Once again, Felian Northdale had been forced to take on a thankless task against his will. Ever since Duke Herak had enlisted him as part of his entourage, things hadn't gone right for him even once. That had only worsened after he had been dragged across the ocean into these foreign lands.

First, he had been tasked with the protection of the merchant caravans across Medala, while the duke traveled further south, to deal with his old enemy, the merchant Corco Fastgrade, who had somehow become a king in the meantime.

'Not to worry, this will not take long' Was that how the duke said it?

Even back then, Felian had been suspicious. After all, the duke had already been outfought and out thought by the merchant king in Arcavia, in the duke's own home. What chance did they have here, in a foreign land that was the home of their enemy? As expected, the duke's plan failed in a spectacular fashion, as his allied armies fell to the southern kingdom, despite their superior numbers and the duke's leadership.

Although Felian had been spared from the embarrassment of being part of that debacle, his own mission hadn't been much more successful. While the caravans almost always reached their goals, they were regular victims of robbers.

In fact, the regularity and intensity of their attacks convinced Felian that some of the local lords were cooperating with the robbers and took a cut of the plunder. Of course, all the local lords were playing dumb every time he hinted at their involvement. Instead, the locals would just use their fake outrage at the accusations as an excuse to drive up the tariffs again.

Over the years, they had invented more and more 'special' taxes to bleed dry the caravans. And all that was before they had even reached the Verduic Sea, where an army of pirates was waiting for them to grab whatever was left. The fact that their trips remained profitable despite all of their losses showed just how valuable the route to Chutwa was, and it also gave Herak the false impression that Felian had been doing a good job.

With their discovery of the southern passage, they had caught a break and at least gotten a handle on their route tothe Verduic Sea. With new allies on the Verdant Isles and a powerful fleet ready to support them, Herak gave him a new mission, one that seemed easier to handle.

This time, his task had been to secure their naval superiority in the Verduic Sea and to cut off the Green Kingdom from outside support. After long negotiationswith the locals, The Green Island remained the only kingdom in the sea that wasn't willing to work with them. With everyone else on their side, suppressing them should have been easy enough.

Even so, he never underestimated his enemies, even less sincethe Green Island’sstrongest allywas the merchant king who had been a thorn in Herak’sside so many times. As expected, the first joint battle Felian’s fleet had fought together with their new verdant allies had beena giant failure. Their enemies had proven surprisingly powerful, and their allies surprisingly useless, so he had become even more conservative in his strategy.

In his opinion, his plans on Yua Island had been a real stroke of genius, cutting off the enemy supply lines from an unassailable position. For once, things looked like they would work out. Yet now, as he stared at the bloody mud of the battlefield, everything began to feel eerily familiar. Once again, he felt like he was one step behind, and once again, no one was listening to him when it mattered the most. Just like the mad captain in front of him, who was foaming at the mouth as he screamed in his face.

“What did you say, Oriental!?”

“I said: It's over.” Felian stepped back and to the side to get away from the captain's red face hidden behind his long, unkempt beard.

For one, he wasn't eager on the other man's looks, or his smell. Even more, he wanted to take another glance at the battlefield, to see if there were any other options. However, nothing had improved since his last look. The battlefield was still a mess, and right within firing range, there was still a mysterious fortress that had grown out of the ground over night.

“Nothing's over! You coward, all this time we've run rings around them, and we can do the same again! Just watch my men crush their little fort!”

The captain's voice was as powerful as his words, but Felian only got a headache from it.

“That was before, when we had the initiative,” he tried to reason. “Just look at the mess out there. That's a stone fortress that's shown up out of nowhere and planted itself right in our faces. What are we supposed to do about that? We can't fight our way through the mud under heavy fire. You've seen how that ended for the other side all these days.”

“Well, whose smart idea was it to rough up the soil!?”

In the face of constant screaming, Felian tried to retain his calm.

“And it worked out just fine all these days. No one could have guessed that they would be able to build an entire fortress over night. In the end, we need to accept that our enemies were just slier than us this time.”

Rather than end up in a shouting match, Felian put all the blame for their loss on the enemies and their cleverness. Maybe then, the captain would calm down, and his prideful allies would be able to accept their defeat in grace. Clearly, the knight had no idea who he was talking to.

“Hah, those cowards can be as sly as they want, they will see our might soon. A little bit of dirt won't stop us, we are not that weak. If only we were fighting on water, we would annihilate them as if it was nothing.”

Faced with the nonsense of the natives and under tremendous pressure from his far-off lord, Felian's previous calm crumbled like the palisades under his feet.

“Well, we're not on the water, are we, you genius!?”

And you didn't do so well on the water either. Just look at that fleet across the island.

“Take that back, Oriental!”

“Or what, your brave men will throw some mud at me!?”

Since he had no words left, the captain just stared at Felian with clenched fists. The knight's own muscles tensed, ready for a fight. Whether it be a duel or a fight to the death, he would be more than happy to show the loudmouth what real strength was. Dragging him across the ground by his scraggy beard would be great.

At this point, Felian would be relieved to see their shaky alliance with the Verdant Folk end, so he had no more patience for diplomacy. As far as he was concerned, the trade route to Chutwa was more trouble than it was worth. However, just as he got ready to jump the captain, the native took a step back.

“Fine, do as you want, you coward,” he said and turned to leave. “You can just stand here and watch as we take that little fortress by ourselves. My men will show you what true strength is. And once we're done with those Orientals over there, I can still take care of you.”

After a dismissive snort, the captain stormed away with the same angry arrogance he had arrived with. As soon as he left, one of Felian's adjutants appeared. Although both he and Felian were knights, only the latter had fallen into Duke Herak's favor, much to his own dismay, and had been fashioned with extensive rights that put him above his peers.

“And what now, sire?” the other knight addressed Felian as his superior.

“What do you mean, 'what now'? Nothing has changed. Just follow your previous orders.”

“But what about our allies? Shouldn't we support them?”

The knight followed the sound of screams and looked at the disorganized battlefield, but Felian remained cold-hearted. At this point, he was done with stubborn 'masters' who always knew better than him.

“Let them die until they've had their fill.” He scoffed. “You prepare our men to board the ships and retreat. We're getting off this damn island.”

“And what do we do then? Our mission was to hold the island.”

“Yeah, and the island was perfect too.” This time, Felian sighed in frustration. They wouldn't be able to find a second place like this anywhere in the Verduic Sea. “No matter what, they had to sail past the island to connect Saniya and Rasacopa. The southern coastline has perfect visibility over the sea route we wanted to block. On land, there’s open terrain that's easy to defend and hard to attack. And on top of that, shallow topsoil so no one could tunnel under our walls. All of it, all our preparations, ruined because of one night of inattention. But that's how it is, we can't hold this place anymore. We've lost this round. It's a real shame, but we should learn from our mistakes and count our losses, before we waste the lives of our men.”

“Duke Herak will not like this.”

And I'm sure you'll be happy to report my failure to him.

The other knight barely tried to hide his glee, but Felian wouldn't mind losing the duke's attention. Though he didn't know if he could afford the punishment, so he still had to try his best. Luckily, he still had some ideas left.

“Although this is bad, we're not quite out of options yet. I had an alternative island scouted out already, we can set up a second position there. I'll talk to the duke about the details when we return.”

With thoughts of his alternate plan, Felian's skin began to crawl. He really didn't want to resort to that place, but it seemed like now, he didn't have much of a choice anymore. From now on, the war in the Verduic Sea would get even bloodier and messier than before.

__________________________

Although the battle lasted for most of the day, the rest of the war on Yua island didn't have much suspense anymore. The verdant warriors tried to push through the defenses several times, to no avail. In their desperation, they finally managed to breach the walls once, but in the end, Dedrick led a commando of his wolves to drive them back. After that, the battle was decided, and any remaining resistance was soon snuffed out.

By afternoon, the first of the enemy towers fell backwards and landed in the ocean, cannons and all. By evening, Saniya's soldiers stormed the almost empty palisade wall, heavily marked by the traces of battle. In the distance, they could still see the last enemy ships sail away in defeat.

It was a great victory for Saniya's warriors, but Dedrick felt somewhat melancholic about it. For him, it would be the last fight in the west, that much he had decided. With their enemies driven back and the route between Rasacopa and Saniya cleared up, Admiral Atau organized his fleet to return to Saniya for supplies right away. Dedrick used the chance to return as well. On his way back to Saniya, he finally made sense of his future, and no longer felt conflicted.

“Still don't get why you're going back already,” Atau complained to Dedrick as the Homeward steered into Saniya's harbor. “You just showed up, won the one battle and left again. You know that the war is still going on, right?”

While they were talking, Dedrick stared at the familiar city he would soon leave behind.

“Yeah, but the rest of the war is mostly on water anyways. I hate fighting at sea, no control over anything. It's all about who gets luckier with the weather.”

“Maybe you're useless on water, but this won't be the last battle on land either. We still need your help.”

“Nah, you'll be fine without me.” Dedrick shook his head without looking over. “This time, I was lucky because I saw the workers building houses here and connected it to the war. Anyone could have done the same, had they spent a couple drunk days on the castle's balcony. Plus, you would have won that island sooner or later anyways. Isn't the boss' entire strategy based on stalling?”

“Guess that's true.”

Both remained silent for a while, as they watched the sailors anchor the ship and install the landing ramp. In the end, it was Atau who spoke up first again.

“So. Since you won't do anything in the war, what are you doing back here? Training officers, or back to defending the border?”

“Neither, I guess,” Dedrick replied with a grin. He stood up and made his way down the ship.

“You know that you're still employed by the crown, right?” Atau's tone was much harsher than before. “Even if you're friends with Laqhis, you still have to do something.”

“Nah, I'll leave the important missions in the name of country and people to great heroes like you. After we took the island, I had a talk with the boss over the radio. I'm relieved of my duties. The mountain troll is probably waiting for me already, he's gonna pay out me and my men. After that, I'm free to go whenever I want.”

“Wait, are you serious?”

Halfway down the gangway, Dedrick stopped and looked around the city before him.

“I don't think it's a good idea to stick around for too long. Might get attached otherwise.”

“So that's it, you're just running off?”

“What else would I do?” Finally, Dedrick turned around and looked at Atau, keeping his face as indifferent as possible. “I'm a mercenary, a robber for hire. Were you expecting some great banquet with a tear-filled goodbye? Not big on watching men pine for me, so I'll decline, thanks.”

This time, Atau had nothing left to say as he watched Dedrick march down the plank. When his feet were about to touch the pier, the mercenary remembered something and reached into his clothes.

“Oh yeah,” he said, as he pulled out a pistol.

During the battle, the last push of their enemies had been the fiercest, led by one of the verdant captains. The guy had put up a great fight and even disarmed Dedrick, but in the end, the mercenary had pulled down his enemy by his scraggy beard and fired a lead ball through his left eye. The weapon had come in quite handy then, but now it was used up. With the barrel bent like this, it wouldn't be able to fire anymore, and it wouldn't be worth the money to repair the antique either.

“Here,” he said, and handed the pistol to Atau. “Give this one back to the boss, tell him I don't need it.”

“Maybe you should keep it, as a memento,” Atau said, but still took the pistol. Dedrick was glad, since he didn't plan to leave anything on him that would remind him of this place. It would firm up his will, and focus his thoughts on his future goals.

“I said I don't need it, got it all right here.”

Dedrick tipped his head, nodded towards Atau one final time, and then finally left the ship. His steps felt light and his heart was free. This time, he was sure that he hadn't left any remorse behind. He wouldn't forget this place, and maybe he would come back here some day. But for now, it was time for him to be the leading actor in his own tale.

Just as suddenly as his journey had overlapped with the merchant king Corcopaca Fastgrade, their paths now diverged, leading them down different routes. As always, the mercenary knight faced his uncertain future with an arrogant smile.