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?

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—what 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.

To this day, accurate visual descriptions of even the nobility has proved elusive. A problem for the future to solve. 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.