“I have to say, this feels good,” Marcus said as he stretched a bit on the deck of their transport ship.

“Yeah, I’ve been cooped up in that damn thing for too long,” Alcander added as he mirrored Marcus’ movements.

“I feel the same way, but that’s not what I was talking about…” Marcus said as his eyes drifted over toward Leon and Alix, who were leaning on a nearby rail staring out into the Gulf of Discord as the transport left the Naga River and started following the coast west. They were only an hour or two away from the task force that was going to go after Octavius. They were close enough for the sharper-eyed among them to be able to see the massive ships so far in the distance that they looked positively tiny.

Sensing his gaze and hearing the pause, Leon glanced at Marcus. “What do you mean, then?” he asked.

“Ah, it’s just that even though it wasn’t that long ago, and it was kind of a terrible situation, I enjoyed running around the south with all of you,” Marcus said. “I don’t think I ever would’ve experienced something like that back in Aventino. Not fighting against giants. Just felt good, you know? Like, I know we were killing our countrymen, and that’s terrible, but it was also a lot like back in the Knight Academy, testing ourselves against each other. The only one we’re missing is Valeria.”

Leon grimly nodded. He didn’t much want to talk about her right now—at least, not with Marcus.

“I suppose I get that,” Alcander replied. “The ultimate test! Ha! How can anyone who calls themselves a mage not relish battle!”

Leon almost agreed with Alcander. He wasn’t so fond of killing, though he by no means shied away from it—killing was just a chore like any other, if it was necessary. But the exhilaration of battle was delightful. Like Alcander said, testing himself against other powerful mages was a thrill unlike any other, even with the knowledge that one wrong move could leave him dead. Coming out the other side of a terrible battle intact was a high that Leon wasn’t sure could be matched.

At least, that was the case when he wasn’t leading people. The responsibilities he’d had to take on during the civil war had prevented him from doing what he thought he did best: go off on his own, testing his abilities against those of a group of his enemies. The battle he’d fought against the Talfar warriors after leaving the walls of the Bull’s Horns and after he’d met Maia was, in his mind, the best he’d ever fought. It had just been him against hundreds of men and women who wanted him dead, and yet he’d won. Or at least, he’d gotten away, but that was his objective at the time.

Being in charge of thousands of people instilled far too much pressure for Leon to feel like he could enjoy such tests.

As he lost himself in contemplation, the conversation soon moved on, and when Leon dragged himself back to it, he was kind of lost.

“… that’s all?” Alix asked with a look of amusement on her face. “When Leon found me to drag me on this little expedition, I was chatting up this cute guy I live next to. Things might’ve gone somewhere if Leon hadn’t swooped in and practically dragged me away.”

“Terrible,” Marcus said with a playfully reproachful glare sent in Leon’s direction, who shrugged with only a modicum of embarrassment. All three of them had been busy when he’d gone to retrieve them, and he hadn’t given them much time to prepare for the journey.

“Yeah…” Leon whispered. “Sorry about all of that, I was in a hurry and I had a lot on my mind.”

“Don’t apologize to me, I don’t mind,” Alcander said with a sly grin. “You should probably apologize to that girl you practically pulled off me. She was shouting and kicking and screaming that she was being separated from me…”

“Untrue,” Leon replied with a look of utter seriousness, though his cheeks began to redden. “I barely even stuck my head into your room.”

“… Ugh, you were such a brute to her! You practically threw her across the room! I half expected you to take her right then and there! She certainly seemed willing enough after you showed off some of your strength…”

“Again, untrue, I didn’t even see her face, and I certainly didn’t touch her! I didn’t even enter the room!”

Marcus smiled as Leon’s face started going red. “Interesting, I had no idea you were into such rough play, Leon! That certainly explains why you almost carried off those I was with…”

Leon flushed even brighter red. He’d been in such a hurry to get Marcus, Alcander, and Alix together so that they could get ready to head south that he’d practically barged into Marcus’ personal apartments where the young man had been in the middle of a veritable orgy. Several beautiful couples had been naked and doing their thing on a platform while Marcus watched, a pair of pretty and androgynous people burying their faces between Marcus’ legs as he did so—whether they were boys or girls, Leon neither knew nor cared enough to ask. Leon had been mortified with his intrusion, but he’d taken shelter in boldness and simply walked over and told Marcus what was going on, then ordered him to get ready to move as soon as possible.

Fortunately, none of them had been too put off by Leon’s actions, even if he burned with embarrassment when he remembered his rushed actions.

“Listen, Leon,” Alcander said as he walked over and wrapped his arm around Leon’s shoulders, ignoring Leon’s momentary tense reaction, “I get it. You’re with several beautiful women, but sometimes you just need something else to get the blood pumping, know what I’m saying? But you don’t need to barge in on people in the middle of the act; if you want to join, you just have to ask, I’m sure something can be worked out.”

“I… have no idea… what you’re talking about…” Leon responded, his face somehow turning even redder as he stumbled on his sentence, uncertain as he was how to respond. He meant what he said, he wasn’t sure what Alcander was getting at.

“You’re a pretty good-looking guy, if you don’t mind me saying, and while I’m not really attracted to guys, I don’t mind sharing… Hey Marcus, you think we should invite Leon the next time we get a party going?”

“Sure,” Marcus replied, not hesitating in the least. “Might be fun, I can imagine a seventh-tier mage can go for quite a while.”

Before anything else could be said, one of the transport ship’s crew members quickly ran forward and called out, “Uh, Leon Ursus?”

Leon scowled a bit, but he was grateful for the distraction. He hadn’t made any public announcements that he was taking back his old name, so even if he preferred to be known that way now, most people still only knew him as a Valeman.

“What is it?” Leon responded.

“There’s a rowboat to take you to shore, Si—uh, Good Sir,” the young sailor replied. He couldn’t have been more than twenty years old, and barely radiated the power of a first-tier mage. Leon could understand the anxiety of being sent to find a seventh-tier mage, and his nervousness with Leon’s strange status in the task force.

Leon could’ve asked what was waiting for him at the shore, he could’ve asked quite a few questions. Instead, he merely sent a quick notice to Maia of where he was going, swiftly pushed Alcander’s arm off his shoulder, and said with a telling amount of eagerness, “Let’s get out of here!”

He felt like he could still hear Marcus, Alcander, and Alix laughing at his expense as he was taken to shore. He didn’t blame them, though, and even had a light smile on his face as he managed to calm himself down in the rowboat. It had been a while since he’d last spent time with other people like that, and while he wouldn’t want his entire life to be spent in that kind of company, it was nice in relatively small amounts.

---

On the shore of the Gulf of Discord, not too far away from where the fleets were massing to finish preparing to advance to the Serpentine Isles, a large camp had been established. About a mile down the coast was the Legion harbor that was servicing the ships, but Leon could see why the camp was all the way out here: the terrain between here and the walls protecting the harbor was nothing but swamp, while there were just too many people in the task force to have them all stay in the harbor’s stone structures while their ships were serviced.

Leon was escorted through the camp and shown into the command tent. There, he found about half a dozen sixth-tier mages and at least two dozen fifth-tier mages all pouring over maps and quietly talking amongst themselves. The half-dozen sixth-tier mages were all assembled around a table in the center of the tent staring and pointing at several maps of the Serpentine Isles.

The woman Leon assumed to be in charge looked up as he approached, her eyes warm and brown, her shortly-cropped hair a similar shade. She was tall and well-built, and from the almost imperceptible scars on her face that didn’t mar her natural beauty, Leon could tell that she was no stranger to battle.

“Ah, Leon Ursus,” she said in a confident and authoritative bark. “Thank you for coming.”

“Sure thing,” Leon replied. “However, I’d prefer Leon ‘Raime’, if you please.”

To everyone’s credit, only a few of the fifth-tier mages acted at all surprised. The Legion professionalism that Leon had missed after having to wrangle the noble armies during the civil war was something that he missed more than he’d have expected after all this time.

“Very well,” the woman replied, her voice smooth, yet hard and clear. “I am Legate Basina. His Majesty and the Consul of Discord have seen fit to name me the leader of this expedition.” She then nodded to the two men to her right and left, one short but stocky and the other of average height and average looks. “These are the other two fleet Legates, Theuderic and Sigebert. Theuderic will be my second-officer while Sigebert will lead the manhunt for Octavius. Now, I assume you have questions?”

Leon nodded. “I assume all of this isn’t just to recapture one runaway Prince?”

“No,” she responded. “We also need to reestablish the Earldoms of the Serpentine Isles, but you don’t have to worry about that. That’ll be my job, and if I’m incapacitated, then Theuderic will take over. You and Sigebert will be heading up the charge for Octavius and the pirates that have stolen him.”

“Stolen him? Do we know that’s what happened?”

“We don’t,” Basina replied. “However, by all our reports, they’ve headed to the Serpentine Isles, and so far as anyone can guess, there’s no reason at all for them to do so if they were working for someone else. None of Octavius’ ministers have confirmed that he was working with pirates, so we have no idea why the pirates decided to kidnap him. We’re completely in the dark.”

“Here’s hoping the Earls can shed some light,” Leon said as he stepped up to the map. “The Penitent Paladin told me the man who did this was named ‘Jormun’. Do we know anything at all about his activities in the Isles?”

Basina shook her head. “Our first destination is a city that the locals call ‘Kraterok’, which we translate as ‘Serpent’s Fang’. The most powerful of the Earls rules from there. Assuming everything there is normal, then we’d be able to get some information from him. Jormun can’t be working alone, he’ll have to have people in that city, and the Earl will likely be one of them.”

“We can’t assume everything’s normal though,” Theuderic added, his voice a little high-pitched and nasally. “The fleet we sent months ago hasn’t sent back any messages telling us their status, and that’s making all of us very nervous…”

“Indeed,” Sigebert spoke up, his voice much deeper, almost incongruously so with his fairly thin and averagely-muscled frame. “That fleet was headed by Sir Fabius, a stalwart sailor and highly competent admiral. They had a fleet of several hundred ships, more than ten thousand sailors and at least half as many marines. Three dreadnoughts were counted among them, each with two Flame Lances. Such forces do not just disappear, especially without a trace.”

“And yet, this fleet did,” Leon ominously stated as he turned his eyes back to the map.

“And yet, this fleet did,” Sigebert echoed.

“Something had to have happened to Sir Fabius,” Basina said. “We have to be ready for a violent welcome.”

“I understand,” Leon replied. “What kind of resources do we have, if you don’t mind me asking?”

Until recently, Leon was a Legate and a knight in the Royal Legions, and now that he was back in this kind of atmosphere, he found it difficult not to slip back into the kind of attitude that such a rank instilled. But he was a mercenary now, and these Legates didn’t necessarily owe him answers. They’d be well within their rights to keep him completely in the dark and only call him out when they found the pirates.

Fortunately, his strange status as a Raime, a former Legate, a seventh-tier mage, a mercenary, and a personal acquaintance of the King meant that the Legates were, as far as he could tell, perfectly willing to answer his questions, if only to make it easy upon themselves.

“We have three fleets, each with two dreadnoughts. That means twelve Flame Lances, a little over thirty thousand sailors, and about ten thousand marines.”

“A sizeable force,” Leon said with appreciation. The Flame Lances alone could do some serious damage, but he had to keep in mind the fact that the previous fleet had six of its own, and it had completely disappeared.

“Maybe not sizable enough; they have three seventh-tier mages,” Basina said.

“That’s why I’m here,” Leon confidently stated. “I also have a comparably powerful mage in my party. So long as we can engage the enemy personally, I believe that we won’t come out the lesser.”

“Really?” Basina said in surprise and intrigue. “That’s heartening to hear.”

“A little more than heartening I’d say,” Sigebert said, a wide smile blooming on his face.

Leon nodded and moved on. He didn’t want to linger too much on Maia’s abilities, though he didn’t see the point in keeping them too secret. “Are we expecting much cooperation from the Earls? Or the Serpentine Islanders as a whole?”

Theuderic answered, “No. From what I understand, the Islanders are generally opposed to the Bull Kingdom. Keep in mind that the Penitent Paladin killed thousands of their people and shattered three of their islands.”

“How did he do that, by the way?” Leon interjected, regretting somewhat that he didn’t ask the Penitent Paladin himself, though from the way the man had acted at the time made it seem like a sensitive topic that he hadn’t wanted to broach.

“From what I understand—and this is hearsay, mind you, the Penitent Paladin ordered the records of his deeds sealed, and His Majesty agreed—the Serpentine Islands formed from the lava pushed up into the sea by volcanos. Most of them haven’t been active in centuries, but the Penitent Paladin used some kind of fire and earth magic ritual to awaken some of them when the Serpentine Islanders refused to surrender. This ritual caused enough volcanos to violently awaken that most of the final three islands in the chain were completely destroyed. I’m told that the explosions were so massive that even the Central Empires sent people into our little corner of the world to find out what caused them.”

“That must’ve been a hell of a thing, then,” Leon murmured. If the Central Empires were as powerful as people say, then he found it difficult to imagine the kind of power that would be required to get their attention. So far, not even Maia’s displays had gotten them any obvious attention.

“I remember it well,” Basina replied. “I was just getting out of the Knight Academy at the time. It was a series of explosions over the course of about two weeks that were accompanied by light earthquakes and a couple months of cloudy days.”

“Damn,” Leon muttered in both awe and appreciation.

“Anyway…” Basina said as she turned back to Theuderic, who got the message.

“We’re not expecting much support from the Islanders. The Earls, on the other hand, have received quite a few benefits from working with the Bull Kingdom, so they ought to be more amenable to our requests for information.”

“Let’s hope so,” Sigebert whispered as he stared back at the map of the overall Serpentine Isles. “Those who are too far removed from the centers of power will lose respect for that power. These people haven’t paid their tribute in years. Even if everything there is fine—and everything else very much isn’t, otherwise Fabius wouldn’t have vanished like he did—they still wouldn’t readily cooperate. Whatever is happening there is big enough that a force led by three seventh-tier mages were able to launch a raid on our capitol island and seize a Prince. It’s possible that if they wanted to, they might’ve even been able to assassinate His Majesty.”

“A disturbing thought…” Theuderic said.

An awkward few seconds passed as everyone stared at the maps. They were incredibly well-detailed, containing every major and most moderate population centers on each of the islands. There were even maps old enough to still have the three shattered islands upon them, places that newer maps called ‘The Broken Tail’.

“Leon Raime,” Basina said, breaking that awkward silence, “what are your intentions for this mission?”

Leon gave a curious look and took a few minutes to think. “I mean… I want to find Octavius and bring him back to the Bull Kingdom. In pieces or not doesn’t really matter, but that’s my intention, and the job that King Julius asked me to perform.”

Basina tilted her head in an assenting way, but her eyes remained locked on him. “Good to know, but that’s not entirely what I’m asking. You’re no longer a member of the Royal Legions, correct?”

‘Ahh, is this where we get to all the authority horsehit?’ Leon wondered.

“Correct,” he replied out loud. “In that respect, you don’t have to worry about me trying to pull rank—I don’t know the first thing about fighting at sea, and I won’t pretend that I know better than you. I can throw lightning and stab people pretty well, so that’s the lane I’ll stick to. Far as I’m concerned, I’m muscle. Just here to fill in any power gaps when it comes to on-land combat.”

“That’s even better to know,” Basina replied, a look of mild relief spreading across her face. “Rumors about you have spread far and wide across the Kingdom, I’d imagine, and they’ve certainly reached the ears of our sailors and marines. But what we need right now is unified purpose and a singular leader. I don’t want them to get confused about who’s in charge, and so long as you acknowledge our authority, we won’t have any problems.”

“Sounds good to me,” Leon replied.

“All right then,” Basina replied, the look of relief appearing a little more strongly on her face before vanishing entirely as she turned her attention back to the map. “Now, here’s what’s going to happen once we arrive in Kraterok…”

---

Once the meeting finished, Leon made his way over to Sigebert’s flagship. He accompanied the Legate on his personal boat, making small talk and being reassured that his people had been transferred over from the transport ship they’d taken south.

The mood was a little intense; they were already several weeks behind Octavius, and no one wanted to lose any more time. It would take at least a month of sailing through the open ocean—a dangerous prospect even in the best of times—before they’d reach the Serpentine Isles, and they had no idea what was awaiting them.

As a result, Leon and Sigebert didn’t talk too much, and Leon was more than grateful when the boat arrived at the Legate’s massive flagship.

Once he hauled himself aboard, however, a new surprise was waiting for him: he saw his small squad on the main deck, talking to someone he recognized, someone of whom he had some mixed feeling about.

Gaius Tullius.