***Prince Bekvah, Kala’s Uncle***

Bekvah had grown up around the smell of the ocean. In fact, next to reading, his favorite pastime was riding the gentle swell of the waves with a line in the water, a wide brim hat protecting him from the harsh glare of the sun.

The air of the ILethan port, however, smelled nothing like home. It had the tangy smell of copper, choking clouds of smoke from coal fires rising above the city. It was expected for the largest manufacturer of steel on the continent, but still…It smelled nothing like home.

There had been two options floating around in the closed council meetings.

Gadvera had to retaliate. They had to deal a blow that was strong enough to put their enemies on the back foot. Their country had been severely weakened by the recent war, and Iletha and MAlkenrovia had suffered no damage to their infrastructure.

If they sent another army of the same size. Bekvah didn’t know if their people could deal with it. The reinforced walls, the expanded standing army; all of it was the ruffled feathers of a prey animal trying to make itself look bigger and meaner. If they were attacked again in earnest, the food, weapons and bandages would all dry up in a matter of days.

No, they could not defend. If they couldn’t defend, then the only option was to attack.

The two options of attack were Iletha and Malkenrovia. Now that they knew what they did about Malkenrovia, the land could be considered uninhabited by any reasonable man’s standards. No one was willing to accept those black worms and the monsters they carried with them as a nation of people.

So, option one, send the army to Malkenrovia and slaughter them wholesale, try to establish a beachhead, then a colony to trade with.

It was a long, slow plan, with high risk and high reward. Repopulating Malkenrovia would give them another trading partner while simultaneously cutting the monsterous support out from under the Ilethan nation. The risk was that the expedition was Malkenrovia was significantly further away, and populated by brain-infesting monsters. Anything that went wrong could lead to a cascade failure, losing the entire expedition with no profit, and no word of their failure for possible years to come. It was an entire shot in the dark.

Still, it appealed to Bekvah more than the alternative.

The alternative was to strike back at Iletha itself, and render them incapable of posing a threat over the course of the next few years, giving Gadvera time to recover.

It sounded simple, but what it basically meant was that they would have to storm the docks of Ilestar, burn down the docks and the shipyards while putting thousands of men and women to the sword, if not outright burning them to death.

It was a solid plan with much lower risk, but only temporary relief.

Innocent men and women weighed against inhuman monsters…

His brother had struggled mightily with the decision to send his army to Iletha rather than Malkenrovia. The final tipping point of his decision: There were too many unknowns about the army of monsters who’d attacked them. They knew Iletha and what it was capable of. They knew next to nothing about this other threat, and that raised the odds of the entire expedition being wiped out.

So they, when faced with the threat of inhuman monsters, Gadvera chose to attack innocent dockworkers, smiths and shipbuilders.

Bekvah understood the reasoning, and he couldn’t fault the king’s decision. Were he the older brother and standing in his place, he might have chosen the exact same course of action for the exact same reasons.

But a nagging, intrusive thought kept whispering to him that he might have chosen a different path. Bekvah chewed on his lip, idly itching the stump of his wrist. Gadvera couldn’t afford for him to be noncommittal, and so he would do his duty, without fail.

But he wouldn’t enjoy it.

Bekvah let out a shiver as the ship passed within the radius of the towers. A slippery feeling caressed the outside of his consciousness, as unwelcome as a tongue in the ear from a hated enemy.

They were scanning the boat.

Every single sailor on The ‘Surprise!’ believed this was a normal delivery of goods and passengers to Iletha. And why wouldn’t they? That’s what they’d been told.

The deception was necessary, as Bekvah was the only one whose mind was too strong to be read by the underpaid mediocre sorcerers guarding the docks from spies. If their exact plan was given away before they even made the docks, the entire ilethan guard would meet them.

It was noted, of course, that someone with a wizard’s Stability was coming into port, and Bekvah was unsurprised when he was met with a delegation of some four sorcerers in the typical blue silk robes they were known for.

“Good evening, Prince Bekvah,” The leading Sorcerer said, bowing deeply, even as Bekvah warded away the slimy thoughts and feelings trying to worm their way into his mind. “To what do we owe the honor of your visit?”

“Diplomacy,” Bekvah said, his stomach churning despite the steadiness of his voice. “Gadvera seeks to create common ground. A reason for your association with the creatures hailing from Malkenrovia to come to an end.”

“I see.” The lead sorcerer said, piercing Bekvah with his bright blue eyes. “The king would be overjoyed to welcome such a distinguished guest,” he said, pointing toward a nearby palanquin.

The squeaking of a cart caught Bekvah’s attention, and he glanced over at Holth, the sailor tasked with retrieving Bekvah’s luggage from the bowels of the ship.

The pallet of bottles dominated the cart wobbling toward him.

“Where do you want your luggage, milord?” Holth asked.

“Right there is fine.”

Bekvah took a deep breath. I guess we’re doing this.

“Apologies.”

Splitting.

47/50 Bent remaining.

Bekvah tapped the god’s fire component under his sleeve, aiming three separate bursts at different points in space in front of, above and behind the sorcerers.

They raised their hands, Bent entangling with his own to annul the effects, managing to stop two, but the third one behind them went off, singing them to the bone and killing them instantly, leaving only the surprised expressions on their faces as they toppled forward.

The detonation of ultra-hot air caught the nearby buildings on fire and sent a massive plume of smoke up into the sky.

“Milord, wha-“ Holth asked, staggering backward from the sudden wave of heat.

“I swear to the gods,” Bekvah muttered as he tore the wrapping off the pallet and opened the first jar. “Whoever named this vessel had no idea of the irony.”

The first jar opened, and clear slime erupted out of it, spattering around the ship seemingly at random.

The slime grew and swelled, taking shape and color, until Andra and her squad of Legends stood around him.

The mere presence of the vanguard was a weight off Bekvah’s shoulders.

Without hesitating, Andra reached out and seized another jar, barking orders as she twisted the top off of it.

“Take the docks! Lock everything down between here and the ship!”

The Legends clomped down the gangplank in full armor, swords drawn as a squad of rosy-cheeked young men staggered out of the next jar, looking down at their arms in a stupor. One of them gagged, forcing back a violent reaction to being rendered into soup.

Andra didn’t wait for them to get comfortable though. She snatched jars and tossed them to the soldiers.

“Come on, you brats! Your squad’s on jar-opening duty! Send every squad down to the front as soon as they stop being snot. Today’s the day we give these Ilethan scum a bloodied nose!

The squad was propelled into motion, and they began opening jars, creating a neverending stream of armored boots that rushed down the gangplank, overwhelming the docks and flooding directly onto the streets of Ilestar.

Bekvah’s heart sank as he spotted a woman being cut down as she ran, just a bit too slow to survive the assault.

I wonder who she was.

“Hey!” Andra said, jostling his shoulder with her gloved fist, her greying brows furrowed.

“Yes?” Bekvah asked, prying his thoughts away from the burgeoning guilt.

We need you to ash the shipyards and topple the smithies! If it’s made of wood, it burns! If it’s made of stone, blow it up! We have to do it before they get organized and start trying to snipe you! Can you do that?”

Bevah drew himself to his feet. He didn’t know exactly when he began kneeling.

“Sure, use the wizard with a lifetime of studying Bent as nothing more than expensive artillery,” Bekvah muttered, trying to distract himself from the ongoing loss of life with humor.

It worked, a bit.

Bekvah did as he was instructed, immolating building after building, burning them to the ground in an ever-expanding ring outward from the port, moving at the ground-eating pace of a wildfire.

He kept himself topped off with Bent potions he’d filled himself, saving up in secret for this day.

Andra provided him with her personal protection, acting as a wall of steel between him and the Ilethan archers who tried to pick him off as they marched through the smoke-filled streets, digging deep into the very heart of Ilestar.

The resistance was far weaker than they’d come to expect, which Bekvah attributed to a unusual level of disorganization from the Ilethan Sorcerers.

This allowed them to push beyond simply crippling their enemy’s ship production, moving on to looting the trade district. Thick lines of men formed behind the front lines, hauling goods back to the port, where Gadveran soldiers had swiftly taken control of every piece of wood that floated.

If all went well, they would come home with a new fleet and the plunder from an entire city, putting them back in a position of strength.

Their mission was to create as much devastation as possible, loot, and retreat without directly engaging the Ilethan Royalty.

It soon became clear why as they neared the center of the city. The previously fearful panicking civilians suddenly shifted, like a liquid turned solid in the space of a single breath.

Out of nowhere, a ragged line of survivors fleeing the Gadveran offensive stopped in their tracks, formed a perfect line, and created a makeshift barricade, creating a solid line of defense by seizing stalls, wagons, pillars, fences and furniture and piling them up, laying spears and makeshift weapons atop them to create bristling impediments.

They moved with the speed and alacrity of people who’d done this exact thing a thousand times, obviously under the direct control of a Ilethan Royal.

Bekvah immolated them, allowing the Gadveran soldiers to march through unhindered.

We’ve got their attention now, I’d best advise Andra to start moving out.

A presence shifted its attention, settling on Bekvah and his surroundings. It felt as though a mountain had pressed its weight down on top of each and every one of them, causing the soldiers to cry out as one, many staggering, or dropping to their knees under the mental pressure.

Your Stability has resisted the effects of the Ability.

Bekvah felt a spike of pain bloom in his side, causing him to gasp in pain.

He glanced over and spotted a young man with a spear, a crazed look in his eyes, his lips twitching in a gruesome smile as he jabbed the business end into Bekvah’s side.

Andra let out an angry shout and shoved the boy away from Bekvah. The spear hurt more on the way out, causing him to stagger backward, hand clutched over the wound as he leaned against the smoking rubble of a nearby smithy.

“Are you alright?” She asked, turning back to Bekvah.

“Yes, I’m fine. We’ve got to –“

Bekvah’s heart leapt into his throat as he barely dodged a vicious thrust from the Gadveran general, the white hot sword shearing through the stone behind him, bringing Andra’s face inches away from his own.

“Bekvah.” She growled through gritted teeth, her expression one of absolute fury as her shaking arm drew her sword up again. “Your diplomatic message has been received.”

***Calvin***

Calvin kicked his heels off the side of the rearmost car, enjoying the wind beginning to blow through his hair as they set off to the south. Grant was unwilling to guard this leg of the journey through Iletha, as the aging general was considered a traitor, and had been promised with a gruesome end should they ever catch him.

To that end, Calvin and Baroke took the man’s place

“Is it just me or does it look like Ilestar is on fire? Baroke asked, peering into the distance as the train slowly picked up speed in reverse, carrying tons of raw iron and copper away from the city.

Calvin glanced over and squinted. Baroke’s eyesight was far better than his own, but Calvin could easily tell that the smoke rising over the trade city had increased a hundredfold.

Calvin glanced around the bare mountains that surrounded the city, filled with metals and coal, but not a tall tree in sight.

“Good. We’ll charge them tenfold for the next batch of lumber.”

“Yeah, fuck those guys,” Baroke said, giving the city the finger as the train drew them further and further away from the enemy nation.