Leon breathed in the cool, salty air of the Gulf coast. He was as happy as he’d been in a long while. He had Maia back, he and Valeria had made some measure of peace, and now, finally, it seemed like the civil war drawing to a close. August, once he had gotten the formal oaths of support from those who had verbally agreed to his declaration a week ago, had ordered his army to begin their march on the capital. That army was a little smaller since many of the lesser Lords deserted, but their forces accounted for less than fifteen thousand total knights, men-at-arms, and levies. August still had eight Legions with him, counting those who had defected to his side from Duronius’ army.

August didn’t mind these defections too much as far as anyone knew—there’d be time enough to deal with those nobles later. For now, he had to secure the Kingdom as a whole and couldn’t get bogged down dealing with minor Lords.

There still weren’t enough ships to transport everyone, though, even as large as the Gulf of Discord armada was. Constantine sent a letter from the Bull’s Horns suggesting that he deploy the fleet he’d taken over to aid in this endeavor, but August refused, with the reasoning that Ariminium mustn’t be left undefended at this most crucial of stages.

As a result, all of the Legions were packed aboard transports and sent off while the noble armies would follow along the coast, then up the river as closely as they could.

Leon was aboard the leading fleet’s flagship, the Bull King’s Ship Julius Quartus Taurus, a massive beast almost as large as the Consul’s vessel. Its magic engine propelled them onward, the complex enchantments inscribed upon it soundlessly using the very water beneath the hull to push them through the waves.

The six merchant cities on the southern coast had already sent messages of submission to August, as had most of the nobles and Exarchs ruling the territory along the Naga and all its branches. That gave the fleets more than enough entry points into the river networks of the Southern Territories and beyond.

Leon could feel it in the air—the anticipation, the excitement. The civil war had only been raging for a few months, less than half a year, but the sailors and soldiers around him were ready for it to be over. More than a hundred thousand of their countrymen had already been killed in the fighting, and that number was only a conservative estimate. Leon was, himself, just as ready to bring an end to this thing, to bring justice to those who had murdered Trajan. All he had to do now was wait, wait as the ships bore him and the army he accompanied north, all the way to the capital.

His lips curled upward in a deadly smile. Yes, he was quite looking forward to ending all of this.

---

“Sir Leon, you’ll be given command,” August said as he and the entire command staff—comprising several dozen Legates and just as many high Lords—poured over a map in the center of their meeting room. “Think you can handle it?”

August’s tone was provocative. Challenging.

Leon smiled. “No question about it,” he replied with an ease he hadn’t ever had. “One of my knights, Dame Valeria, grew up in Calabria. Her father was the Exarch of the city for years. I don’t doubt for a second that we’ll be able to find a way in.”

“Excellent,” August replied. “The rest of us will take the larger ships up this other route further to the west. That’s going to be the only way we’ll get the dreadnoughts and their Flame Lances up to the capital. All the rest of the waterways are too shallow to bear their mass.”

“Your Highness, I still think it folly to send Sir Ursus up to Calabria, a walled city, without Flame Lances,” the Consul of Discord interjected. “We don’t need to split our forces so. We can simply sail the entire armada up this deeper channel and seize Calabria on the way.”

“That’s an option,” Marquis Aeneas conceded, though his tone made it clear he wasn’t agreeing. “However, time is of the essence. Octavius won’t take the loss of the southern fleets lying down. I imagine he’ll be sending the Consul of the Endless Ocean and his larger fleets to deal with us. We need to make our way up the Naga and bring an end to this war now before we get bogged down in a pointless naval engagement that will only serve to further weaken the Kingdom. Sending Sir Ursus up to seize Calabria now is our best option to break past it quickly before Octavius can send whatever reserve forces he still has to reinforce the city and block our passage. If we get sandwiched between river defenses in the north and the Consul of the Ocean in the south, we’ll be screwed.”

“I agree,” added Roland. “Dame Minerva, Sir Clovis, and the Brimstone Paladin have secured the Northern Territories and are beginning their march south from Teira. Whatever armies that Octavius has in reserve will be needed to block them, but I doubt they’ll be enough, not if he keeps both of his Paladins in the capital as he’s been doing. Octavius has been put on the back foot after our victories, but that doesn’t mean he’s lost. If we let our position go to our heads, we could find ourselves suffering a few defeats and losing all the gains we’ve made so far.”

Abronius shrugged. “I’m not saying we should wait, just that we don’t need to split our fleets.”

“I can do this,” Leon confidently responded, his voice strong and even. Confident and sure of himself. “Give me a fleet and a Legion and I’ll take Calabria before you even reach it. It will present no obstacle to our advance.”

---

“Please tell me I wasn’t talking out my ass back there,” Leon practically begged Valeria. The two were joined by only Alix as they were sitting in the cabins of the leading flagship that had been allocated to Leon. Both of the two knightesses had been present in the strategy meeting, so they knew what he was talking about. Maia, meanwhile, was out swimming. Apparently, riding a boat was a mildly uncomfortable experience for a river nymph, so she rarely came back aboard if the sun was still up.

“You weren’t,” Valeria replied, an amused smirk gracing her face as she softly chuckled. “I can get us into Calabria with minimal casualties if we have to storm the city. Should be pretty easy, actually.”

“Like, how easy?” Alix asked. “Like eating ten sausages in one sitting easy or getting Anzu to like you easy?”

Valeria couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow at the strange comparison, the sign of a small crack opening in her stoic expression. “… um… the sausages…? I think? It’ll be a walk in the park, that’s my point.”

“… All right,” Leon replied, giving Alix a confused, searching look, all while she tried desperately to hold back her laughter.

“… what…?” she asked as evenly as she could. “You two… have been acting so oddly recently… Everything good?”

Valeria unconsciously rubbed her shoulder—the one that Anzu had savaged during Leon’s confrontation—but said, “Everything’s fine.”

“We had some disagreements, but we’ve found some common ground,” Leon explained in a little more detail, but when Alix leaned in with an expectant smile, he only said, “It’s a private matter. Sorry.”

“‘Private matter’, hmm?” Alix said with a mischievous look in her eye. “You two are fucking, aren’t you? Don’t think I can’t smell the sex wafting out of your quarters!”

“What?!” Leon shouted in response, his neck popping as he did a double-take. “We’re not… no, our rela—we’re not having sex!”

Leon’s tone was panicked and insistent, and he briefly glanced at Valeria to back him up. However, the young silver-haired woman looked mortified beyond speech. Her pale cheeks had turned scarlet and she seemed to be looking everywhere except Leon or Alix.

“Then who is it I hear moaning in the night in the throes of pleasure?” Alix challenged, her trolling smile growing wider. “It’s not even a question in my mind, you two have been doing the dirty every night.” Alix then turned her attention to Valeria exclusively rather than both her and Leon and said in a conspiratorial tone, “I’m actually kind of jealous, I haven’t been able to find a guy I like enough to let him take care of me in that way anywhere on this ship. Tell me, is Leon good? I mean, I’m fairly certain he is, judging by what Lady Elise has told me, but she won’t give me details!”

“All right, all right, all right, stop,” Leon loudly demanded. “Alix, I think you’re taking this a little too far. Honestly, if you were serving any other knight, you’d probably be seeing some punishment for comments like those.”

“Hmm?” she said, glancing back at him. His sharp gaze seemed to break through her playfulness, and when she looked back at Valeria, she could see the embarrassment and discomfort on Valeria’s face. “Oh… yeah, I think I might’ve… I’m sorry Val, I was just messing with you…”

“It’s… fine,” Valeria whispered as she did her best to regain her composure. “I’m fine. It’s fine. All fine.”

“Sorry about that, I took that too far,” Alix repeated as she slid closer to Valeria. “I know you haven’t been sleeping with Leon, it’s Naiad I’ve been hearing.” Alix then suddenly snapped back up, her gaze turning back to Leon. “Where is our resident river nymph, by the way? I don’t think I’ve seen her in days.”

“She’s following the ship,” Leon said, only too happy to get away from Alix’s teasing.

“Oh. That makes sense. Will she be with us during the assault on Calabria? Assuming there is an assault, I mean?”

“She should be.”

“Good, then victory is as good as ours, especially with Val on our side!”

---

“They’ve made it far…” Earthshaker said from the riverbank, hidden in the marshy forest. His attention was turned in the direction of the fleet sailing its way past through the city at the mouth of the river, and he could see why the fleet was moving so fast: it wasn’t stopping at the city, despite being able to rest and resupply there. It could be thus implied that they hadn’t stopped at any other settlements along the coast, either.

The ships weren’t moving too fast, relatively speaking, and now that they were fighting the current, they’d be moving much slower. Still, there were quite a few, and Earthshaker wasn’t willing to take on so many right here, not when he had no idea where his father was.

Turning to the nobles at his side, he ordered, “Tell me what you know of these ships.”

The noble in question paled a little under the seventh-tier mage’s gaze. He was only a third-tier mage himself, and a rather poor Baron as well. He had, until about a week previous, been a part of August’s army, his territory situated deep in the Eastern Territories.

August’s declaration to abolish the nobility had caused him and a number of other like-minded nobles to desert. They’d largely stuck together so they could protect themselves if August sent his army after them, but they hadn’t been attacked. In fact, they’d run into the Earthshaker Paladin on the road barreling for the old site where the fleets had been waiting for Duronius. Unfortunately for him, Earthshaker had been too late to stop the armada from departing, but the nobles wound up following him after he declared that he’d be taking August’s head.

“I think that’s the fleet my cousin told me about, the one led by the Thunder Knight, but it hard to say from here, especially without their dreadnoughts,” the noble hastily replied, his voice weak and squeaky.

Another noble nearby, a southern hereditary knight with only a handful of knights loyal to him added, “Those big ships won’t be coming in on this route. Too shallow.”

“Good,” Earthshaker replied. “Won’t have to worry about Flame Lances, then.”

‘Still, that’s a lot of water between me and them…’ the Paladin thought to himself. As an earth mage, swimming wasn’t his forte, and he was reluctant to assault the ships so far out into the wide, slow-moving river.

As if sensing the Paladin’s worry, the southern hereditary knight said, “If you’re looking to stop this fleet, there’s a good spot to assault it further upriver. This river will narrow a bit and pass through some hills. The forest will give some cover to advance, while the narrowing river will allow us to block it off and prevent them from simply pushing past us.”

Earthshaker scowled. More and more ships were making their appearances until he could see a couple hundred coming in from the Gulf and passing through the merchant city. He wasn’t sure if his father was among them, but searching them all would be a daunting task. Fortunately, he had more than ten thousand knights, men-at-arms, and all their levies at his back, but those numbers presented a challenge of their own—they were yet another reason why the amphibious assault wasn’t going to work here.

“Then that’s where we’ll go,” Earthshaker growled, hating that he was having to wait even a little bit longer. “When they reach that point, we’ll take those ships.”

A few of the nobles behind him audibly gulped. It was a daunting task, attacking those ships and their full complements of marines, let alone whoever else was with them.

Not that Earthshaker cared, of course. All he wanted was to free his father, and if he got to kill some Augustine troops and other traitors while he was at it, then all the better.

‘Leon Ursus, so-called ‘Thunder Knight’…’ the Paladin thought to himself, his inner voice dark and filled with contempt. ‘Not my pick for the first commander to kill, but I suppose he’ll have to do.’