The continent of Aeterna was immense, and the land of the Bull Kingdom was only a small, isolated corner of it. South of the Bull Kingdom was the Gulf of Discord, followed by the desert Samar Kingdom. The Samar Kingdom’s southern border was demarcated by a series of low mountain ranges and wide rivers, beyond which lay the lands of the Halcyon Federation.

The Halcyon Federation was an alliance of nine duchies, fifteen counties, and more than thirty city-states, all with various forms of government. Some of these places were feudal, some republics, some ruled by a caste of priests, and some ruled by a small number of wealthy and powerful families. What they all had in common was the Federation, their formal alliance that dictated matters of foreign policy and held powers of mediation over all members of the Federation.

The hegemon of this alliance was chosen from one of the nine duchies, elected by the counties, and confirmed by the city-states. The leader of that faction would then become the Protector of the Federation, responsible for keeping the peace within the Federation and defending all those under its aegis from foreign aggressors. In return for this responsibility, the ruling duchy would then collect a tax from all Federation members. The tax was relatively small, but with so many members, it represented an immense amount of wealth.

Naturally, there was fierce competition to become the Protector of the Federation whenever it came time for a new election, which happened once every ten years.

Around the time Leon was transferred to the Bull’s Horns almost two years ago, the time for elections came around. The delegates from all Federation members met in the old Royal capital of the Kingdom that had once existed upon that spot before being destroyed by the founding members of the Federation and began the typical heated debates and campaigning that took place for the three-month-long election.

By the end of those three months, the previous ruling duchy was elected for the fifth time in a row. The rulers of this duchy, the Artabasids, a family supposedly descended from sea serpents, had used their hegemony well and amassed enough wealth to continuously purchase, persuade, and bully their way to the spot of Protector of the Federation.

It was clear enough that the rights of the Federation members were slowly being taken away as this family asserted its dominance, and many of the rest of the influential men and women of the Federation were not going to have that. The city-states vetoed the election and, after almost half a year of intense planning, the family of the ruling duchy was massacred in a single bloody night as they attempted to hold onto power.

Only a single member of the Artabasid family survived, and that was only because he was a mere eight years old and had been given to the Grand Temple of a neighboring city-state to be trained as a priest in their religion.

Regardless, this duchy was quickly handed over to a rival family from within its borders, a new election was held, and the Federation’s status quo was tentatively restored, though it would take a few more elections for that to be sorted out. None of that was the business of the surviving member of the Artabasid family, though.

The city the young Artabasid boy resided in was on the western coast of the continent, at the tip of a small inlet that served as a fantastic natural harbor that also possessed no less than three rivers that led further into Federation territory that fed into it. The theocratic city was a hub of commerce, with great wealth passing through its walls every single day.

Perhaps the Artabasid family had originally sent him off as a long ploy that would see one of their own gain influence and a powerful position in this rich city, but of course, it was all for naught in the end. The boy was little more than a child and his family had been broken.

Of course, this essentially gave this theocratic city a strong claimant to the Artabasid’s former duchy, and there were a great many ambitious priests who hoped to one day press that claim and expand their own influence into one of the strongest partners in the Federation. However, this ambition would never be realized.

—

It was a beautiful day. The sun was shining, a pleasant breeze blew in from the sea, and the air was neither too warm nor too cold. The sea itself was almost uncharacteristically calm, and the fish were out in force, to the delight of the fishermen.

However, there was something wrong, something at odds with this picture of an idyllic port city. The fishing boats were out in force, but among them wasn’t a single merchant ship. Under normal conditions, three or four merchant ships would arrive daily, while as many would depart. However, there hadn’t been a single ship that sailed into the harbor in almost a week, while the docked ships had recently departed with alarming speed, leaving the port empty.

Almost a fifth of the city was devoted to the processing and taxation of goods flowing through this port, so that left a significant portion of the city quiet and relatively devoid of people. Needless to say, many in the city were growing worried.

But then, at about noon, ships were finally seen appearing through the mist and the haze of the great distance one could see over the seas of the plane. They were ships of decent size, most not as big as warships, but certainly large enough to be merchants. For a moment, many in the city calmed their anxiety and began to prepare to receive these ships as well as they could.

But the ships kept appearing. At first, it was only a small handful, maybe four or five, but they just kept sailing out of the mists of the Endless Ocean, bound for the city’s harbor.

This was a bit much, so a few light signals from the lighthouses were sent to this approaching fleet telling them to slow down, to wait for a little while and that the city officials would meet them out at sea, but they neither slowed down nor changed their trajectory. They were still a great distance away, though, giving the city more than enough time to raise the alarm and prepare the city for a fight—even without raised colors, their refusal to slow down made obvious this fleet’s hostile intent. The civilians started to be evacuated to nearby fortified hills, the local officials notified the ruling Grand Temple of the Eagle of Rain, and the militia was called upon.

It was almost beyond a shadow of a doubt that these were pirates. The fleet was great, but the city had fought off pirates before and they had every confidence in doing so again. Their own war galleys were deployed in the small gulf their harbor occupied, the militia of ten thousand assembled in the streets and manned the walls of the forts, and the magical defenses of the Grand Temple were raised.

The city was as ready for the pirates as they’d ever be.

—

Jormun breathed deeply, savoring the salty sea air as it whipped through his short black hair and brushed past his smooth, clean-shaven face. He stood at the front of his ship, his eyes closed, and he waited for the fleet at his back to enter the port of Serpent’s Fall.

He didn’t usually bring his ships this far north—far too close to the Bull Kingdom—but the Halcyonid city was a ripe target. Serpent’s Fall’s port was relatively unguarded, relying exclusively on galleys and coastal defenses without a single defensive ward in the mouth of the inlet in sight. No chains, no magical cannons…

Jormun smiled, his bright white teeth shining as the bright sun kissed his bronzed skin. He could feel his ship shudder as it broke through the waves of the Endless Ocean, its water engines propelling it forward even without sails—there were still quite a few miles between the ship and the harbor, more than enough time for the sails to be raised.

The sounds of the alarms ringing through the city reached Jormun’s ears, despite there being more than ten miles of open sea between the two. Jormun’s smile grew almost condescending; Serpent’s Fall’s population numbered almost one hundred thousand, and the fleet would be upon the city in minutes. There was not nearly enough time for the entire populace to drop everything and reach the safety of the hill forts or the Grand Temple.

‘There’ll be more than enough to take to satisfy them…’ Jormun thought to himself as he glanced over his shoulder at his thirty-three strong fleet. He had almost ten thousand people in his fleet spread among these ships. Most of these were from allied crews, but Jormun’s seven personal ships still accounted for more than four thousand pirates, and consequently were the biggest ships in the fleet.

Jormun’s ship was the first to enter the harbor area. It was a long beast, more than five hundred feet of strong, but flexible oak from the Serpentine Isles, and had half a dozen decks. There were three masts with furled sails and a pair of water engines in the back, fed by a truly massive sapphire that also powered other enchantments throughout the ship.

For example, Jormun’s ship came with a pair of Fire Cannons powered by that sapphire, weapons similar to the Flame Lances of the Bull Kingdom’s largest warships, but much smaller and with significantly reduced range and power, which were installed in a pair of revolving turrets to either side of the central mast.

As Jormun’s ship barreled into the harbor, one of the defense galleys moved to intercept by blocking the watery corridor into the harbor with its own hull. The harbor itself was quite wide and open, especially with the fishing boats having mostly evacuated, so there was plenty of room for the dozen or so defense galleys to maneuver. The defense galleys were heavily reinforced, their wooden hulls being near-impervious to magics weaker than the eighth-tier. It should’ve made it highly resistant to ramming, which was why it presented its weaker flank to Jormun’s ship.

Jormun’s helmsman cared none, though, and kept his course. Jormun himself, standing at the bow, didn’t even move as his ship slammed into the defense galley and tore it in half. His ship cut clean through with barely any effort, and the water around it shuddered as another insidious weapon within was activated: the water corridor churned as water magic poured from Jormun’s ship, tearing any sailor who fell into the water from the defense galley into pieces.

In a matter of seconds, hundreds of militia sailors were killed, and the defenders of Serpent’s Fall lost a galley. What was more, Jormun’s ship was now in the harbor.

Four more galleys began scrambling to intercept Jormun’s ship, while the remaining seven angled toward the corridor. Jormun’s other ships were following, and if the defenders were going to resist, then they had to do it where their smaller ships would have the advantage. They could move more adroitly in the wide corridor than Jormun’s larger ships, so the corridor was where they wanted to fight.

But this wasn’t Jormun’s first raid, and he had no qualms about using his weapons. He raised both of his arms for a brief moment, then let them fall in the direction of the two closest galleys. His Fire Cannons answered but a moment later, their long metal barrels spitting great torrents of fire two hundred feet long that completely enveloped the two closest galleys, annihilating them in an instant.

Jormun smiled, the screams of dying militia sailors providing a fitting backdrop to his inevitable victory.

This show of force was enough to get the other nine galleys to hesitate—they weren’t propelled by either magic or the wind, they had to be moved with great banks of rowers, and seeing a full quarter of their number smashed in a matter of five minutes caused them to lose heart and slow down. Their captains tried to keep them moving, to keep up the morale of the defending militia, but it was too little too late. By the time the galleys got moving again Jormun’s ships were upon them, lashing them with rope to board them or else just ramming through them with superior aged oak and bronze rams made in the Serpentine Isles.

These galleys had no valuable cargo—save for humans, who could always be sold in those countries that practiced slavery—and had little value in their hulls, so Jormun’s people wasted little time with them. On the galleys that weren’t rammed to pieces, the officers were killed and the rest of the militiamen thrown overboard to be minced by the churning waves, so full of sharp blades of water coming from Jormun’s personal fleet.

Just like that, the harbor belonged to Jormun’s pirates, and the rest of the fleet followed them in.

Jormun’s ship docked at one of the central piers, and Jormun himself finally stepped away from the bow to take command of his people. Those in his personal fleet would follow him to the gates of hell, of that he was sure, and they displayed that loyalty by waiting for him instead of charging immediately into the city. The rest of the pirates in the fleet were doing just that, but not Jormun’s people.

With calm, measured steps, Jormun led his people down the gangplank and into the city proper. There were large warehouses nearby that promised valuable loot, and a few stragglers still in their homes, but Jormun and his followers didn’t pay them any mind. Jormun had only one thing on his mind right now: The Grand Temple overlooking the entire city from the largest of the hills that surrounded the city.

It was an impressive building, to be sure, shaped like a drum and encircled with a blind arcade upon every one of its six floors. The temple grounds were normally serene and perfectly maintained by skilled nature mages, while the entire place was encased in a thick stone wall that was even more heavily warded than the nearby forts. However, there were no towers in the wall, and not even a gatehouse protecting the iron gate.

What Jormun found most intriguing about the temple, though, wasn’t its architecture, it was that it had been built inside the mouth of a titanic serpent’s skull. The serpent’s skull was easily a hundred feet tall, probably taller, and its jaw was propped open by its two massive fangs. In the center of the dead titan’s forehead was a long, curved horn, as sharp as a finely sharpened blade. The entire skull gleamed white in the midday sun, not a trace of yellow discoloration to be found anywhere upon it despite the tens of thousands of years it had laid in that spot. There were, however, a few notable black streaks, winding vein-like burn marks upon the skull, evidence of the climactic clash that killed the massive beast in times long forgotten.

Most who looked upon the skull wondered what it had looked like when it was alive, or where the rest of its skeleton was, how long it had been there, or what kind of power was able to kill such a beast. Jormun, however, only smiled and kept walking, his eyes taking on a strange shine in the city that lay in the shadow of that gigantic skull.

It wasn’t long before Jormun and his followers found themselves outside the gate of the Grand Temple. They hadn’t met any resistance along the way, presumably because the militia in the city was either too busy fighting the rest of the pirates, or they had lost heart with the abject failure of the militia’s navy. It didn’t matter to Jormun, though he was mildly grateful that they weren’t there to slow him down.

Even when he reached the gate of the temple, wrought iron bars that had enough magic flowing through them that Jormun hesitated to touch them, the guards were light.

“Heeelllloooo??!!” Jormun cheerfully bellowed as if his fleet wasn’t currently sacking the city, as if the screams of those who failed to evacuate in time weren’t reaching this far, his voice echoing throughout the immense serpentine skull and into the ears of the thousands of people who had managed to reach the temple before the gates were slammed shut. “Aaaanyboddddy hooome? I’d like to speak with someone about resolving our differences!”

There was a large bell by the gate, and one of Jormun’s subordinate captains, a tall and incredibly muscular man with bright gold hair tied into a long braid that extended almost to his knees, walked up to it and gave it a few rings. It was certainly a strange sight to the priests watching from the windows of their temple, and it began a debate as to what Jormun intended to do.

Jormun himself didn’t care much what they discussed, he simply waited patiently for about fifteen minutes—his subordinate captain ringing the bell every minute or so—until someone of importance finally appeared on the other side of the gate.

“For what reason do your heathen hands defile our sacred city?!” the priest demanded with as arrogant a tone as he was capable of, but his voice quivered and shook, ruining the effect. He was almost two centuries old, a sixth-tier mage, and one of the most important priests in the entire temple, and yet before Jormun, he was fighting not to visibly shake. Jormun was strong enough that his aura was meaningless to the priest, indicating power stronger than the sixth-tier.

Jormun would be able to break down their gate, given enough time, the priest realized, and that terrified him. For all his power, he and the other priests had little to no experience in fighting, and if the gate were to fall, then everyone inside would be massacred, enslaved, or worse.

“Save the rhetoric, I’m here for the Artabasid boy,” Jormun said with the sly smile of a man who held all the cards. “Give him to me and I won’t destroy your city. Choose to refuse me, and I will tear down every stone in this city and raze every piece of timber to ash. Your people will be raped and sold in the south, your city robbed of every shiny piece of metal it has, and your precious temple will be obliterated! If you do not bring me that boy, then your city will cease to exist. If you bring him to me, however, I will turn around, return to my ship, and you will never see me again.”

Backing up his words was an undercurrent of killing intent that sent chills down the spine of the listening priest. Jormun had lived for more than sixty years and had spent nearly all of that time raiding, pillaging, and killing. His killing intent was potent, to put it mildly, and even the small amount he let the priest feel was enough to make the godly man turn around and return to the temple without a word.

It took a while, but Jormun was a patient man. He generously gave the priest no time limit, so he allowed the priests of the temple to talk things over amongst themselves for as long as they wanted. All the while, though, the rest of the pirates were doing what pirates do to the city: raping, pillaging, and burning. The cries of the people and the sounds of the city on fire carried to the temple, and Jormun knew that was enough to motivate the priests. He needed to do nothing more. Eerily enough, the thousands of pirates behind him patiently waited as well, with not a thought in any of their heads to turn to the city and join their fellows in stealing everything and everyone that wasn’t nailed down.

In the end, though, Jormun only had to wait at the gate for a little under an hour before the priest reappeared, the eight-year-old Artabasid boy in tow.

“Take him, he’s yours,” the priest mumbled as he cracked open the gate and tossed the boy outside.

Jormun caught the boy with a warm smile, then conjured a pillar of ice from the ground beneath his feet that slammed into the gate and prevented the priest from closing it.

The priest was thrown back a bit, his eyes wide with terror and confusion, but before he could ask any questions, Jormun summoned a small glass orb from within his soul realm. Hovering in the center of that orb was a single drop of blood.

“It’s okay, you can relax,” Jormun softly said to the terrified Artabasid boy, his calm, smooth voice soothing the boy’s understandably frayed nerves. He even crouched down to look the eight-year-old in the eye and patted his shoulder with fatherly affection. “No harm will come to you now…”

Jormun brought the glass orb closer to the boy, and when he saw the drop of blood vibrate, he smiled and dissipated the ice pillar keeping the gate open. The pirate gave the temple and the terrified priest a sarcastic bow, turned on his heel, and began walking back down the road with the boy in tow. The boy cowered behind Jormun as the pirate led him through his followers, but not a one of them so much as looked at the boy.

The pair calmly walked back down the hill, through the streets of the now burning city, and into Jormun’s ship. Jormun kept his promise, the priests never saw him again.

However, his promise was personal. His followers didn’t accompany him back to their ships. As soon as Jormun left, they knocked down the gate and stormed the temple. There were a few nobles and relatively powerful mages defending the temple, but they fell before Jormun’s pirates like wheat before a scythe.

The sack of the city lasted an entire week. By the time a relief force managed to arrive, they found naught but a charred husk with a few broken souls picking through looking for any sign of the life they had once lived within. The Grand Temple within the horned serpent skull had been burned to the ground, the hill forts torn down and sacked, and only a meager handful—perhaps five or six hundred—of the city’s near-one hundred thousand citizens remained, the rest either having been killed or captured by the pirates, or fled the city.