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–no, 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.”

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 Jezzabella 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–after a look at the sun–he 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–they laid out a tree trunk and a rotten scarecrow–a 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.

The world could always use more liquor.