The Storm King

The capital was fairly quiet; surprisingly so, in Jormun’s opinion. It had barely even been a month since the Bull Kingdom’s civil war had ended, so he’d expected to see their capital in an absolute flurry of activity. However, it seemed that many of the people who had fled the city had yet to return, and without the Legions there to make up the difference, the city was relatively deserted.

A smile crossed the pirate’s plain face as he gazed out over the railing of his small sloop, his eyes sweeping over the city as he and his closest of comrades slowly wound their way around the lake in the city’s center. Eventually, his gaze landed upon the capitol island itself, whereupon he knew his target to be.

He needed someone with the blood of some kind of Ascended Beast, someone whose blood held more power than average. Normal humans had power in their blood, of course, but for his purpose, he needed something with a little more kick, something that was a little more appropriate for his ritual. In that respect, he was unable to simply kidnap random people off the street to try and make up for the power deficiency with pure numbers.

No, in this case, plain old blood simply wouldn’t do, no matter how much he had. He needed those with Inherited Bloodlines if he were to ever accomplish his goal.

And upon that island was one such person: Octavius, the disgraced son of King Julius, the man who had been largely responsible for the bloody fighting that had consumed the Kingdom over the past year—or so Jormun had learned during his infiltration of the capital a week ago. The only other two in the Kingdom who were suitable to be used for his purposes were, unfortunately, too well guarded or not in the city to attempt to steal, so Octavius was his only choice.

It had been surprisingly easy to enter the Kingdom, what with the unrest in the west caused by the King punishing traitors or something of that nature—Jormun didn’t much care about the actual reason—requiring many of the Legion soldiers to redeploy. The city itself was only lightly defended, a sure sign in Jormun’s eyes that they were being watched over by the Serpent—not that he needed more proof of that. Still, Jormun knew that the fleets stationed in the south could be problematic, but with only a single small, fast ship and a reliable crew, he was confident that he could outrun and slip past anyone who tried to stop him from taking and leaving with his prize.

To that end, he and his crew had been slowly circling the capitol island from a distance for the past day and a half in a small fishing boat that Jormun had taken the unprecedented step of purchasing, doing their best to appear nonthreatening, not raise any alarms, and to blend in with all the rest of the ships coming and going. They were going to be seen eventually, if they hadn’t already, that much Jormun knew, but he doubted anyone would disturb them in time to stop them.

After all, they’d be launching their raid in only a few hours.

During their time circling the island, Jormun had managed to get a pretty good idea of where everything was on the island. The bribes he’d paid a former government official to furnish him with a hand drawn map hadn’t hurt, either. He knew where the dungeon was on the island, and where he could land to avoid the Royal Guards for as long as possible. He knew exactly where he had to go and what he had to do.

Now, it was all about execution. This would be his only chance, for Octavius was scheduled to be executed the following day.

Jormun glanced around at the rest of his crew. His ship was small enough that the two dozen pirates he’d brought with him crowded the deck a little bit; a small force to challenge this powerful Kingdom, but Jormun wasn’t really trying to challenge it. He simply wanted to steal a disgraced Prince. It would be difficult, especially since the Prince was likely to be under the heaviest guard that the King thought appropriate right now, but Jormun was confident that he and his most trusted followers would be fast and quiet enough to pull it off.

After all, he’d never failed before. If he wanted something, he’d always been able to take it without too much trouble. This Prince, he knew, would be no different.

---

Octavius leaned back in his cell, his blond hair dirty from lack of care, his clothes little more than rags, and he didn’t even want to know what he smelled like to people who weren’t used to the stench.

But all in all, he was strangely happy. He’d lost his bid for the throne by such an awful margin that for him, every waking moment was a nightmare. But his mood was so great because he knew that in less than twenty-four hours, it would all be over. He’d have to kneel and say a few words and suffer the indignity of hearing his ‘crimes’ read out to him, but then Bronze or Penitent or whoever would step forward and end him quickly. It would not be a protracted affair.

Still, he had his regrets. His dream to see himself upon the throne of the Bull Kingdom was still swirling about his head—along with the intense desire to see August dead—but a dream was all it was now.

Forever out of reach.

He’d spared a few thoughts for Sapphire, but no more. His current situation was her fault, and that of Earthshaker. They’d given him poor advice, not followed his orders correctly, and then either surrendered without a fight or gotten themselves killed by some nobody barbarian. Earthshaker was dead—and good riddance for worthless followers—and Sapphire might as well be dead, too, as far as he was concerned.

It was only when he thought of Leon that Octavius’ mood was somewhat ruined. Humiliation was one thing, but that filthy savage had dared to lay hands upon him! A Prince of the blood assaulted by that walking embodiment of dirt and all that was wrong in the world. All that he had been determined to fix upon his assumption of Kingship.

But his passion didn’t last long. The knowledge that he was about to die had dampened just about any foul moods he could possibly experience. A month of living in squalor—though not quite the oubliette that he’d subjected August to during his brief imprisonment—had him ready to exit this world with as much dignity as he could manage. No, he’d gotten all of his bargaining attempts and furious shouting and denial of reality out of the way in the first two weeks. Now it was all about waiting for the inevitable.

Octavius continued to ruminate over his life, his regrets, the grand plans that he’d never gotten to accomplish, how great of a King he could’ve been if the traitors hadn’t gotten their way; so in his own head was he that not once did he hear the shouting from other parts of the dungeon. Not once did he sense the faint ripples of magic as the guards in the facility were slaughtered like pigs.

Instead, he was consumed by the knowledge that, in only a matter of hours, the Bull Kingdom was going to execute the finest Prince it had ever had. Octavius chuckled, thinking to himself that the loss of his immeasurable talent and skill was exactly what the Kingdom deserved for failing to recognize it and rally behind him.

It wasn’t until the dungeon itself shook all the way down to its foundation that Octavius finally looked up from his own navel, alarmed and confused as dust was shaken from the dirty ceiling of his cell.

Octavius, now shaken out of his own little world, leaped to his feet as he finally began to hear the sounds of violence outside of his cell. He grabbed the small table he was afforded and upended it so that he could take cover behind it in case his cell door was blasted open, yet at the same time, hope was ignited in his chest.

‘It has to be my supporters,’ Octavius thought to himself. Other scenarios flashed through his mind, including that of potential assassination, but given that he was due to be executed the following morning, he couldn’t imagine that anyone was willing to assault the dungeon just to kill him a few hours early. ‘No, they have to be here to break me out,’ he thought with expectation as he stared at his cell door, his body hunkered down behind the wooden table as he waited for whoever it was out there to reach his cell. ‘It’s about fucking time!’

Still, for all his enthusiasm, whatever was going on outside was giving him enough anxiety and fear that he wished he could channel his magic power. He was only a fifth-tier mage, but that was still enough that his jailers had seen fit to shackle him with manacles that restricted the use of his magic power, as well as placing him in a cell that had been heavily enchanted to do the same. So long as he languished in this cell, his magic was lost to him.

‘I wonder who it is…’ Octavius thought as a few faces flashed through his mind. ‘Grandfather is dead, Uncle Petrus is dead… Is it Sapphire? Has she finally made her move to save her King?’

Octavius quickly concluded that it could be none other than his future Queen, and all of his terrible thoughts about her disappeared as if he’d never thought them at all, and as the sounds of death from outside faded and were replaced with approaching footsteps, he stood up and pushed the overturned table aside so that he could greet her. If she could get him out of this place and into the Western Territories where he could continue the war, then he’d forgive her for all of her inaction over the past couple of months, along with just about any other mistakes she might care to admit to.

However, when the door opened, it was not his gorgeous Paladin that greeted him, but a decidedly more plain man standing in the doorframe, the light from the hall streaming in behind him and throwing his face into shadow. Octavius almost froze in surprise, but he took another step forward to try and conceal his sudden spike of fear at the sight of this unknown man.

“W-Who are you, Good Sir?” the fallen Prince asked as he stood with as much dignity as his current state could express—he was dirty, having been unable to wash for days, and extremely tired, having been given nothing to eat for the past week but bread and water. But he was still a descendant of the Sacred Bull, and so he stood tall and proud.

“My name is Ephialtes,” the man said as he stepped into the cell and let more light fall onto his smiling face. He was a fairly average-looking man, with no real notable features or clothing. He had a wide smile with deep laugh lines, brown hair and eyes, and a body that seemed more than used to its fair share of hard work and violence. He was clad in a dull red brigandine, with what looked like steel greaves, no helmet, and a pair of black gloves made of some kind of dark reptile skin.

However, for how otherwise unremarkable his looks and attire were, his aura was decidedly non-standard, with it being completely opaque and indiscernible to Octavius’ eyes, indicating a minimum of sixth-tier strength. Strong on a personal level, for sure, but not strong enough in Octavius’ eyes to have staged such a bold attack on the dungeon—at least, on his own.

“Your Highness,” Ephialtes—if that was, indeed, his name—continued, “I have been sent here by Her Grace, the Duchess of Valentia, to break you out of this place. Come now, we haven’t much time.”

Ephialtes held out his hand in a friendly gesture, and Octavius began to relax. His aunt, the daughter of Duronius, and sister to the Queen and Earthshaker, would’ve had to inherit her father’s title after the King executed him. It seemed, then, that she was willing to continue the fight. With her resources, the throne wasn’t quite out of Octavius’ reach, yet!

Wasting no more time on distrust—for who else but his true supporters would risk breaking him out at this latest of stages?—Octavius nodded and strode out of the cell, Ephialtes just behind him.

Once out in the hallway, Octavius saw several more of Ephialtes’ companions, and they hardly looked to be the kind of people that he would’ve otherwise associated with; kind of dirty and disheveled, many of the men unshaven and with scandalously long hair, the women looking just as dirty and most with long braids in their hair to manage their greasy, unwashed locks.

And yet, all of their auras were beyond Octavius’ ability to perceive; all were stronger than him by at least a tier. They were powerful, and there was half a dozen of them in the hall, with undoubtedly many more outside.

‘All of them are here for me…’ Octavius thought, the notion helping him to push his fatigued and slightly malnourished body a little bit further so that he could walk with all the dignity he still had.

“What’s your plan, Ephialtes?” Octavius imperiously asked the other man as they walked down the hall toward the central courtyard of the dungeon.

“Our ship isn’t too far, if we’re quick we can reach it and be out of the city before the local fleets can do anything to stop us,” his rescuer replied as the rest of Octavius’ rescuers fell in behind them.

“Are we at any risk of the Paladins showing up?” Octavius asked. They were approaching the door, and it took an immeasurable amount of self-control not to break with his rescuers and sprint to the outside, to the promised freedom.

“That’s always a possibility, but I’d say that we’re not in any great danger, Your Highness,” Ephialtes replied. “Bronze and Brimstone are both out leading Legions to deal with the Western Territories, so neither are present. Sapphire is currently under house arrest, and from what I’ve been able to gather, she won’t be risking the King’s wrath by making a move. The only two people who might prove to be a challenge are His Majesty and Penitent, but if we move fast enough, then neither will even realize we were here until we’re already on the ship.”

Octavius momentarily scowled as he paused at the door. His father had ascended to the eighth-tier, and while he’d undoubtedly been quickly recovering his strength—not that Octavius would know since the King hadn’t come to visit him in weeks—he likely wasn’t quite in fighting condition, yet. Penitent, on the other hand, was an old man hardened by war and personal tragedy. If he caught even a hint of their betrayal, Octavius could easily see his father ordering Penitent to stop them, and Penitent doing so in brutally efficient fashion.

“Then let’s move quickly,” Octavius said, and pushed open the door to the dungeon’s inner courtyard.

---

Jormun could hardly believe his luck. He knew he was a fantastic liar, but Octavius had barely even questioned him once he’d opened the cell door. He supposed he could understand, though, since the Prince was less than a day from execution; he was a drowning man ready and willing to clutch at even the thinnest and weakest of lines thrown to him.

Still, there was a moment right after the Prince opened the door and stepped out into the courtyard that Jormun worried would turn him against the pirate. He found the rest of Jormun’s lieutenants waiting for them, and it seemed that they had had some fun while Jormun and his most trusted and powerful followers had gone into the dungeon’s buildings looking for the Prince.

All across the walls, the dead Legion soldiers that had once guarded the place had been strung up or nailed to the walls, mostly upside down and many completely disemboweled. One of Jormun’s pirates even fancied himself something of a painter—Sturli, if Jormun’s guess was correct about who did it—and had used the blood of dozens of the guardsmen and the few minutes Jormun had been gone to paint a large and surprisingly detailed, if stylized, serpent along one of the dungeon walls. The serpent had a single long horn extending out of its forehead and curving back along its body.

Jormun appreciated the art and the message the bodies would send, but it ran counter to his goals, at the moment. He almost apologized to the Bull Prince to maintain his façade, but before the words left his mouth Octavius only shrugged and kept on walking toward the exit of the dungeon.

Jormun smiled and gave his people a goofy smile of triumph before waving at them to fall in line. All of his pirates with him were sixth-tier or stronger, but his force wasn’t big enough to hold the dungeon against the inevitable counter-attack by the Royal Guard. He and his people had attacked hard and fast enough that they’d managed to kill everyone before a signal could be sent out—at least, as far as Jormun was aware—but they had to leave as soon as they could.

As they walked to the main doors, he kept an eye on the disgraced Prince. Jormun had to admit to himself that he admired the man’s poise and pride to walk out of the dungeon like he owned the place after all that had happened and the state he was in. The pirate wondered how far he’d have to push Octavius to break it.

‘Not that far, probably,’ he gleefully thought.

As he followed behind Octavius, the Prince remained silent, allowing Jormun to glance back at his people and make sure they were following. He did a quick headcount and smiled as he realized that he hadn’t lost a single one of his pirates. The Bull Kingdom was too preoccupied with unrest in the west for them to keep their best soldiers in the capital, and probably didn’t ever seriously consider the threat of Octavius breaking out. Not that they left him unguarded, as the many corpses that now littered the dungeon could attest, but it had still been surprisingly easy for Jormun to take. There hadn’t even been any other prisoners held in the dungeon that he had to filter through.

He saw Rolf, one of his oldest comrades and a giant of a man walking through the ruined courtyard like an indestructible war god, a tremendous ax resting over one shoulder and blood dying his mail crimson. Even with his helmet obscuring most of his features, that ax and his immense frame made him instantly recognizable. His wind magic gave him an unparalleled speed among Jormun’s followers and an irreplaceable position on Jormun’s ship, despite ‘only’ being a sixth-tier mage.

Andoral, too, cut an impressive figure, but his was of a more wiry and lithe build, though the strength he possessed wasn’t something anyone could ignore. The handsome brown-haired man had recently ascended to the seventh-tier, and the light magic he wielded ensured that any injuries that Jormun’s people had sustained were almost instantly healed.

Jormun’s only other seventh-tier mage was a young-seeming woman who wielded fire magic to great effect whenever Jormun set his eyes on a trading ship. Many were the sailors who had chosen to forfeit their cargo rather than face the wrath of Friga, though whenever it happened, Jormun was always entertained to see the disappointment in her wild and barbarous face; her unkempt vibrant red hair which seemed to poof out whenever she was excited and looking forward to a fight would then sag back into her scalp whenever she saw their white flag.

With these three alone at his side, Jormun doubted he’d have had any trouble at all taking the dungeon, but he was glad for the aid of his fellow pirates, nonetheless. They had all sailed with him for many years, and they had proven their usefulness to him time after time.

Once Jormun’s people had filed out of the dungeon, leaving nothing but mangled corpses behind, they immediately turned east. Jormun could see with his magic senses that even if the alarm hadn’t gone off, the Legion forces on the capitol island were already moving in their direction, so they had to get back to their ship and leave before the local naval garrison could follow the example of the Royal Guard.

However, what was far more concerning was the fact that a small Legion unit had already found his ship. It almost seemed like a terrible thing to have happen, but Jormun hardly cared. With his crew and with the recent losses the Bull Kingdom had taken, he didn’t think they’d be able to stop him and his crew from leaving if they went all out.

He was actually looking forward to the fight, especially once he realized who was leading the Bull troops.

A few minutes later, he, Octavius, and the rest of Jormun’s crew didn’t have to rely on magic senses to see their new foes. Forty powerful Legion soldiers stood around the small inlet where they had beached their fishing barge, surrounding the craft and keeping it under lock and key. Every one of the soldiers was above the fifth-tier, which given how strong Jormun’s crew was, made them about even.

The only unknown among them was the man who stood on the beach itself, one hand resting on the hull of the ship with his back to them. He had a bald head, was dressed in plain brown robes, and lacked any and all sign of his office or his lofty position.

Slowly, as if he were expecting them, the Penitent Paladin turned around and fixed Jormun’s crew in his gaze. Not even seeing three seventh-tier mages and Octavius arrayed against him was enough to get him to crack his stony exterior. Instead, he just stared at them with a baleful look that promised nothing but death if they should continue trying to escape.

The Paladin’s eyes swept over each one of them, and even Jormun had to suppress a shiver as those black pits passed over him. It almost felt like standing upon the edge of the ocean during a storm; one wrong move, and Jormun would plunge in and never surface again. Penitent was so full of power and killing intent that he felt like a force of nature, not a man who stood in their way.

But after a moment, Jormun’s mouth curled upward in a wide smile. He didn’t fear this ocean; he’d seen all the horrors the abyss could throw at him, and every time he’d fallen under, he’d returned stronger than before. This was to be his greatest test yet, to fight against the man who had obliterated his home island, the specter of death that had haunted the dreams of countless Serpentine Islanders, the only man who was more hated there than King Julius himself. It was a good opportunity to put on a bit of a show.

Most of Jormun’s crew were not from the Serpentine Islands; he’d recruited them, forcefully or otherwise, during his many voyages across Aeterna, raiding and plundering. They did not have the same visceral reaction to seeing the Penitent Paladin as did Rolf, Andoral, or Friga.

“Take heart, my friends,” Jormun whispered to them as the Paladin’s eyes focused in on Octavius, “this old man shall not stand in our way for long. When things kick off, see to the Prince.”

He was about to finish there and let his crew steel themselves for the inevitable battle that was only a minute away, but a strange sensation crawled around in the back of his head as if there was something quite literally crawling around in the back of his skull, and he heard a faint rustling like a serpent slithering through the grass.

“The Serpent is with us,” he said as his smile grew wider. “The new age of the gods is inevitable. It will start with us.”

It was only then that Jormun saw his people start to animate and show their determination, once they knew their god was on their side. Octavius, however, didn’t hear a word that Jormun had said. He’d stepped forward and addressed the Penitent Paladin before the latter could speak, though Jormun had been too in his own head to pay attention to what the Prince had said. He only caught the tail end of their quick exchange.

“… Highness has told me that I need not bring you back alive, Octavius,” the Paladin said as he stood there on the beach, unmoving yet having a more menacing aura than if he’d taken a few steps forward. “Now that you’re here, I suppose this just means that your execution has been moved up a few hours.”

With barely a hint of movement, the rough line separating the sandy beach from the forested island was defined by the Penitent with a great crack that split the beach off completely from the island, sending a thunderous boom echoing throughout the entire city and swallowing up five of Jormun’s pirates who hadn’t moved in time.

Jormun hardly cared, though. If they weren’t quick enough to avoid that, then they weren’t worthy of being in his crew. He didn’t spare those pirates another thought, not even as he leaped over the rapidly-widening crack and heard the sounds of crunching bones from the deep black abyss that had formed.

With barely more than a quick yell of exertion, Jormun charged straight at the Paladin, trusting in his crew to see Octavius to the ship and out onto the lake even as the Paladin’s knights charged to meet them.

Jormun’s pirates were outnumbered, but not a single one of them failed to charge in after their captain. In only a moment, the beach erupted in a conflagration of elemental magic that seemed like it was about to rip the entire island apart.

But Jormun barely took any of it in; he confidently charged toward Penitent with Octavius right behind him. He conjured a long curved saber in his hand, and with it in hand, he knew nothing could threaten him or the young Bull Prince.

Penitent just watched them come, power pouring out of him like he was the font of all magic. Nothing fazed him, he was a rock effortlessly weathering the storm of magic around him.

Jormun, however intended to be that storm, and with a slash of his saber, the water just off the beach receded into the lake. No one but Penitent saw this happen, but he regarded it with cold detachment. His attitude was justified when only a few seconds later all of that water suddenly rushed back in with another slash of Jormun’s blade. It came crashing back onto the beach in a great wave that swept many of the combatants, both pirate and soldier, off their feet.

But Penitent remained standing. He barely moved and a huge stone wall appeared as if from nowhere that parted the water around him. His feet got a bit damp, but apart from that, Jormun’s move barely did anything to the Paladin.

“Get to the boat,” Jormun said to the Prince, completely unfazed by Penitent’s obvious power and seeming lack of concern, thinking merely of the strangeness that the Paladin wasn’t being more proactive.

“Are you sure?” Octavius asked, showing a bit of doubt and uncertainty in Jormun for the first time since leaving the dungeon.

Before Jormun could respond, Penitent finally took a step in their direction. Just one step, and when his foot hit the soft sand, the earth beneath them shattered like glass and the sandy beach practically exploded into a great whirling storm.

The Prince visibly paled in fear, but Jormun was unharmed. Only a few steps were required to see him and the Prince to safety—though two more of his pirates weren’t quite so lucky.

“I’m sure,” he said as he grabbed hold of the Prince and threw him toward the boat like a ragdoll.

He then took a menacing step toward Penitent, letting his magic flow out of his body like a river and down into the lake. All the material he needed to work his magic was there, both he and Penitent were precisely in their element. As the lake water just off the beach roiled and churned and began to rise up and flood the beach, the fighting between the rest of the combatants died down. It seemed like Jormun’s pirates had come out of it better than the knights, but not by much.

Penitent, meanwhile, took another step toward Jormun, his eyes never leaving the pirate despite Octavius landing in the boat. As his foot hit the ground, an immense stone pillar erupted out of the ground and propped up the ship, ensuring that no matter what, it could not leave the island.

The Paladin remained eerily quiet during this, his face an unchanging mask of resignation to his duty. Jormun’s was only marginally more expressive, with a shallow smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes marking the only difference between the two.

But as the two sides separated, Jormun knew he had to put on a bit more of a show; with the Serpentine Islanders in his crew watching, he couldn’t take things in stride. He was facing the man who had destroyed their islands and killed tens of thousands, he had to show more passion.

He forced his smile to grow wider, and with another slash of his sword, another great wave arose out of the lake and came crashing down upon the beach.

“GET TO THE SHIP!” Jormun roared, his target no longer just Octavius, as the lake seemingly tried to eat the beach. It was stopped in its tracks by another great stone wall raised by Penitent, but Jormun’s pirates had already started moving.

With a few quick movements, Jormun caused the water that had already seeped into the sand in the beach to suddenly and violently spring up like hidden spring-loaded razors, slicing apart nearly half of the Legion soldiers, freeing up plenty of space for the remainder of his crew to sprint for the ship. Anyone else who got close wound up on the wrong side of Friga, Rolf, or Andoral.

Penitent tried to stop them. His efforts were quite admirable, but Jormun countered them every time. Lake water and exploding stone clashed in a titanic battle that utterly ruined the beach, fracturing it beyond recognition and killing many more Legion soldiers who weren’t able to retreat in time.

But Jormun’s people made it to the ship, and a tidal wave combined with some explosive fire from Friga freed it from a stone shackle that Penitent tried to use to prevent their escape. Another wave then carried it out dozens of feet into the lake, and from there, it began to quickly turn and flee as the remaining pirates got to work. They’d left half of their comrades dead on the island, but they had the Prince and were leaving as fast as they could.

Jormun, meanwhile, exchanged blow after blow with Penitent. The old man, seeming to finally realize that things weren’t going the way he needed them to, or perhaps finding some reserve of strength that he hadn’t yet tapped, suddenly lunged at Jormun, moving as fast as a charging bull. His fists hardened into stone which, combined with the alarming speed that he closed the distance with, made him a potent threat that Jormun hadn’t quite been expecting. The pirate was able to dodge and weave, but the Paladin’s raw strength meant that Jormun couldn’t match him in such a bout; even a single mistake on Jormun’s part could lose him the match.

Jormun, of course, knew this, and he wove around Penitent’s blows like he was made of water. Throughout all of it, he didn’t once make a physical counter-attack, but he and the Paladin still exchanged many blows with their magics. Water blades and exploding boulders, tornados of sand and tidal waves, stone spikes and deadly water jets all clashed, making for such an intense display of magic that none of the soldiers could intervene; all had to retreat to a safe distance, and could only watch their leader fight with all he had and the rest of the pirates sail away across the lake.

After maintaining this status quo for a few long minutes, Jormun abandoned the fight. Killing Penitent wasn’t his goal, and while the fight was exhilarating, there was no reason to stay. Instead, he summoned a wave of water that had Penitent go on the defense just long enough for the pirate to allow it to sweep him out into the lake. Penitent was left standing on the annihilated beach with a look of confusion and rapidly-mounting fury overtaking his early detached demeanor, and more than a hint of fatigue in his aged face.

Jormun’s smile, meanwhile, only grew as he rocketed out into the lake, his mastery over water magic carrying him away from the battlefield with great speed. In mere seconds he was already underneath his ship as it swiftly cut through the waves toward the outlet of the southern Naga River.

He didn’t immediately rise out of the water, though. He could sense Penitent back on the beach using his magic to try and halt their retreat, throwing boulders and conjuring stone spikes out of the lakebed, but neither of these things concerned Jormun. Friga or Andoral could handle them easily enough.

Rather, it was his physical state that needed some work. Penitent had been left on the beach with many superficial wounds that had already stopped bleeding. Jormun, on the other hand, had barely been touched—a few light tears in his clothing and maybe some shaved skin was all that he’d suffered.

That wouldn’t do, not with many in his crew and back in the Isles practically chomping at the bit for Penitent’s blood. So, before he rose up to rejoin his people and take them back to the Serpentine Isles with their prize, he called upon his magic once more, running sharp water over his face and body, sundering his clothes and inflicting bloody flesh wounds upon himself.

The pain was fleeting, but intense, and he felt the slithering in his mind increase in acknowledgment and approval of his bloody sacrifice. The fight with Penitent had been intense enough that he doubted anyone would realize his deception.

He then exploded out of the water and landed upon the deck of the ship, almost collapsing as he played up the extent of his injuries. Andoral reacted immediately, shouting in alarm as Jormun hit the wooden deck and reaching out with his light magic to heal the pirate captain’s wounds. Jormun smiled in vicious appreciation at how well he’d trained the other man to respond to him like this.

Out loud, however, he said, “The Paladin… was too much… We have to leave… now! Everyone… hang on!”

With seemingly great effort, Jormun reached down to the water beneath their ship and used it to propel them faster than just about anything else on the waves that might be heading in their direction. They’d be halfway down the Naga before word reached the Consul of Discord of what they’d just done, and Jormun knew plenty of ways to get through the swamps of the Southern Territories without detection. They’d have to ditch the ship at some point and link back up with the rest of Jormun’s fleet somehow, but he had a few plans for that, too.

Despite the casualties, despite the bloodshed, despite Penitent being still alive and glaring at them from shore, this was a success as far as Jormun was concerned. He had his prize, the Prince approaching him with a look of concern, confusion, and mistrust all mixing together on his handsome face, and that was all that mattered.

There was no more need to look back for Jormun. The past was the past and he had no interest in avenging it. His focus was the future, and what the Prince would be able to do for him.

Or at least, what the Prince’s blood would be able to do for him.