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No, the real problems turned out to be the weather and the company. Not the soldiers, of course; Simon had spent enough time around their sort over the last few lives that, with the exception of the Corwin boys, he found he preferred it. There was a steady rhythm to their jokes and comfort to be found around a fire with men whom you’d fought beside.

It was their Lords that were the real problem.

First, it was Earl Greyden. He’d joined them short of the crossroads after the first major battle that Baron Corwin’s men faced, where they crossed swords with the Earl of Dunnin’s men over a river crossing. The Earl’s men had relied on the river and several ranks of longbowmen for their defense. So, when a few volleys of arrows did less than nothing thanks to a little whispered force magic, they were forced to retreat, and Baron Corwin took the field.

The Earl of Greyden, the Baron’s direct Lord, arrived immediately after the fighting was done. To Simon it was almost suspicious how quickly the man had arrived, and he couldn’t decide if it was because he wanted Baron Corwin to lose so he could swoop in and take the credit or if the Earl would have joined his neighbor on the winning side and slaughtered his own bannerman for his lands.

Either way, Simon had not forgotten what the man’s assassins had done to him with their crossbows, and for a few days, he considered taking him out on principle were it not for one of the nobles that joined them as their ever-growing army approached the villages on the outskirts of Liepzen.

Until then, they’d been joined by a number of nobles who were outraged by what the Duke had done to the Prince under his care. Basically, the whole of the southern counties had risen up against the north, which remained largely loyal to Duke Brin.

Then Baron Raithewait and his army showed up. The man was at least twenty years younger than the last time Simon had seen him, but it was unmistakably him. He still had the same calculating eyes and aquiline nose.

The man barely bothered to look at Simon, even after Baron Corwin introduced him. Why would he?

Simon spent the rest of the day trying to convince himself that taking the time to set the man’s tent on fire that night was not in his best interests. That was the first night he got drunk, too. He spent enough time badmouthing the nobility that many of the men he sat with gave him uncomfortable looks and encouraged him to go sleep it off.

None of those events stopped them from either battle at Liepzen. The first was held on the freshly plowed fields of the southern hills, which they easily won, and the second was at the walls of the city, where they were repulsed. Simon spent most of his time dragging Baron Corwin out from underneath his horse and back to camp.

He spent the night stabilizing him and felt good that he might pull through, but his leg had been crushed, and he’d probably lose it. Simon felt bad about that, but he wasn’t about to resist exposing himself or burning out his voice with the words of greater power that would be needed to fix it.

“I don’t know what we’d do without you,” Gregor said after Simon finally emerged from the tent covered in the blood of the boy’s father.

“We all do what we can,” Simon said, sitting down beside Gregor. He was completely unprepared for the hug that followed, but he took it in stride, and the two sat there for some time.

Afterward, when Simon went to the Baron’s peers to report the man’s condition, he found them arguing about whether or not they’d made their point and if they should sue for peace under favorable conditions or if they should press for further advantage. Simon said nothing about any of that. They wouldn’t have listened to a commoner. Inside, though, he was disgusted.

So many lives are being spent for what everyone agrees is a just cause, and as soon as we fail to win a single battle, they consider giving up? He thought to himself.

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“Cynics and snakes, all of them,” he grumbled to himself as he wandered off.

They agreed to try one more time with a feint at the north gate while they deployed the battering ram they’d just finished building to the southern gate for a second attempt to breach the inner city. Simon thought splitting their forces up was about the dumbest thing in the world, but he went south and made sure that the surviving Corwin’s went with him. He could no longer leave them alone in their current company.

The battle the next morning was brief. Not because the soldiers that were with him were exceptional, or because the ram was particularly well-built. It was because, on the second strike, Simon used the words of greater force to detonate the timber that barred the door so violently that all the defenders that had been standing near it were turned to hamburger by the shards and flinders.

No one had seen it, though, which made for the best magic in his opinion these days. As much as he loved the fire spell, it was a bit too showy to use around people who wanted to lynch him or worse. In all the time Simon had been around these men, both in Slany and on the field of battle, he’d never quite managed to work out why they hated magic so much.

He wasn’t even sure that they were hiding something from him at this point. It just seemed to be a superstition, the way that the church had accused everyone who did things they didn’t like of witchcraft. He couldn’t blame them completely. He imagined that someone like Baron Raithewait or Earl Greyden with this power would become more monstrous than they already were. It was better not to tempt fate there.

He had no idea how well the forces to the north were doing, but he didn’t care. Instead, they pressed their advantage and moved forward. The Baron that Earl Greyden had left in charge at this gate shouted for everyone to hold their position, but Simon ignored that and had the man with the horn blow an advance instead as Duke Brin’s sparse troops retreated in a panic.

If they stopped now, then their enemy would just regroup behind the walls of the castle, and then the calculating weasels in charge of Simon’s army would definitely trade victory for a few thousand acres of their neighbor\'s land or some other pittance, and he hadn’t fought his way across half of the kingdom of Brin for that.

At this point, it was a race. Simon ran near the front of his men, leaving behind those burdened by heavy armor or cowardice as he moved ever closer to the men who were running from him. When he reached them, he settled for pushing them down as he tried to push farther and farther ahead. What he was doing bordered on foolhardy, but he didn’t care. It felt like the right thing to do, given everything that had happened up until now, and that was all that mattered to him.

By the time he reached the drawbridge, it was already a few feet above the ground and rising very slowly. Simon was way ahead of his own side now and completely on his own, but he didn’t care. He could feel his bloodlust flowing through him. It wasn’t quite as powerful as being in the zone on an RTS or an FPS, but it was still intense.

At the end of the drawbridge, a pair of men tried to stop him, but he slid cleanly between them. The man on the left ended up being pushed into the moat with the words of lesser force where he would likely drown wearing all that steel, and the one on the right got Simon’s dagger in his throat and fell there while his lungs filled up with blood.

Then, with a magic-assisted leap, Simon jumped five feet into the air, pulled himself up onto the rising bridge, and ran down it to face the remaining defenders. What he was doing was silly. Part of him knew that now. Eight on one plus the archers on the wall sending quarrels in his direction on a pretty regular basis. He was pretty clearly screwed, but he wasn’t going to accept losses. Not anymore. He might not be able to figure out how to beat this game yet, but he could still win every level.

“Karesh Oonbetit,” he whispered as he ran down the draw bridge.

Force protection. He wasn’t entirely sure it would do what he wanted, but it was a word he needed to experiment with more. So, he imagined a semicircle of force floating in front of him to protect him from the flurry of projectiles coming at him.

It seemed to work, mostly. Nothing struck Simon until he got close to the wall. That was when someone hit him in the back under his left shoulder blade with a bolt before he reached his enemy. That sucked because he wouldn’t be able to pull it out and heal it without help, but he ignored it as best he could.

Instead, Simon barked, “Oonbetit,” as he leaped into the air toward his waiting foes.

The word of force wasn’t directed at them, though. It was directed at the taut chain attached to the captain that was slowly pulling up the drawbridge. A word of force wasn’t a lot. It was more than a single blacksmith’s blow, though, and that was all it took to mangle that link enough for it to come undone with all the tension it was currently enduring.

The chain parted with a terrible noise and swung violently away from the wall. Splitting apart half of the men that faced him in a vicious arc of steel that surprised everyone as the drawbridge started to crash back down behind him.

Simon was at a disadvantage here despite all of those efforts. It was still four against one, which would have normally been doable, but he couldn’t really raise his shield, so he was forced to fight far more defensively than he would have preferred.

Still, he didn’t need to kill all four of them, he reminded himself. He just had to hold the line here for another minute or two so that everyone on his side could catch up. After that, he could have someone yank out the blasted bolt, and he’d be practically as good as new.

At least, that’s what he thought until the cauldron of boiling tar somewhere above his head in the gatehouse was dumped on him. Simon had smelled the acrid pot somewhere, but he hadn’t put two and two together until he felt the first drips of molten tar drip onto him. By then, it was too late.

Simon opened his mouth to shout a word of protection, but as the hot tar blistered his skin on contact and splashed across his body, all he could do was scream in agony. It was just hot enough to be painful but not hot enough to kill him, and all he could do was suffer until one of the enemy soldiers was kind enough to put him out of his misery.