¡±

    ¡°If they can be extracted from the church.¡±

    ¡°Perhaps there won¡¯t be a church for much longer. Their angels are gone. The wisdom remains, but they¡¯ll have to seek refuge in power somewhere.¡±

    Uncertain whether Austin¡¯s interest in Jean was honest, or another allusion to the expanse of his information network, Lucius wished him well in his endeavors.

    It would be weeks later that Austin¡¯s promise was made good on, like two men hugging with knives to each other¡¯s backs.

 6-19 - Retribution Delivered

    Golden returned to the city of Forum amid a spring downpour, while snow was still heaped upon the streets and hills, when no guard would take the time to give more than a cursory examination of carts and goods. So, his identity was never relayed to those that pursued him and he was able to bring a trio of wine barrels to the manor.

    Alexander¡¯s cries were irksome to him, but he made no true trouble of it as he glutted himself on wine and forestalled telling his story until Felicia had been summoned. The occupation of the night was thus listening to his tale. He began, ¡°Your father was murdered and has been avenged, dear lady of Rackvidd. The city is currently governed by a steward. He was my first point of investigation. Quite the interesting fellow. I still don¡¯t know if he¡¯s dull-witted or one of the smartest men I¡¯ve ever met.¡±

    Patrick Black indeed had been granted temporary rule of the territory, properly authorized by Lord Raymi before he perished of the poisoning. He was the only good choice available, but some would contest that he could possibly be called good while others would clamor to have their own. An uncaring bureaucrat in the best possible sense, he was a simple man that enjoyed his work. He loved to say yes to people¡¯s requests, but happily said no, rarely on his own judgment but purely on procedure. Thus, law was brought to a grinding halt and the conniving grifters of the city were entirely shut out. Whereas their lies could work on the common man, the steward was immunized against such manipulation.

    Indeed, those that had conspired against against Lord Raymi had approached him and attempted to bribe him, but he didn¡¯t even understand their offer. His mind refused to grasp the concept that he might hold in his hands the power of an autocrat, so long as he cooperated with these men.

    When Golden arrived in the city, he caused an undue stir by virtue of getting a candid discussion with the steward who had a great interest in understanding when Felicia would return and assume her proper authority, for he had a great many decisions piling up that he felt himself unauthorized to make. The congestive pressure he was creating would soon cause the more lowly systems to crack and for corruption to sweep in, but the revolutionaries found themselves so thwarted that their frustrations verged on madness.

    It¡¯s worth noting that some of the merchants in the city and many of the city¡¯s workers, found this to be a veritable golden age.

    His inquiries with the steward proved overly fruitful. Indeed, the avenues of investigation contained not just the fruit, but the stem, the plant and much of the dirt it sprouted from. The steward was able to recount every discussion of governance he had had with anyone for months prior¨Cthough it must be said that not many people bothered to talk with him¨Cincluding what was discussed and when. To save Golden¡¯s own sanity, it was soon agreed that the steward would prepare a ledger containing abbreviated notes and the former angel took off for the entertainment district.Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.

    There were a great many crimes of fraud and corruption attempted, but little sign of a conspiracy to assassinate. For his own entertainment, Golden tracked down a man who attempted to undermine a judge to protect his murderous son, delivering father and son in pieces to the grieving family. I include this in the historical record purely because over a dozen more such acts of vengeance were committed in the city during the following years, all because of a bored angel.

    After several days of searching through the steward¡¯s ledger he found a man pressing a legal claim to territory on the very edge of Rackvidd¡¯s greater domain, land which properly belonged under Giordanan rule, which is to say under the suzerainty of the kingdom. It had been slipped in among many such claims for land in the Misty Isles. The claim had been rejected by Lord Raymi, at which point many gifts began flowing into the palace as surreptitious bribes. Among the gifts was an exotic tea imported from the east, some of which was given to Lord Raymi and some was given to the steward.

    By luck, he still had the jar, untouched, however he assured Golden that it had already been inspected by the palace¡¯s poison inspector. Adamant, Golden had a cup of the foreign brew prepared. No sooner did he put it to his lips then he asked, ¡°You used a stigmata to check for poison, didn¡¯t you?¡±

    Indeed this was the case, and indeed the tea had no poison within it. What it had was a certain invigorating popular among older men. In the form of naught but tea, the poison was thus incomplete and thus it was non-toxic. However, the drug would linger in the system, awaiting the conjoining element which similarly did not qualify as poison. Only when both ingested did it begin to rot the organs.

    At last, the mortal angel had a man to pursue. He seized upon the merchant lord that very evening, and from him extracted further names of conspirators. Night after night, he slaughtered them until at last he took the head of one of the judicial councils and had to flee the city.

    All together they were petty men. Each held firm to the revolutionary ideas of the times, but what moved their hands toward death was the most concrete of advantages: money and power. The consequences of this partial purge would manifest in time, but justice of blood had been exacted for Felicia.

    The young lady was without the strength to leave for her own residence that night, and soon her staying in the Solhart manor was more common than not, though it took many weeks for her vitality to replenish.

 6-20 - Goldens Trickery

    Forum celebrated the arrival of spring with mead. Somewhat unique from similar festivals, the holiday was a daunting ordeal for the youths coming of age. Every tradesman in the city was obligated to keep their doors open to hopeful youths seeking apprenticeship, though the spirit of the holiday had much degraded. The city council attempted to prevent the practice, but most every blacksmith, baker, carpenter and so on made prior arrangements through connections and coin on who of the city¡¯s youths they would accept and the interviews were but a farce. True, some boys and girls managed to find their life¡¯s path¨Cmost often from a journeyman catching a would-be apprentice acting out of line and voiding the arrangement¨Cbut many had no choice but to pledge themselves to farming operations.

    The city was tense however, because the admissions standards for the academy had been forcibly raised. The king did not wish for any of the young nobles ordered to attend to be squeezed out by the common folk, so only a fraction of the typical incoming class could be accepted. Testing results were posted on the first day of the festival, to give those rejected time to find other employment. Instead, they found the mead that scented the air and loosened their grumbling lips.

    It may surprise you that there is little to discuss of Lucius¡¯ time at the festival. Each day he patrolled the city like a common guard. Each night was his own. The first was revelry with his friends. He drank with Sammy and caught up with Kajsa while letting all know where he was and what he was doing. The second evening he dined on the Feugard¡¯s coin, with his sister on to his left and Felicia to his right. The third evening had wrestling bouts with men who had served him at war, most of which he won, followed by a private grapple with Lupa.

    Truly he had no reason to complain of the festival. The same could not be said of Lyam, the Steel Blade.

    Shock struck the Warden Blades when Ashlynn resigned her post. It came at a heavy price to her. The king¡¯s wages were not merely coin in her pocket, but a pension and certain benefits for her parents. A proper estate was, year by year, to accrue under her family¡¯s ownership at such a rate she would be considered a baroness by the time she would take a husband and set about creating her progeny. By abdicating her post mere months after being granted it, not only did her family have nothing more than a farm equivalent to a subsistence plot, but she would be a mere step removed from an oathbreaker.

    While it was true people knew the reason, her humiliation against Lucius had been quite public, it still caught the Warden Blades by surprise. Particularly, it severed the bond between Lyam and her, tearing a wound in his heart he hadn¡¯t even recognized. At first the Steel Blade argued with her that she should stay. When she rebuked him, his recourse was drink.

    He skipped an entire day¡¯s worth of work, which only came to Theo¡¯s attention after Lucius had been afforded a full day un-monitored(1). Lyam¡¯s pay was duly docked, but a harangue from Theo did nothing to correct his spiralling. The third night of the festival, he wandered the city without armor, without badge of office. Few recognized him and fewer remarked upon him.

    The revelry and good cheer of the city center was repugnant to his mood, which slowly drove him to the city walls, and then to the shabby sprawl of new buildings beyond the proper protection of the city. There he found wagon circles and converted barns well stocked with imported barrels of wine, sold by merchants unable or unwilling to pay the import tax through the gates. Naturally, the tone was different where these cheap drinks flowed.

    No children ran about and the adults were not proud parents. They were scoundrels, displaced by a hundred different reasons. Some claimed to be pilgrims while others said they were forme sailors, wrung dry by the loss of their captain¡¯s ship or other such lies. Games were played beside sputtering fires. Not the refined sort such as Trireme, but the base and chaotic games of mere chance. Others gambled upon games of dextrous skill, whipping blades through the air to plunge into rotten fruits fit only for pigs. These spectacles amused the crestfallen knight as his mind stewed.

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    Given time, it is likely he would have hardened his heart and accepted the future. He would have seen that the kingdom was still filled with vigor and beauty, even if his sight was occluded by the presence of Lucius. But, these were not peaceful times. It was a period of hatred and this was one of many events well documented by my dear accomplice and fallen angel of older times.

    Golden had tracked the knight throughout the festival. His patience was rewarded by circumstances which needed only a few words. While he raked in coins from the dice players, he merely informed a few of the night¡¯s losers who the brooding fellow by the fire was. Entirely on their own accord, three men encircled Lyam with false amiability. Not one of them was old enough to be properly wise, but all had been matured by hardship, self-inflicted or otherwise.

    ¡°Ain¡¯t no place for a knight to be wallowing in his own piss an¡¯ tears,¡± one said, poorly hiding his grin behind his mug.

    ¡°I¡¯m wallowing in this shit you call ale and I¡¯m of no trouble to you. I wasn¡¯t the one that took your money tonight,¡± Lyam said. The night of drinking had pulled down the lids of his eyes and squeezed his skull, but not robbed him of wits. He took stock of their blades just fine.

    Another of the men sat on his opposite side. ¡°You should be in the city, sucking the cocks of noblemen and hoping they cum gold. Or is it that you like our fine company that much?¡± The group at once broke into japes about the lack of women, half deriding Lyam and half lamenting.

    The Steel Blade bore their words until they saw he had taken their measure and understood their intent. ¡°I think you lot are in the wrong city.¡±

    ¡°We¡¯re not in the city, are we?¡±

    ¡°You¡¯d be better off in the south. Or better, fuck off from the kingdom entirely.¡±

    Drinks were set down. One of the men said, ¡°We¡¯d be better off without the likes of¨C¡±

    Lyam surged to his feet, grabbing one man by his beard and shoving him into the fire. Knives came free as Lyam used his stigmata to gird himself in steel. Daggers plunged through his coat, only to be turned aside by skin. He didn¡¯t pull his own blade, with the group of them so close the only option was to grapple. The next man lost his teeth learning the strength of a steel fist.

    Another buckled his knees with a kick from behind. One had the idea to bludgeon him with the bench he had sat upon and that drove him to the ground where he seized a dagger. He swung it around, stabbing it through a man¡¯s knee and pulling him to the ground howling. Then he got back to his feet and the sword rang from its sheathe. Wood axes and smoldering fire pokers raised to meet him, from more hands than those who had surrounded him.

    Golden laughed and clapped as blood melted ice. By the end of it, Lyam stood, bereft of his coat and shirt, body glinting as steel in the red dawn. A dozen guards had rushed to the shouts and screams. Few recognized his face, but there was only one man in the city that could turn his flesh to steel. There was no resistance when they manacled him, not even much talk. He assumed Theo would have him out and on the street again within the day.

    Instead, he rotted for half a week among the scum of the city. By the time Theo saw fit to drag him out of the jail¨Cthinking he had let the fool knight learn his lesson, six more men had died by Lyam¡¯s hands. Nothing good of the kingdom was lost with their deaths. They were savages with shivs, offenders of the worst sort. Not merely murderous, but zealotrous. And that made the blood too deep for Theo to simply excuse.

    So, a mere few days after the loss of one Warden Blade, another had to be sent to face the king¡¯s justice. At this point, I would have assumed that Sir Montem would have thrown caution to the wind and conspired with the Troll Blade to cut Lucius down in the street. The fact that he didn¡¯t implies he had been planning to have both Lyam and Ashelynn with him as protection. Perhaps he was afraid.

    The next time Lucius was summoned to the capital to act as the king¡¯s bloody hand, Theo returned as well. The king he found was a brooding one. He simmered like a volcano, straining against Acheliah¡¯s whims.

    <hr>

    <ol>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">This was the second day of the festival, wherein Lucius thanked Lord Feugard for making good on his promise. For, it was Austin that brought Ashlynn away from the Warden Blades and furthermore put her into his private employ. Outside of public scrutiny, she was to begin work as a sword instructor in the north and was fairly compensated.</li>

    </ol>

 6-21 - Gambles Won And Lost

    Spring came with a rush that year, catching the struggling kingdom off guard. At once, seed grain had to be flushed out from storage and thrust into the soil, while there were hardly enough hands to do so. Calls for aid were made with as much vigor as a levy to war and amid that chaos the snowmelt soaked roads of Vassermark were churned to destruction. Caravans bogged down, and as wolves descended upon sheep, bandits emerged from the good folk of the land to prey upon them.

    While Lucius had been able to foist the violence upon others when the dock workers rioted, there was no such trickery to deal with the veritable tribes of brigands. While Lyam stood trial before the king, Lucius von Solhart was given a company of men with their allegiance to the Feugards and he was sent north.

    Golden travelled with him, and the former angel knew some of my necromantic magic. Birds were felled and reanimated, to soar above the trees. Even the freshest of bandits knew to hide their smoke and sleep well away from farms and from roads, but it is the natural way that any camp, lived in long enough, strips the land away of trees and coverage. Humans yearn for a place to call home, even if it is but a hill or a cave. They carve it to their liking, even if the change is nothing more than a latrine. Deadfall is burnt away to warm their bones and cook their food, before they turn steel to trunk and fell trees for more fuel. And so it was that Lucius encircled camps with uncanny ease.

    Little needs to be said of what happens when a hundred soldiers engage with a few dozen hungry and cold bandits. The first group he found had a chieftain of small note. He was of mixed blood between human and troll, blessed with a supernatural sense of smell. He had been a hunter in previous years, able to scent venison from a mile away and able to hurl a spear as far as an archer could loose an arrow, with far more destruction. He alerted the group to the smell of approaching steel, but his first action was to flee. They did not fortify, but cast away their meager camp to charge into the woods. The scent of steel turned them aside, only for them to run at another line of soldiers, the group of half-trained thugs disintegrating to less than a mob. Men took their lives into their own hands, thinking they could escape only to find the encirclement quite complete. Nothing but spears and arrows awaited them. It was the chief of the bandits that put up a fight.

    His spear throw nearly broke the line of Feugard men. His spear throw punched through shield and armor, felling the soldier it struck. Lucius had marched in from the front, from which the bandits had fled. He broke ranks with the soldiers to rush toward the combat. He had to cut down two bandits to get there, flowing through sword strikes like he was performing upon a stage. He had no need for subtlety for he had no need to respect their skill. He struck firmly and unflinchingly, cleaving through feeble guards and pushing through their frightened footwork.

    Even for a swordmaster, fighting a foe of twice one¡¯s size, wielding a weapon with greater reach, is a daunting task. The battle was a mess of soldiers penning in and subduing bandits, lethally as often as the bandits surrendered. The ground between Lucius and the chief was their own. The trollkin¡¯s spear lashed out like serpent strikes, pounding against his meager shield. Lucius showed no fear, fighting low and threatening to hack through the trollkin¡¯s hamstrings. The duel lasted until the speartip caught inside the tacked-on hide covering of his shield. It twisted and tangled, giving Lucius a moment to cleave through the haft and splinter it. One step in and he plunged the blade up through the startled bandit¡¯s throat.

    Word soon spread to the other gangs of villains, but still they were tracked down. Dozens of men were handed over to local garrisons, often kept in prisons no more than pits in the frigid ground. Such could not be kept secret, particularly when he had to engage with the tedious business of verifying deeds of sale. The gold of merchants was of far lesser value than stealing entire estates Austin Feugard had put onto the market.

    It was the final round-up that earned him the most infamy. One such forger was on the run, allowing Lucius to follow him eastward. A score of injuries had reputedly weakened Lucius¡¯ force of soldiers and he was hard put to give chase, they believed. In truth, from the beginning, Lucius had marched with a portion of his troops in reserve, moving injured men back and replacing them with fresh troops as he went. The reserves were a bloody lot by the end, it¡¯s true, but they didn¡¯t have half the march that his active killers did. With arrangement by carrier crow, they reached the untamed forest before the bandits. There, they formed a hammer and anvil with Lucius¡¯ pursuing force, but they were the hammer and he the anvil.

    Grapeshot shredded down the ragged column of bandits, with armored men seeming to emerge from the trees themselves. A second salvo struck before orders could be shouted and then they ran. The vagabonds turned on their heels and rushed from the surprise attack, falling upon spear and shield with Lucius at the front. Had they stood and fought, they could have broken through the ranks of ragged cannoneers, but the boy wasn¡¯t called the Gambling Lion for nothing.

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    Many remarked upon his risky tactics in battle, all stemming from the continual disbelief that a commander would lead from the front. Even with the full knowledge that a hammer blow could dash his brains across the ground and he would soon be back up, people could not help but marvel at him. And so, they did not realize his greatest gamble was in leaving Forum at all, at such a critical juncture.

    During his absence, news most tragic returned to the little Solhart manor. The secret could not have been lost forever. Indeed, there was only a small delay of inquiry before word was sent but it was sent far to the south and had to fly back north. Lady Solhart had been slain. Her carriage was set upon, her guards punctured by arrows or cut down, her diminished funds stolen, and her life taken. The king quietly dispatched a company of soldiers to scour the land between the capital and Forum. They broke down doors, searched attics and barns. Every pawn broker in that half of the kingdom was searched for the various rings, brooches, and such paraphernalia as Lady Solhart was known to have, all in hopes of finding the men that had cut her down.

    Nothing was found, not in Vassermark(1), and no evidence could link the killing back to Lucius. Once more, the king had nothing more than his beliefs, even if they were correct. A king cannot always act on belief alone. A girl alone, bereft of friends and now of family, can act most audaciously.

    Aria vi Solhart received the news while away from the manor. Theo Montem had sought her out himself, while she was having tea with one of the lesser nobility of the Feugard domain. The older woman had been trying to make a show of good faith with her knowing both her position with Austin and that her stability relied upon Lucius¡¯ marauding of the bandits. It made her easy for the leader of the Warden Blades to find her.

    In her shocked and distressed face, Theo read exactly what he wished to read. A shred of surprise and much fear. Theo was unable to monitor Lucius while he was on the king¡¯s business, despite his many protests. The fact that any army the boy was given was loyal to the king was considered sufficient safeguard. He could turn his gaze upon the others of Lucius¡¯ inner circle during these times and he was rightfully convinced that she was the weakest of links.

    The news broke her, and broke her faith in Lucius. With noble dignity, she hardly showed it. Her answer was curt. ¡°I must arrange for travel.¡± She did not go back to the manor. It was filled with her enemies. It was true they had fed her, provided her with spending money and protection, and had time and time again proven that they had no intention of harming her. She was even trusted with the care of Alexander. All right-minded evidence indicated that Lucius truly felt that her fate was with him, whether she wanted it or not.

    He was not wrong for thinking this, but alas, my firmer methods would have proven better here. I believe that had I not intruded upon Kajsa, and in doing so wounded his youthful heart, then this would not have transpired. She would have been forcibly kept ignorant, or else buried in Giordana. Instead, she went to Austin von Feugard. The noble businessman was elsewhere in the kingdom, but he had left retainers in the city to oversee the development of his machines, and they were happy to finance her travel to his side.

    Not a soul else in the city was told of Lady Solhart¡¯s demise and the terrible smallness of his connections proved nearly fatal. Leomund could not leave the manor undefended. The only ally that could be called upon for investigation was Miz Lynnfield, and she lacked the cunning to track her down. Golden could have done so with ease, but he was in the north. And so it came to pass that Lucius returned from his expedition days after Aria had vanished from the city.

    Golden volunteered to track her down, but Lucius knew how that would end. Still, he considered it. Mostly, he considered what I would have done. That night, he sat, trying to play with his son, but even the baby could tell he was troubled. After Alexander was put to bed, Leomund confronted him in the kitchen. ¡°Come on, man. Do we pursue her? It would take the bird man half a night at the most to find who knows where she went.¡±

    ¡°She went to Feugard.¡±

    ¡°I thought he was trying to court you.¡±

    ¡°He was.¡±

    ¡°Then why aren¡¯t you doing anything!¡± Leomund shouted.

    Lucius shushed him, but it was too late. The baby cried. ¡°It was always going to get out eventually. I think it¡¯s time to start fanning the flames.¡±

    <hr>

    <ol>

    <li style="font-weight: 400">Many years later, I happened to find evidence that the fine jewelry had surfaced in the north, where merchants wouldn¡¯t bother to reach out to their enemies in the south for mere sentimentality. In fact, the prices inflated under a quiet belief that such loot would become desirable to collectors, either in Skaldheim or in Vassermark. While this certainly happened for signet rings, it is rather impossible to know whether the generic jewelry was truly priced by such reputation.</li>

    </ol>

 6-22 - Acheliahs Relic

    Lucius¡¯ ploy was neither subtle, nor bloody. He funded it by dipping into the coffers of the Wavefront Corporation and staffed it with those displaced from the academy. With land under Felicia¡¯s control, he announced the formation of a new institute of learning. It was not meant to compete with the academy of Forum, but to take in the youngest of children. Specifically, those deprived of their fathers by the violence of war.

    When he brought the proposal to Acheliah, she called him a fool. ¡°There are records of who served. There are records of those known to have died and those presumed to have died. There are not records of who their legitimate children are. Perhaps some mayors and barons keep such things written down, but it would be a paltry sum to forge such a script. You will be overwhelmed with fraud.¡±

    The boy smiled and spread his hands. ¡°It would be a charitable thing, no? To take in children. To teach them? Rather than leave them to wolves on two feet, surely it is better to put in some effort and make proper men and women out of them? Or would you rather they become fodder for revolutionaries?¡±

    The angel sighed and deferred to her favorite pet. The king¡¯s sister, Kassie, ordered that it be done. ¡°My brother is going to be throwing money at people regardless. He wants to build roads. Why not build a school instead?¡±

    Acheliah attacked a sweetroll like a raptor taking the head off of its prey. ¡°And if his scheme fails? How many starving children could you have on your conscious?¡±

    The princess wrinkled her nose and sipped her tea. ¡°He was going to seize the pensions regardless.¡±

    ¡°But now they will be your responsibility, even if it is my dog¡¯s project instead of yours. Don¡¯t encourage him, Kassie.¡±

    ¡°Encourage him to what? Make himself look better?¡±

    ¡°To groom himself an army,¡± she said, eyes square upon Lucius. ¡°Suppose this does work. How many men would he have loyal to him in five year¡¯s time? That view him as their benefactor?¡±

    ¡°They¡¯ll view the king as their benefactor,¡± the princess insisted. ¡°He will either be in prison, or in Aillesterra in five years time.¡±

    He scoffed. ¡°Please. I wouldn¡¯t need so long to crush the clans. I¡¯ll grant you prison, though.¡±

    ¡°He won¡¯t be sent to Donjon.¡±

    ¡°I wouldn¡¯t be able to be your dog if I was in Donjon, now could I?¡±

    She pivoted flat eyes at him. ¡°You know, I had the king in my room screaming at me. He demanded to know why I was favoring you. He said he knows for a fact you were complicit with the coup.¡±

    Kassie¡¯s knuckles went white on her tea cup as Lucius answered, ¡°I think the evidence speaks for itself. Had I been complicit in the coup, it would have worked.¡±

    Acheliah planted her elbow on the table and grinned at him. ¡°You remind me of better times, Lucius. I remember when there were no kingdoms, no nobles, no politics. Every man and woman stood for themselves and what was exalted was their character itself, their heroism and virtue. It was only after that when people started making laws. Making second hand virtues called order and duty.¡±

    ¡°Back when the gods spoke?¡±

    She nodded, eyes downcast. ¡°Back when it was my job to kill the monsters in the dark. Dog, I have a new task for you.¡±

    ¡°I thought you¡¯d never tell me why you summoned me.¡±

    ¡°My priests will provide you a ship. Head west to the hermit monastery and retrieve my reaping blade. You¡¯ll know it when you see it.¡±

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    ¡°A reaping blade?¡±

    Her grin was back. ¡°Yes. It¡¯s a blade that can kill even you, Undying. But, you may relax. I don¡¯t intend to take your head. You know who I want it for.¡±

    ¡°He does?¡± Kassie interjected, but neither informed the princess.

    Lucius shrugged, allowing his posture to relax. ¡°Something like that sounds quite useful for my other tasks.¡±

    Acheliah laughed. ¡°If you can wield it, perhaps I¡¯ll let you. It¡¯s not an easy blade, though. If it was, do you think I would have left it alone with but a few mad gatekeepers?¡±

    He grimaced. Some might have thought the magic itself would be tricky, but Lucius¡¯ first assumption was almost entirely accurate to the problem. ¡°Am I going to need to bring a trollkin with me? I don¡¯t think I have one I trust.¡± Kassie¡¯s maid took no offense at his comment.

    She scoffed and rolled her eyes. ¡°Please, it¡¯s not that heavy. Prove yourself to be half the man you posture as and bring it here.¡±

    ¡°As you command,¡± Lucius said, and took the angel¡¯s dismissal.

    At this time, he had made an assumption that any who dared spy on him would not dare spy on the angel. Further, that if one was mad enough to do so, Acheliah would notice and intervene. There was, however, a rather simple avenue of interrogation he should have seen. Not only because I trained him to be better than this, but because that avenue weighed over three hundred pounds and stood ten feet from him during the entire conversation. Alas, against all better thought, he never considered that the trollkin maid, who had served and protected the princess for over a decade, despised him. It was a very paltry sum it took to turn her from a confidant to an informer as it regarded Lucius von Solhart.

    Word reached Jon Brume¡¯s ear before Lucius had even left the king¡¯s castle. Word was studiously sent back to Sir Montem via pigeon, but even the flight of birds can be considered slow. The Blade of Night assumed Lucius would return to Forum, or at least send word to his family another way, but he kept his attention on Lucius regardless. The more things played out, however, the more irresistible it became. For four hours, Brume paced the shoddy inn room, trying to wait for Montem¡¯s orders, but he kept asking himself what a mad gatekeeper was, and if they could kill the undying.

    Eventually, he brought himself to the swill selling shacks beside the docks where men of his kind congregated. There he found himself a smuggler in need of work and he plied the man for information. There could only be a handful of monastery islands in the west. Such places would need to have supplies sent to them, and those paths would be at least known, if not charted.

    The captain of several, but they were rudimentary things. Priests and priestesses would be stationed there as quiet punishment when the temple wanted to serve justice without making it known that a member of their own had been in the wrong. These were places such as Gallows Rock, where at least a hundred people had thrown themselves to the waves rather than wait through forty days of starvation. Each island had a name at least partially known to Brume, for such rumors collected in Donjon where prisoners had ought to do but gossip. And so his spirits were emboldened and more ale fueled his conviction that his chance had come at last.

    But Lucius did not wait to send word back to Forum. The command had been given by Acheliah herself and if the temple¡¯s captain didn¡¯t need to wait then he wasn¡¯t going to be the delay himself. With the sun setting, the Otter Tides departed for the west and Brume shoved enough money into the hands of his smuggler that he was soon in pursuit. A cloak of mist drew thick upon their low-masted ship. The crew was uneasy as they bobbed from wave to wave, following the scarce trail of proffered oil dumped from the back of the temple ship. They had but a meagre protection from the great beasts of the sea, creatures that struck fear even into the Aillesterran navy, but before the sun rose a new fear came upon them.

    The captain recognized what forsaken rock he was headed to and not for all the silver in the city would he take his crew there. When he set his eyes upon the mossy stones, he bellowed to turn at once. Brume seized him, but the captain refused to belay his order for it was an isle of cursed lepers they sailed toward. Brume could see for himself that Lucius had docked there, however. He cut the captain¡¯s throat and shoved him over. The bosun grabbed an ax to split his head, but choked on another of Brume¡¯s blades before he could bring it down. The tide was already sucking the smugglers to the rocky shore. It took but a simple threat. ¡°If I kill but one more of you, you won¡¯t be able to free yourself from this island, but I can seek shelter with the priests. What will you do? Take me there as I paid you to do? Or drown with your pride and fear?¡±

    They brought him to the far side of the island and shoved him off with a rowboat. They spat at him and swore to cut out his tongue if they ever saw him again. I don¡¯t know what became of that crew, but I know they never had the chance once he set foot upon the isle of the mad keepers of the reaping blade.

 6-23 - The Cursed Isle

    It was always cloudy on the isle. Days passed in a muddled shift between illumination and gloom, marked more by the tides than the obscured sun. The tides pulled in water among the whale bones, peeling thick layers of algae off old rocks and letting the fat carp attack the new surface. High tide meant the monster of the isle could move. He was a snapping turtle, barely able to be buoyed up by the water and crawl over the rubble to spread his maw where a curious fish might meet its end. While the fish were stupid with their size, even a wise fish, wizened from years of battling fishermen, could have been fooled by the sheer size of the turtle¡¯s maw.

    Like the gatekeepers of the monastery, the turtle had refused to die. Unlike them, it had grown impossibly large, until its shell was as mighty as iron. There were few things left in the world that could have cracked it, and yet on the morning that Lucius von Solhart set foot upon the isle, a shadow passed over it. Before the shadow had come a noise from a human throat. The turtle had no imagination of what the shadow might be, but it pulled back from a suddenly startled fish. Head and limbs retracted to their bony abodes before the boulder fell upon it. The rock was larger than any of the carp and had been tossed at it from a great height. The impact jarred through the turtle¡¯s shell, pushing it against the rocks below before it careened into the isle¡¯s lagoon.

    The turtle was unharmed.

    The gatekeeper invented new ways to curse the beast, balling his mangled hands into mounds of flesh that approximated fists. He stamped his foot and raved, much to the amusement of his fellow. The fit of rage was the only form of amusement on the isle, and the other gatekeeper let a fit of lunatic mirth consume him. His laughter wheezed and cackled, almost inhuman, but he heard almost none of it. Among the years on the isle, he had lost most of his hearing, and the other gatekeeper had lost much of his sight. Both counted themselves lucky.

    The third gatekeeper could hardly be called human anymore.

    It was the third that Lucius found first. He was alone on the isle, for none of the ship¡¯s crew would set foot upon it. Some had pleaded holy prohibitions, others had explained the danger of the lepers. Lucius had not pressed them to accompany him, but reconsidered his choice when he saw the first inhabitant of Acheliah¡¯s monastery. The man was monstrously tall, but he would learn this was a characteristic of all three of the gatekeepers. He had thought of them as a type of ascetic, but his first impression was of madness.

    The gatekeeper dressed modestly, it could be said. His clothes were of a thick fabric, but voluminous, bound here and there with long strips of leather, like an inverse impression of an aristocrat¡¯s plate armor. He wore a wooden mask carved like a caricature of a fish, such that hardly a spot of human flesh could be seen. Of inhuman flesh, there was plenty. His right arm could not be said to be that of a human. Chitinous segments had consumed it, apparently maintaining function despite having the claw of a crustacean instead of a hand. Of its effectiveness, Lucius had no doubt. Crushed between the scything chitin was one of the gatekeeper¡¯s primary meals: a turtle still dripping blood.

    Lucius hailed the man and the gatekeeper faced him, but no explanation was met with a reply. The only noise the gatekeeper emitted was wheezing breath and the occasional wet cough, which was accompanied by a glistening at a wet spot on his chest. The dirt-like coloration of the fabric made it difficult to know for certain, but it didn¡¯t seem to be blood the man oozed.

    When Lucius asked if there was anyone else on the isle, the gatekeeper nodded and trudged out of the tidal shallows, still carrying the turtle. He walked neither gracefully nor infirmly, trusting only one of his legs to propel him up the many steps to the ruins of the monastery the gatekeepers resided in.

    It had once been a fine structure, but the masonry had fallen apart. Wind whistled through the many gaps, soaking the stone in sea spray. Where once had been furniture, there remained only vestiges and moss. Through one such unintentional window, Lucius realized that not a single tree or woody bush lived upon the isle. The only life seemed to be wandering birds and the moss that grew upon their guano. Consequently, although the gatekeeper put the turtle upon a cooking brazier, there was no blaze, not even ashes. He did not set upon the carcass with knife and fork, but picked up a rusted fire poker and beat it upon the stones before sitting upon a stone. Judging by the carving, it had once been part of a column in the facade, but now the smooth joining surface had been worn into a divot the size of the gatekeeper¡¯s rear. There were two other such stones, but Lucius remained standing and soon heard the noise of queer robes shuffling.

    The two other gatekeepers entered the apparent dining area, both dressed the same as the first. Neither of them seemed to have an inhuman growth, but Lucius had no true idea of what flesh was beneath the fabric. They were tall though, with stretched proportions. Their necks were too long, their shoulders sloped out like mountains, and their legs were childish for their height as though belonging to men of regular stature. Both had masks, but theirs were broken. One¡¯s mask attempted to cover half his face, though rippling scar tissue clearly consumed one eye and much else. The other had little more than the jaw of his mask still dangling on, a pox-marked face bare and looking as though crows and sampled his skin and found it wanting.

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    They appraised Lucius, speaking amongst themselves a mere few steps away from Lucius, discussing who he might be without inquiring. He bore no markings of Sapphira and had brought no supplies with him, so it was clear he was not some form of relief. Nor did he have the sea bedraggled appearance of a shipwreck. Then they saw the meal and seemingly forgot about Lucius. They sat down, surrounding the crushed animal with the crudest of cutlery. But one knife remained upon the isle, save what Lucius brought on his person, and it was chipped nearly in half. They substituted with old shells and bones, sharpened to points and edges from rubbing against stone. They ripped apart the turtle¡¯s shell, digging out meat and organs they consumed raw, gnashing through the viscera with what remained of their teeth.

    The cannibals in the wastelands had turned the boy¡¯s stomach less, and he announced himself. ¡°I am Lucius von Solhart. I come here by order of the angel Acheliah, whom you serve. She has tasked me with returning her reaping blade to her.¡±

    The eyeless gatekeeper and the one with the claw turned on him, pausing their bloody feast. A moment later, the third noticed, but his gaze switched between the other gatekeepers rather than looking at Lucius. Then the eyeless gatekeeper spoke to him, ¡°Come to relieve us of our burden then, have you? To steal from us poor men our reason to live? We¡¯ll die after you take it from us. Is that what the angel wishes? And I¡¯m afraid you¡¯ll have to forgive this one. Can¡¯t hear a thing. And this one isn¡¯t much of a talker.¡±

    Lucius looked around the room and back to the diseased gatekeepers. His honest thought was that Acheliah had probably forgotten they were still on the isle. He¡¯d noticed the presence of magic the moment he set foot on it, in the same way that being near the corpse of a demon has magic. He had no reason to think that the angel would entrust the protection of a relic to mere humans. They were likely an afterthought, or an obfuscation long past its usefulness. ¡°Will you take me to the blade?¡±

    The gatekeeper laughed and pointed his carving shell at Lucius, still dripping with blade. ¡°But we already have! I present to you the reaping blade!¡±

    Lucius took the piece of shell from the man, causing the three gatekeepers to laugh and watch him further. Of course, there was nothing magical to the shell. When he flexed it, the piece of bone shattered in half. ¡°Will you stop me from getting it myself?¡±

    Their laughter stopped, but the answer was simple. ¡°No.¡±

    Lucius left the madmen to their meal. The monastery had not been designed to be a maze, and more often than not, the collapse had made it easier to navigate than not. A few rooms had been blocked off, but after passing through the halls, he made a second pass around the periphery of the building and confirmed that each blocked room was either a complete collapse, or accessible from the outside. Although, the only creatures to have made such access appeared to be birds.

    His journey eventually brought him to the lagoon. It was an open mouthed bay with a deep channel out to the sea. The monastery had been primarily built upon the eastern landmass, but there were rock formations in the west his eyes determined had been shaped by human hands. He had to descend to the rocky shore to pass over. Only when he approached the shore did he realize the water was not thriving with bushes. The green algae had deceived him from a distance, but while standing upon a great boulder, he saw the myriad stalks for what they were: whalefall. Hundreds upon hundreds of such skeletons, piled atop one another, as if the dying beasts had thrown themselves upon their predecessors to impale their guts and quicken their demise.

    He was still in shock when the boulder beneath him stood up.

    Lucius leapt back, hand to his sword, and watched as the largest snapping turtle he had ever seen climbed deeper into the receding tide and picked a new spot to nestle, sending a dozen fish the size of pigs fleeing elsewhere in the lagoon. The creature huddled, mouth open, and one eye fixed on Lucius.

    The boy picked his path more carefully after that, reaching the western stretch without further incident. The stone proved to be masonry, but not of a building proper. The ground had been cleared and, long ago, a prayer shrine had stood facing the sea. Nothing remained above knee height and where there should have been ceremonial wine was naught but lichen. The stones weren¡¯t even all there anymore, and he saw more than a few fallen off a cliff edge and into the lagoon below.

    There was no sign of the reaping blade. He could see the temple ship, anchored a short distance from the isle. A few of the crew had sufficient eyesight, so he waved at the bobbing vessel and let them see he was well, but had no way to tell them the wait might be much longer than anticipated. For all he knew, the reaping blade was kept in some buried tomb, and there was still the matter of the thing¡¯s weight.

    Descending to a shore that could accept a small vessel, he stood and waved until one of the ship¡¯s rowboats was put to sea. The crew arrived, expecting to take him away, only to be told he¡¯d need provisions and anyone brave enough to join him in the desolate search. One of the oarsmen agreed, on condition of not leaving Lucius¡¯ side, but there was a curious matter. On the beach was another rowboat, and not the ruined thing he would have expected of the gatekeepers. The wood was in good condition and the iron fittings un-rusted. The crew testified it wasn¡¯t one of theirs.

    Someone else was on the island, and Lucius could not have guessed it was the Blade of Night.

 6-24 - An Inhuman Weapon

    By the time the night set on the isle of the gatekeepers, Lucius had excavated three hidden rooms but not found the reaping blade. Among the lost chambers was a bathhouse, now flooded by the sea, and a library without a single legible word left in it. The bookshelves were broken down for kindling as the spring night took on winter¡¯s lingering edge.

    The isle was a cornucopia of life, but he and the crew hesitated to feast on it. Two more men had worked up the courage to toil upon the isle, proving themselves true comrades with their crewmate. Together they were four, and thus outnumbered the mad gatekeepers. Uneasiness tempered even their stomachs that night. One of them had speared one of the fat carps from the lagoon, filching the turtle¡¯s dinner right from its maw. They seared it atop the little blaze, until fat dripped from blackened scales and fouled the air, but they ate little of it despite the day¡¯s exertion.

    After the sunset, Lucius saw one of the gatekeepers step out to the rim of the lagoon. The cold made for poor sleeping, and he wasn¡¯t keen on sharing the warmth of bodies the sailors did, so he joined the strange prisoner of the isle. None of the gatekeepers had helped or interfered with their investigation, and the man¡¯s attention was still not upon Lucius.

    So he watched to see what the old monk had come to see. The fog of the world laid particularly thick around the isle, enough to obscure the shoreline even at the sun¡¯s apex, but at night it was like a wall on every side. Starlight glinted down upon the inky waves with the luminescence of a well¡¯s bottom. Then he saw the shape slowly surging up and down. Like a submerged boulder it rolled through the sea and into the mouth of the stony lagoon. It rode upon a wave, crashing down with a surge. When the froth abated, an old and scarred whale died upon the stones and bones of the isle, pouring its vitality amidst the algae until fish came to succor like whelps to teat.

    ¡°Did you know that would happen?¡± Lucius asked. The gatekeeper chuckled and ran his mangled fingers across one of the bone blades he had cooked with, now tucked within the strap of leather he used as a sash. Then the strangeness of their robes struck him again. The isle had no plants that could be spun into cloth and he had seen scant evidence of supplies delivered by the temples. Had the robes been old, he would have expected them to be frayed and tattered, but the material was peculiarly whole. Thus, he realized the cloth was not cloth but leather, likely stripped from the regular onslaught of sea creatures.

    He could only imagine what it had done to their bodies after so many decades, and part of him suspected it had been a great deal longer than mere decades.

    ¡°Do you sleep in this cold?¡±

    The eyeless gatekeeper grinned at him and stated, ¡°Only madmen sleep on this isle.¡±

    There was a sense of anathema about the man, and Lucius kept finding his hand drawn to his blade. Of the two gatekeepers with faces to see, both carried marks of age, yet they carried themselves with a strength that defied their myriad injuries. The swordsman in him evaluated the ease with which he might behead the madman, but the demented giant had a spine like a rod of iron. He stayed his sword and said, ¡°By all marks, you three are poor monks. Both in the quality of your duties and your worldly state. All day I have been here and you have done nothing to supplicate the goddess. You have neither fulfilled your earthly tasks. This isle is home to a divine relic and yet the poorest, most feeble-minded farmer of the central kingdoms would shudder to think of regarding any of this gods this way.¡±

    The gatekeeper showed little reaction to his words but it was impossible to tell if his muscles might have tensed and coiled beneath his leather robes. ¡°Have you found the reaping blade?¡±

    ¡°No.¡±

    ¡°And you believe our task is to protect the reaping blade from those that would take it?¡±

    ¡°Your task seems to be defying the last living angel of your goddess.¡±

    Crooked and cracked teeth grinned at him. ¡°What higher honor of the gods is there but doing one''s task well? Especially when you detest the purpose you were given.¡±

    Their exchange was interrupted by the gatekeeper suddenly turning to face the ruins of the monastery. The lopsided specter of the mute gatekeeper loomed and he lifted his claw to point back. Without a word, the eyeless gatekeeper walked off from Lucius. The boy followed and soon beheld a sight most gruesome. The deaf gatekeeper lay by the cook pot, still twitching but with his head twisted backward. His eyes darted about, but his entire neck had been severed down to the spine.

    The eyeless gatekeeper clicked his tongue and knelt in the small pool of blood. Together with the other monk, they rolled the body over and beheld the wound. As Lucius watched, they grabbed the man¡¯s head and twisted it back forwards, the flesh squelching and oozing black blood in the moonlight. Then, from a fold in his leather robe, the eyeless gatekeeper produced a loop of sinew, threaded through a bone needle. When he sank it into the pallid flesh of the man¡¯s neck, and he quivered, Lucius drew his blade.

    ¡°Strip that robe off of him,¡± he ordered.

    The eyeless gatekeeper glared up at him, but the mute one rose with hunched shoulders. The pincers of his claw opened and Lucius waited for no more provocation. He stepped in, steel flashing as he cut a cross through the man¡¯s chest. The edge parted flesh without so much as giving the twisted creature pause. The claw grasped for Lucius¡¯ throat and he interposed his sword. The chitinous grip closed, shoving back against him, and his infantry blade shattered. Off-balance, Lucius stumbled half a step closer, enough for the monstrous weapon to scrape against his chest plates, ripping through and sundering the muscles beneath.

    He hissed, jumping back. From his boot, he produced a throwing knife and flicked it into the creature¡¯s throat. The blade sunk, staggering the gatekeeper. His next attack was a kick to the creature¡¯s knee. What should have been enough to down a fighter instead shattered bone. The gatekeeper fell and the men grappled, Lucius¡¯ grip upon the chitinous wrist. Despite its peculiar sharpness, the boy¡¯s strength proved greater and he jammed the stump of his blade up through the gatekeeper¡¯s jaw and into his brain. He twisted it and shoved the creature to the ground where it lay still.

    Then, he beheld the flesh within the robes. Blotched and covered in oozing sores, it was still pallid and soft. Where he had cut open his gut, intestines squirmed as though worms tangled within.

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    The eyeless gatekeeper had silently continued stitching his comrade¡¯s throat back on. He tied the final knot, clipping it with his jagged teeth. Then, he stood up and stomped his foot upon the man¡¯s chest, causing blood and bile to spew from his mouth before the man groaned and whimpered like a child, slowly curling into a ball.

    ¡°You can hardly be called men, can you?¡± Lucius asked. ¡°Has the Shepherd forsaken you?¡±

    The eyeless gatekeeper shook his head as he looked at the ruin Lucius had made. ¡°We shall never know her touch.¡±

    Screams echoed across the isle. ¡°A friend?¡± the gatekeeper asked.

    Lucius touched his chest, finding the flesh inside already mended. He gave no answer to the mad gatekeeper and charged back out of the monastery. The fire had dimmed, leaving only degrees of shadow with which to traverse the rocks, but the carcass of the whale proved a suitable landmark, its ghostly skin almost shining in the night. What he came upon was the turtle, maw closed around the chest of one of the sailors, scything through flesh and bone. A lumberous limb stepped down on a dangling foot so it could shred the man in half.

    The screams persisted, up at the old shrine where the fire burned. Lucius shouted, but his demands for answers fell on manic, deaf ears. One sailor remained, waving a burning splint even as it seared his palm. Of the four men who had joined Lucius, one was in the turtle¡¯s gullet, another had a dagger sprouting from his chest, and a third had the same red gash as the gatekeeper. That one still laid in his bedroll, contorted in the struggle of death as his comrade signaled for help.

    ¡°Where¡¯s your sword, my man?¡± Jon Brume asked, perched in the darkness.

    Lucius faced the warden blade. Nearly anyone else he would have happily faced unarmed, but he hesitated to gamble between Jon Brume¡¯s stigmata and his own, even with the acceleration given by the isle¡¯s abundant life force. ¡°You know, I suspected someone might have followed me here, even if only a fool would move as fast as I did. I should have expected no one else, Jon.¡±

    The former prisoner laughed and let his dagger glint in the moonlight. ¡°You¡¯re a real monster, you know that, Solhart?¡±

    ¡°My enemies tend to say that,¡± he said, casting his eyes about the carnage. He expected one of the other sailors had brought a knife, but he could see none.

    ¡°Are you actually Lucius von Solhart?¡±

    ¡°People keep asking that as if Lucius von Solhart was anybody before he was the hero of Rackvidd. Or do you think I¡¯m some face-shifting homunculus, who also evidently has the ability to heal, that stole his body after that?¡± he asked, edging closer to the fire. He hoped that one of the broken hafts of furniture might serve as a bludgeon, but the sailor had already taken the only sturdy piece.

    Brume rose and hopped off his stone mount. The pressure of his stigmata already weighed upon the whole shrine, a touch of mortality to the undying. ¡°I¡¯m just asking. I¡¯m curious! Of all the people you could have become, why would you choose him? Why not one of the princes? No, I suppose the angel would have spotted you at once. I can¡¯t fault you there, can I? Jules Feugard then. Not handsome enough for you? You do so love the company of women, don¡¯t you?¡±

    ¡°I guess you wouldn¡¯t understand.¡±

    ¡°The Montisferro then. You wouldn¡¯t have had to fight.¡±

    ¡°And disregard my talent? You are mad, aren¡¯t you?¡±

    ¡°A touch, perhaps. Nothing compared to these freaks.¡±

    ¡°You mean them?¡± Lucius asked, gesturing to the three figures standing upon the roof of the monastery. The sight stunned Brume and Lucius was upon him. He had no weapon but hand and fist, but he had armor and the confidence that the moment Brume died, he would be able to heal. They fought in shadow, blows landing upon nothing more than guards as slices opened upon Lucius¡¯ wrists and face. He had to restrain himself from his typical recklessness, which dulled his reflexes.

    Then Brume caught him by the sleeve of his linen under-coat. The Blade of Night had rolled his own sleeves before the killing began, girded by nothing more than a leather vest. The twist of fabric, hooked by his fingers, pulled the the two men close so that he could sink his dagger into Lucius¡¯ armpit.

    The gambling lion did not flinch from death. The moment he felt the pull on his arm, he stepped in and stabbed with his fingers. Brume pulled back but not fast enough. Lucius gouged into the man¡¯s eye and he howled, dagger yanking back and sinking into Lucius¡¯ forearm. Their bodies as close as lovers, Lucius grabbed him by his belt and hauled, throwing Brume back across the stones. The man tumbled and rolled, falling down the slope and vanishing into shadows.

    The boy had to rip the dagger from his arm. Blood poured out of the wound and he still felt the touch of Brume¡¯s stigmata. The man wasn¡¯t dead, but perhaps unarmed. He was cutting a bandage from the coat of one of the dead men when the surviving sailor ran past him. The man scrambled down from the shrine as the distant ship flashed a signal back. He leapt into one of the rowboats and shoved off, without Lucius.

    The boy didn¡¯t flee. Even while he was still tying the knot on his makeshift bandage, he climbed down the shadowy rocks. No corpse awaited him. He followed the shore, ears sharp. Every bird on the isle seemed to have already taken flight but the wash of waves drowned out the crunch of gravel. Before he knew it, he was back at the entrance steps of the monastery.

    ¡°He¡¯ll leave,¡± the eyeless gatekeeper said, his butchered companions beside him. ¡°Take his boat and flee, leave you here with us.¡±

    ¡°No, he won¡¯t,¡± Lucius said, mounting the steps.

    ¡°Your ship will leave you now as well,¡± the eyeless gatekeeper said.

    ¡°No, they won¡¯t.¡±

    They laughed at him. ¡°You are young.¡±

    ¡°I think that¡¯s the first thing you¡¯ve said that wasn¡¯t a lie,¡± Lucius said, grinning back at the madman. ¡°You don¡¯t guard the reaping blade, do you? You three are the reaping blade.¡±

    The gatekeeper frowned. ¡°You¡¯ve lost your senses faster than I expected.¡±

    Lucius slashed with the dagger. He could only keep a loose grip, but the gatekeeper¡¯s throat parted like rotting flesh. Little blood spilled out. The mute gatekeeper stumbled forward, but his muscles had not yet fused together. A strike from Lucius¡¯ good hand re-shattered his skull and downed him before the wicked claw could cut him again. As the eyeless gatekeeper fell to his knees, the last of the madmen tried to ask a question. From the shape of his mouth, Lucius suspected the man might have been trying to ask what year it was, but air could not pass through his severed throat. No more resistance came as Lucius sent them on to the Shepherd¡¯s embrace.

    Their disfigured forms proved to be the relic itself. The spines of the two tall gatekeepers had been replaced with the arcane metal of the weapon¡¯s shaft while the blade had fused with the third man¡¯s arm, forming the chitinous claw like a scab. When he dug into their bodies, flesh fell away from metal the moment his hand seized the parts.

    The angel¡¯s warning proved true. Fitted together, the weapon was a burdensome thing. Lucius could do naught but sling it over his shoulder and trudge with it, but the weapon was powerful in a way no ley cannon could ever compare to.

    For his part, Brume watched in disgust. The extraction sickened even his black soul. When he saw how heavy Lucius¡¯ footsteps became beneath the angel¡¯s scythe, he prowled like a leopard. The injuries across his body were forgotten as he moved with utmost stealth back across the isle and to the remaining rowboat. He waited for his opportunity, the moment when Lucius would be off-balance from setting the relic down, then stole up behind him to plant a dagger through his heart.

    For all the months he had spent with Lucius, he had never realized that the boy could tell when his stigmata weighed upon him. Lucius had no need to see or hear the man¡¯s approach and before Brume could touch him the man was split in twain by the reaping blade.