A week later.

A column of horsemen crawled across the ocean of sand beneath a punishing sun. A few days had darkened Lothar's skin by a full shade; with his headscarf and face veil in place, he could pass for a native-born Arab or Kurd.

The journey had been full of dangers. The worst had been a brush with Saladin's right hand and nephew, Safadin, currently the governor of Syria, and his personal cavalry escort. Abdullah's quick wits had gotten them through.

Lothar unstoppered his waterskin and took a small sip. "Where are we now? Have we crossed into Sassanid territory?"

The Kurdish captain studied the young foreigner in genuine puzzlement. How could a Frank endure the desert's scorching dryness so well?

"Borders? There are no borders here. The lords and sheikhs who swear to Saladin or the Sassanid Shah are like teeth in a dog's mouth: all tangled together. Or grass on the steppe: bending whichever way the wind blows."

Lothar nodded. "I see." In other words: a patchwork of interlocking territories and a great many fence-sitters.

"Then the best target would be a lord who has firmly sided with the Sassanid Shah, perhaps one who openly opposes and resists Saladin?"

If they were going to play this part, they needed to play it thoroughly. He could not assume the Sassanid King would follow his script.

"Correct. Not far from here is an oasis held by one Kawkab. He was once a vassal of the Zengid King Nur ad-Din. After Saladin usurped the throne, Kawkab went over to the Sassanid Shah. He has repeatedly and openly defied Saladin."

Lothar frowned. "That makes him sound like he should be on your side."

Abdullah's face twisted with sudden venom. "When Saladin marched into Syria, we begged Kawkab for aid. He did not send so much as half a soldier. That treacherous dog now dares to invoke our dead king's name while he struts and taunts Saladin. It is an insult to everything we fought for."

"Then he's our target," Lothar said, decision made. "This Kawkab, does he dwell in the oasis you mentioned?"

"He does. It is his seat of power. All the sheikhs and tribes sworn to him must bring their tribute there on schedule: livestock, everything."

"And his defenses?"

"A wooden fort. The garrison inside is not large. But there are cavalry detachments scattered among the smaller oases surrounding it. If the fort calls for help, relief will come quickly."

Lothar weighed the problem. An oasis could sustain only so many people before its water began to fail. Kawkab's fort therefore could not house a large garrison—but any relief force would arrive quickly. Their window would be narrow.

"We'll have to strike fast. If the defenses are too strong, we can't afford to waste time. We'll have to pick a new target quickly."

They discussed the plan as they pushed the pace.

A scout came galloping back. "There's a party ahead: about a hundred strong. Bedouins under Kawkab. They're carrying tribute to him. No sign they're on alert."

Lothar's eyes lit up. "This is our opening. We deal with them first. They're our way in."

Abdullah nodded. "Understood." He raised his voice to a battlefield shout: "All riders, ready for battle!"

A Kurdish rider handed Lothar a bag of feed: grass mixed with boiled beans and wheat bran. The fine feed you gave a warhorse before a charge. Lothar fed his mount and spoke to the young rider as he worked. "Harden, this is your first battle, isn't it? Are you nervous?"

Harden gave a gentle smile. "My lord, I have already eaten today."

Lothar stared at him.

Right. Still not understanding each other.

Harden was the youngest of the Kurdish company. Sixteen years old.

"I thought I'd learned to speak Kurdish," Lothar muttered ruefully. He ruffled the boy's hair, handed the feed bag to Hans, and climbed a low rise, riding crop in hand.

In the distance, a long column was creeping toward them. Dromedaries. Warhorses. Pack animals. Livestock. A nomad caravan of considerable size.

Their chief rode at the head of the column, a purple silk cap beneath his mail coif and shimmering scale armor over his body. He laughed with his men, utterly at ease. No scouts screened the caravan. Here in the heart of Kawkab's territory, an attack was apparently unthinkable.

Lothar turned back. The riders had finished feeding their mounts. He swung into the saddle.

"Move."

He wrapped his scarf across his face and let his mail mask fall over it. He took the Winged Hussar's Swallowtail Banner in his hand and shook it once: the flag rippled and became a new device: three blazing flames encircling the Eagle of Saladin.

"Remember who we are. Loyal warriors of Saladin. I am your commander: Safadin."

He raised his lance, the swallowtail pennant snapping from its shaft, and addressed the Kurdish riders behind him. "Kill every man who takes up arms against us."

"Yes!"

The riders surged into motion. Their combat doctrine was not so different from the cavalry of Europe: lances for the charge, then curved blades in close. Abdullah and Hans rode tight to Lothar's sides. Prajna and Fringilla hung farther back; Lothar had ordered Prajna to prioritize protecting Fringilla, their spellcaster. With his Shared Talent, he could hold his own long enough for help to reach him.

The Kurdish riders felt the banner's power almost at once. The charge came effortlessly, like a blessing. Their mounts flew across the sand at a speed no ordinary horse could sustain.

Iron-shod hooves churned the yellow dust into a rising storm. The sound rolled like thunder.

The Bedouins were caught utterly off guard. At the head of the caravan, riders in loose white robes spurred forward, trying to meet the oncoming threat, to buy time for the infantry to form up.

The Bedouin chief bellowed in both Arabic and Kurdish: "We serve Lord Kawkab! Who are you? This must be a misunderstanding!"

Abdullah shouted back: "It is Kawkab we've come for! He dared insult our king, Saladin. My lord Safadin will feed his head to the desert vultures!"

The tall Arab chargers churned the yellow earth.

The wind shrieked past Lothar's ears. His pulse quickened, but the raw terror that had once gripped him before a charge was gone. He had survived enough bloodshed to master it.

The lance punched through the throat of a rider ahead of him. A well-equipped cavalryman, but his scale gorget did nothing to stop the blade from tearing through. Lothar caught a flail-blow on his shield; the impact jarred his arm from wrist to shoulder. In the flash of that impact, he saw the man's face clearly: snarling, contorted. Then they were past each other.

Faces flashed past him like figures on an unrolling scroll.

The last enemy's face was still burning in his vision when his lance drove into the next man's shield and hurled him bodily from the saddle. The recoil nearly unhorsed Lothar; Hans caught him, steadied him just in time. When Lothar straightened, he saw that the man he'd just killed had been the Bedouin chief.

Forty riders had punched clean through the enemy line.

The Bedouin cavalry shattered. The handful who survived scattered, fleeing in every direction. None dared turn back against these riders who had come at them like devils.

Lothar wheeled at the far end of the shattered caravan and raised his banner high. "Re-form! No pursuit!"

"Abdullah, offer them terms. Anyone who lays down his weapons may leave freely."

With their cavalry gone, the Bedouin caravan was already doomed; they simply had not accepted it. A direct assault, however, would still cost time and lives.

Abdullah shouted the demand in the few Arabic phrases he knew.

The answer was arrows.

Lothar lifted his lance, the lance the Swallowtail Banner had rendered unbreakable, its tip still wet with blood. "They've made their choice. Squads, by section. Chew them apart, piece by piece."

Half an hour later, the last of the resistance was dead.

"Casualties," Lothar ordered.

"Six wounded. One dead. None serious. The enemy was weak and unprepared; many did not even have armor. A clean raid."

"Good."

Lothar nodded with satisfaction. Against anything but peasant levies, a kill-ratio like that would be counted a triumph anywhere. These Kurdish riders were every bit as sharp as Godfrey's own household cavalry.

A man approached, a body cradled in his arms. He spoke rapidly in Kurdish: too fast for Lothar to follow. But the face on the corpse needed no translation.

Harden was dead.

The sixteen-year-old who had always smiled, showing two neat rows of white teeth.

"Burn his body. Harden returns to Mithras now."

Abdullah's face showed little grief. "If the boy had lived through his first battle, he would have become a hawk." The first fight always took the most green soldiers. Only after surviving it did a recruit become a veteran. Harden had not survived.

Lothar pulled off his headscarf, held it in his hands, and murmured a quiet prayer.

"We move. Before Kawkab learns what's happened."

He raised the flaming-eagle banner high. "Bring the caravan: the camels, the horses. We're a tribute caravan now, on our way to pay homage to Kawkab. Move fast!"

Already the vultures were circling overhead. They would draw Kawkab's patrols soon enough. Speed was everything.

---

In the aftermath of the battle, Lothar had risen to Level 3.

He held onto his Attribute Points for now. He was waiting for his Affinity with Fringilla to reach Amiable. Once it did, he meant to try activating her Bond Talent: Hemomancy Mastery. If blood magic suited him, he would consider putting points into Spirit.