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.

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.”

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.