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.”

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.”