Using a map as a board, they put Jeameaux at the center. The sides could not be made balanced, but that wasn’t the aim. They scored off the great lakes and let the tributary rivers snake along the boundaries of the fiefs. Wheat fields formed the playing spaces, each marked with a denomination of growth.

A cluster of battalion pieces marked their army, and another marked Lucius’. Thus, the points of the game could be measured. The victor was he who harvested the most food.

Of course, they cared little for the game. Its chief purpose was to suppose how Lucius might move. At any given time, a forced march could bring the two armies into stabbing distance of one another. Neither side was likely to do that however, because the one that marched would be the one to lose with near certainty. If both armies were at full strength that is. While detachments could run ahead or to adjacencies and empty out food stores both fresh and old–though Rodrick would not hear of starving the people–Lucius certainly would order a march to crush such a convoy.

Thus, the trick became how to maneuver through the fields such that Lucius would always prefer to capture a town’s granary slightly too far away to want to close in and fight. The path they ultimately settled upon was circuitous to say the least. It zigged and zagged from one farm to the next until their path at last ran out in a mountain valley along the western end of the map.

From there, they had no path out should Lucius catch up to them.

That was of course their plan. It hinged on two detachments, both needed to succeed. First, Ismael had to take his cadre ahead, cutting through a few river fords to get ahead of Rodrick’s path and prepare the way. His destination was ultimately to attempt to rouse the remainder of the Giordanan mountain lords, but no one put much stock in his success there. What was actually needed was his ability to flank.

Rodrick lost little sleep over the fat prince’s performance. As he put it to the Cyclops, “With him, the die is cast. I can only pray that the hooks of virtue hold fast to his hide. We’ll have a bloody fight if he fails.”

The second detachment anguished the paladin. In part this was because he had to entrust it to a personal friend. Worse, his friend didn’t complain. He didn’t rebuke the immoral order, or even insinuate that it was. The man, a fine swordmaster, simply told him, “If it must be done, then I will be the one to do it.”

Rodrick nearly had a lapse in command of his army that night, because he could not meet with any of his officers. Words refused to come out of his throat. He couldn’t even take solace beneath the stars, because then the soldiers would see the frozen state he was in.

Once more, he found himself alone with the Cyclops, while the night had little more noise than snoring men and wind. She kept her distance across the tent, but her voice was loud. “Skaldheim has denounced Vassermark’s aggression, but they likely won’t take action. Not this far south at least. For Prince Gabriel it will be another matter. Still, the mere threat that Skaldheim might sweep around and come down from the ice sea will tie up their resources.”

Rodrick didn’t order her out. Such an action would have caused unrest among the men. It is never good to have disunity among the elite. So, the man suffered her presence in silence.

“I suspect the most that will happen is trade sanctions. For a few weeks, any merchant who arrives at one of their ports will have their goods seized. Probably imprisoned too. It will be quite a headache for the dukes I’m sure. I could walk you through all the intercepted communications but frankly I’d be beating a dead horse. The simple statement is that the boy won’t be getting reinforcements because the wizard doesn’t want him to get reinforcements. If someone shows up to help, then it wouldn’t be his victory. While we can grow stronger, he must make do.”

Stolen story; please report.

Rodrick finally spoke, and had to clear his throat to get his message out his mouth. “Why do you call him a boy?”

The Cyclops paused and adjusted how she sat. She eased down from the formal posture of a military advisor and mirrored the near collapse that Rodrick was in. “He is a boy.”

“He’s a grown nobleman, was a successful colonial governor too. This isn’t even his first war. Given his age and accolades, I’m sure there are parental conspiracies across all of Vassermark about which daughter he should take as his bride. He’s a man and calling him a boy… it’s dangerous to belittle your enemy.”

Cyclops laughed. “Spoken like a man of the central kingdoms. The boy is from Vassermark. Men are simply not as valuable as they are here. The Solhart family is small. They pay their taxes, yes, but they have relatively little trade connections. They’re basically a subordinate of the Raymis. The old man might want to wed his daughter to the boy but that would only be for lack of other options. Nothing wrong with marrying an ally, but the boy is proving himself ambitious, and in a military sense no less. In Vassermark, where families are measured by sisters? Only one husband needs to be a violent sort.”

“A man doesn’t need to be married to be dangerous,” Rodrick said.

Cyclops scowled. “A man needs to stand on his own two feet, not blindly do the bidding of another.”

“Sounds like you’re just hoping he’s a boy, that you can make him do your own bidding instead.”

The woman rose. She stopped herself after one step toward him. “You’re just mad you didn’t listen to me. You just had to know for yourself. You got almost a hundred men killed because you didn’t trust me.”

Rodrick took his gaze off of her and sighed. “And you call such a killer a boy…”

“He’s a boy because he’s chasing women every moment he isn’t at war. That’s why we’ll be able to split him off from the wizard. We just need that girl he dotes on.”

“We’ll have her eventually. Tomorrow, it will be my job to make sure we all survive long enough for her to be brought back.”

“Could you win?” she asked.

“In a duel?”

“You’ve been thinking about it, haven’t you?”

Rodrick closed his eyes. It was nothing more than a diversion for him, something to occupy his thoughts while riding his horse. His army didn’t need micro-managing. Depriving his officers of their work would have hurt him. Much of his day consisted of looking the part. And so he had thought about how he might defeat an unkillable opponent. One of the fruits of the ambush was the simple knowledge that when cornered, Lucius fought like a skaldish berserker.

At this time, Rodrick had no idea what that implied about capturing Aisha.

“I would need a different sword,” he said at last.

The Cyclops had almost left the tent, thinking he wouldn’t answer her. Turning, she asked, “What kind?”

“A khopesh.”

“Not very holy of you.”

“But more likely to dismember him.”

“I’ll see if I can get you one,” she said, and then she departed.

For the next week, Rodrick saw not a spec of her. Intelligence reports came from a dwarf–one of her little cadre of specialized stigmata users. He had hardly any time to consider where she had gone to fetch the esoteric weapon, because this was a week of recruitment for him. No major battles had been fought and the rebellious youths of Jeameaux were sneaking out of their homes. They appeared in ones and twos, sometimes even groups of a dozen. The strength of young men flocked to him like a crack in the layers of society pressing down on them.

These were potent warriors, even if they needed training. More training than could be given to a rabble in a few days before their mettle would be tested. Worse, Rodrick had no money to pay them with. All of their needs would have to be supplied from the general supplies, and that in turn came from pillaging the very people he was fighting on behalf of.

There was exactly one other way he could feed his army. He could lie.

He had done just that–swindled a shepherd of his flock with empty promises that the church which had forsaken him would reimburse the man, leaning on unblinking faith in a just god and his divine congregation upon the world–when the khopesh was at last delivered to him. He didn’t ask how the Cyclops had gotten it(1), but merely acquainted himself with the heft and swing of the foreign weapon.

“Will that do?” she asked.

“It will do,” he answered. “With this, I can win.”

I would have liked it if she had said how she had gotten it. I was quite convinced at the time that the clans of Aillesterra had a spy network throughout Lumisgard, but it was possible she had used other connections at the time. Unfortunately, I can’t say for certain whether I would have been able to act on such information. Much of this exchange I didn’t learn until years later and I might not have been able to root out foreign spies even if I had been given names, faces, and locations. Such was the chaos of these years.