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?”

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.