Leon sighed in mental exhaustion as he entered his tent. The battle had gone extraordinarily well, all things considered, but the burns he’d sustained were causing him some discomfort, and he was just tired. But he wasn’t going to do anything until he saw Maia again.

When he walked back into his private area, he found his river nymph lover curled up in their bed, sound asleep with Anzu’s wing still protectively covering her body. He couldn’t sense any pain coming through their connection, so he assumed she was all right… He extended a hand out to her, almost succumbing to the temptation to wake her up and see how well she was doing, but he caught himself. He could let her sleep, and with Anzu right there with her, no matter how out of it she was, she was in no danger.

Even with that certainty, though, Leon paused a moment as he looked his river nymph lover over, searching for any other wounds or signs of just what in the hells that female fire mage had hit Maia with. He had a pretty good idea of what had happened, though, and it made him nervous.

Xaphan, Nestor, Leon whispered into his soul realm as he nervously began to twist a band of silver secured around his left wrist, I have a question…

Leon didn’t have to wait long to feel the attention of Xaphan and Nestor extend out of his body and take in his surroundings.

What is it? Nestor asked. Xaphan simply silently waited for Leon to make his inquiry.

Naiad… is she going to be all right? What was she hit with?

Looks lik— Xaphan began, only to be rudely interrupted by Nestor.

Silver milk putty, the dead man stated.

Both Leon and Xaphan went silent in confusion. For his part, Leon had no idea how to parse that statement, and wondered if he’d even heard it correctly.

Xaphan found his tongue first. What…? the demon said in bewilderment.

Nestor explained, The boy asked a stupid question, so he received a stupid answer.

Leon scowled and felt a similar sense of muted anger from Xaphan.

Why would I ever expect anything less from you? Xaphan wondered aloud.

Don’t worry about it, we all make mistakes sometimes, Nestor cheekily replied. I, myself, not too long ago made the false assumption that you would stop reeking of rotten eggs at some point, and yet here we are.

Xaphan made an indistinguishable sound of disgust.

Look, Leon, Nestor said, his tone turning a little more serious, you already know what happened. You and I have spoken at length about such magic these past couple of months. You don’t need us to confirm what you already know.

Leon sighed as he closed his eyes a moment, his hand pausing in its fidgeting with the silver band. Is it something I ought to be concerned about? She’ll wake up, right?

Looks to me like it was nothing more than a mild jolt to the soul realm, Nestor replied. Given her power, there’s nothing to worry about, she’ll be up and about in an hour or two. Probably be back to normal only another hour or two after that.

Good to know. Leon sighed again, but this time in relief.

He and Nestor had spoken about a great many things as he practiced his enchanting skills, and Leon had thought he’d recognized what had happened to Maia based on those conversations, but he couldn’t be certain. The weapon he’d made based on those talks was a prototype at best, and he wasn’t even sure if it worked or not. If Jormun’s people had artifacts that actually worked, then it would make his job just that much harder.

The weapon in question was the silver band on his left wrist, something that Leon had designed while contemplating the problem of how to counter a water mage in their own environment. Essentially, it was a magical spike that, if thrust into the center of a mage’s attack, might be enough to disrupt it and possibly even cancel it out. It would weaken it, for sure, though. Leon had started to think of it as a kind of anti-magic, even though it was just another application of standard magic.

Leon’s prototype utilized water magic, so even if it worked as intended—a big if—then it would only be effective against water magic. What was worse, it was an exceedingly complex enchantment that Leon had needed a lot of help from Nestor to design, and he was almost certain that even using the bracelet once would probably shatter it and render it useless, which was why he hadn’t even tested it up to this point.

For all that, though, Leon was certain that his bracelet wasn’t nearly capable of doing to water mages what that turquoise stone that the fire mage had used did to Maia. However, if Leon had to guess why Maia had been knocked out, he’d say that she hadn’t been expecting such a counter—though Leon could hardly blame her for it given that neither of them had ever encountered something like this before—and over committed to her attack. She poured so much of her power into that water dragon that once it was disrupted, the ripple effects had put some amount of strain on her soul realm, causing a great deal of pain and knocking her unconscious.

Leon couldn’t identify anything else wrong with her, and she felt like she was recovering, which at least gave him some comfort. He changed out her healing spells and stepped back from their bed. There was nothing he wanted to do more than to join Maia in bed and pass out for the remainder of the night, but he couldn’t do that. With Jormun’s forces having been routed only a few minutes before, there was just too much to do. She’d be fine, he’d just have to put his faith in that diagnosis.

So, Leon forced himself to wake up a bit, stuffed a healing spell down the front of his cuirass to tend to the burns on his chest, and walked back out into the camp.

The camp was a flurry of activity. Half of the marines were still on watch, another two companies had been sent out as scouts—one to survey the jungle around them, and the other to pursue at a distance the fleeing pirates, just to make sure that their enemy wasn’t making some grand feint. They had been given orders not to engage, and Leon made sure to closely monitor them with his magic senses to ensure that they followed that order. The last thing he wanted right now was to have to leave the fortified camp and rescue a company of marines that had defied his orders or overextended themselves.

Fortunately, they were keeping their distance from their fleeing enemies, not even harassing any of the smaller groups of Islanders who were seemingly abandoning the cause completely and fleeing in different directions. The female fire mage who was in charge seemed to be trying to get some order back, but Leon wondered how much order existed in the first place. She’d managed to wrangle together about five hundred of the Islanders, but the rest were completely ignoring her.

As far as Leon could tell, there probably wasn’t going to be another attack this night. He momentarily contemplated sallying out and venturing into the jungle to attack the female fire mage’s much smaller force, but he decided against it. The marines had sustained a few casualties, and he could see a few of the stronger jungle monsters starting to approach the slope where Leon had first engaged the Islanders.

He saw some black furred thing that looked vaguely cat-like, though it had five legs and three eyes, snatch up three Islander corpses in its enormous mouth and vanish back into the jungle, the shadows wrapping around it until it disappeared completely. He saw a small horde of dark-green reptiles with long snapping jaws, bulbous eyes, four short stubby legs, and long viciously barbed tails waddle out of a dirty green jungle river faster than he would’ve thought they would be capable of, snap up about thirty more Islander bodies, two of whom Leon realized were still alive when they stirred and started screaming, and dragged them down into the river water. He even saw a gigantic black winged thing, covered in scales, somewhat resembling a heinous chimeric mix of bat and eagle, swoop down, grab two more corpses in its pitch-black obsidian claws, and then vanish into the night.

None of these creatures were strong enough to threaten him, but Leon wasn’t about to lead his much more vulnerable marines out into the jungle if these creatures were stirring with their noses filled with the stench of blood.

After getting the lay of the land, Leon made his way over to the Tribune, who was doing most of the work making sure the marines cleaned the place up. Those three companies who weren’t scouting or keeping watch were busy gathering up the hundreds of Islander bodies, seeing to any camp repairs that needed to be done, tending to their wounded, or dealing with some other camp work that Leon couldn’t identify.

Gaius was there with the Tribune, quietly exchanging a few words with the man. When he noticed Leon walking over, Gaius smiled and waved him over.

“Things are looking pretty good, Leon,” he said.

“They are,” the Tribune agreed. “If you hadn’t warned us of that incoming attack, it could’ve gone so much worse. We probably would’ve lost a few dozen scouts before we even knew we were under attack, and then lost quite a few more of my people after that.”

Leon nodded, letting the man think what he wanted to think. He wasn’t about to tell him that a talking bird was responsible for his giving Leon the heads-up.

“How do things look?” Leon asked.

“We took a few casualties,” the Tribune immediately began, “about fifty of my people were injured in some way. Sixteen were killed.”

“Preliminary estimates place Islander deaths at about eight hundred,” Gaius added. “I think a few scouts were going to go and count up those dead Islanders out on that western slope—”

“Best not to do that,” Leon said. “The scavengers are out in force right now. We don’t want to tangle with the wildlife who lives this deep in the jungle. Just let them have the bodies. We don’t need an accurate count of the enemy dead.”

Gaius opened his mouth looking like he wanted to argue the point, but after a moment spent with his mouth hanging open, he sighed and said, “Very well.”

The Tribune then caught Leon up on the rest of the goings-on around the camp, making sure that Leon knew in exhaustive detail about how well the camp’s defenses were holding up, and how soon they would be able to start moving again once the morning arrived. Leon found blasting the jungle insects that were swarming around the hot and muggy camp more interesting than such talks of logistics, but he paid attention to the conversation, nonetheless. He was woefully deficient in such fields of expertise, and the only way he was going to get better was by actively participating when opportunities arose to engage with them.

In this case, his attention was vindicated when he noticed a slight problem.

“Has anyone been sent back to… the city back there, the Earl’s seat? Has anyone been sent back or has word been sent back in any way to inform the Fleet Legates about what’s…” Leon trailed off as his magic senses swept out in the direction of the Earl’s city. As they washed over the buildings and then glided out to sea, they took in a scene much different from the last time Leon had checked in on the city.

Dozens of ships were burning in the port, the Earl’s palace looked like it had been completely razed to the ground, and large swathes of the city lay in smoking ruins. It had only been a matter of hours since Leon had last checked in on them.

“Leon?” Gaius asked as Leon froze, his words dying in his throat, his eyes staring blankly at the camp walls between him and the city.

Leon barely heard him. He was too busy inspecting the city to get a better idea of where things stood there. For a moment, anger blossomed in his chest as he wondered just how in the hells they had missed the city being attacked, but then he remembered that the marines assigned to keep an eye out for signals sent from the city had been pulled from that duty to help defend the camp. Given they had been outnumbered at least four to one, Leon and the Tribune had agreed that they needed all hands on deck for the camp’s defense. It looked like they hadn’t yet gotten organized and cleaned up enough to send someone back up a tree or onto a ridge to keep an eye on the situation back in the city, yet.

However, before Leon could inform the other two of what he was seeing, he saw a few promising signs. Being hoisted out of the water to dangle over the deck of one of the dreadnoughts was the corpse of a gigantic kraken, its body riddled with harpoons dripping both black ichorous blood, and a bright grey liquid that Leon assumed to be the monster’s mana. He saw Legion marines patrolling the streets, putting out fires, and gathering bodies. He saw Sigebert standing in front of the Earl’s destroyed palace, vigorously questioning someone whom Leon assumed to be the new acting-Earl and gesturing wildly at the ruined palace.

It seemed that whatever happened, the Legion had gotten a handle on it.

Leon quickly told the Tribune and Gaius what he was looking at. After some discussion, he and Gaius left the Tribune to continue the work on securing and cleaning up the camp to climb the same nearby ridge that Leon and the female fire mage had fought upon only an hour before. From there, Gaius could get an excellent vantage point from which to communicate with the city.

Once there, Gaius brought out a white flare and fired it into the air, where it climbed for a good five or six hundred feet. Only a few seconds later, Leon saw another flare rise up from the city, also shining brightly.

“Now, we wait,” Gaius said.

Leon nodded, understanding this was nothing more than a greeting. He watched as the signalman who fired the flare passed on the message all the way to Sigebert, who paused in whatever he was doing with the acting-Earl and moved over to the signals position high up on the newly-constructed walls, where he could see Leon and Gaius on the distant ridge. It took about ten minutes, but once he arrived, Gaius and Sigebert began exchanging flares and hand signals. With only about ten miles between them, they could see each other easily enough that Leon even gave Sigebert a quick wave of greeting.

“Looks like… they were attacked by a small fleet and some local ground forces,” Gaius said, squinting at the signalman as he translated Sigebert’s words into hand signals and the occasional flare. “Oh, and a kraken. Lots of damage to buildings … Jormun’s people were fought off, and the other Fleet Legates are seeing to the pursuit… Thousands of enemy Islanders were killed, Legion casualties minimal.”

“Let him know what happened here,” Leon ordered, and Gaius began to make large sweeping gestures that Leon watched the Legion signalman translate to Sigebert.

“All right, passed on,” Gaius said after about five minutes.

“Ask if he needs us to return,” Leon added. It sounded like things back in the city were fine, but he needed to make sure. He wasn’t going to continue on to whatever was at the marked location if the rest of the task force back in the city was under siege or something of that nature. He needed a secure route back to the fleets if he wanted to conduct this expedition in a safe manner.

A moment later, Gaius reported, “No, Sir Sigebert is saying they have everything in hand, and that we should proceed with your mission.”

Leon nodded with enough exaggeration that Sigebert noticed and returned it. With their reports made, Leon and Gaius made their back down to the camp and met back up with the Tribune. There, Leon made plans to leave a little bit later than he intended, giving the marines a little bit more time to rest up before proceeding further up the volcano. They were still about twenty miles away from their destination, and now that they were out of the thickest parts of the jungle, he was hoping they could make that march in a single day.

First, however, they had to clean up and secure the area. Two marine companies also had to be left behind to keep the camp occupied and to secure a route for the rest of the battalion to retreat along, if need be. Leon wasn’t about to rush further away from the support of the fleets without leaving at least one strongpoint along the route.

Once all of that was finally taken care of, Leon thought it was just about time to return to his tent. However, along the way, he made the snap decision to visit those marines who’d been injured and congratulate them on a hard fought victory. When he arrived, he found that most of them had been healed up and were resting, so he indulged his introverted nature and made do with a few nods and claps on the shoulder for those who were still awake. Still, it seemed to brighten them up a bit, so Leon left the medical tent feeling like it hadn’t been a complete waste of time.

Once he arrived back at his tent, he found his squad there, right where he’d left them. Marcus was fast asleep, but Alix and Alcander were quietly playing a game of cards, and they looked up when he walked in, but when he waved and started making his way toward his private area, they went back to their game.

Upon returning to his ‘bedroom’, Leon froze in surprise. There, he found Maia awake and sitting up, her eyes locked on the Thunderbird look-a-like who had perched itself upon Leon’s desk once again. Anzu, had risen from his place next to the bed and was glaring at the bird, as well, his fur and feathers raised threateningly, his wings slightly spread with tiny gusts of wind magic flowing through the pure white feathers, and his blood-red eyes narrowed in suspicion.

If Leon needed any sign that the bird was actually there, then Anzu’s behavior was it. Still, his mental defenses were raised back to their peak. He hadn’t let them completely lapse during the battle, but they’d fallen out of his mind a bit with a seventh-tier fire mage on the battlefield.

Leon walked into the room and laid his hand upon Anzu’s back, right in between the shoulders of his wings. The griffin gave Leon a questioning look out of the corner of his eye, and only relaxed when Leon gave him the slightest of nods.

The bird didn’t seem to care at all, however; it slowly ran its beak through the feathers on the underside of one of its wings, not even sparing Anzu a single glance. It only looked up when Leon began to quietly speak.

“Thank you for that tip, we were able to respond quickly enough that the Islanders weren’t able to inflict too much damage.”

“I watched from above,” the bird said in its strange, echoing, inhuman voice as it raised its head to look Leon in the eye. “You did quite well. Gives me… confidence that you’ll stop… the Serpent’s Followers.”

“Glad to see that you’re more confident in our chances,” Leon replied as he took a seat next to Maia. He gave her a quick searching look, trusting that she knew what he was asking without him needing to say it out loud.

She responded with a brief, but glowing smile, and a quick nod of her head before her face went back to stony seriousness and her eyes returned to the bird.

“Have you kept an… eye on them?” the bird asked.

“About as well as I can,” Leon replied. He’d been diligently keeping his magic senses trained on the Islanders, constantly alert to the possibility of the female fire mage rallying enough of them to come and attack again. Fortunately, it seemed like the time for that had come and gone, for the fire mage was leading her relatively small group deeper into the jungle away from Leon’s camp. As far as Leon could tell, they were making their way toward the western shores of the island where a large number of small villages were located. None of the Islanders were proceeding up the volcano toward his destination.

“They were not direct… followers of the Serpent,” the bird explained. “They were locals pressed… into service to the… followers. They… now return home. The true followers… are already in their… place of worship…”

“Is that place further up the mountain?” Leon asked. “That map that you showed me on the previous island, that’s where they are?”

“Yes…” the bird confirmed.

Leon nodded as the bird went momentarily silent. He didn’t trust the bird quite yet, but if it was going to be so helpful, he wouldn’t turn down its assistance. He just had to maintain enough distance to not place an undue amount of trust in it.

“How do you know so much about these people?” Leon asked as he leaned forward, his eyes trained on the bird the whole time.

“Years of… study,” the bird answered, its gaze meeting Leon’s and not wavering in the slightest. “Waiting for… an opportunity. Opportunity that has now… arrived. You must… go to their place… of worship… and slay them all… My kin will be… avenged…”

The bird’s tone remained calm and rather emotionless, and Leon wondered just how much of that was due to whatever magical means it was using to speak, and how much was due to the bird’s simple lack of emotion. If a human had spoken of such things so dispassionately, Leon would’ve regarded everything they said with extreme skepticism. In this case, however, the bird was so alien to Leon’s knowledge of communication that he didn’t know what to make of it.

He was left utterly confused and without much to go on save for the bird’s word and its actions.

“Do you know the way there?” Leon asked.

“I know… several,” the bird replied.

With a sigh and knowing that his decision could doom his entire mission if he were making the wrong judgment call, Leon whispered, “Then take us there.”

—

When the battalion got moving again the next day, Leon led the way up the slopes of the volcano, following the bird’s directions to easily get up and down cliffs and ridges, over ravines, and through thick patches of jungle. Even for many of the mages in his battalion, it was still a tough march though. But Leon was tempted to consider it all worth it when the bird brought them to a fairly flat location high up the slopes of the volcano, no ridges or high vantages points around, with plenty of jungle trees around that the marines could use to build another camp.

They were only about half a mile away from their destination, and this was where Leon agreed to build their next camp. They’d made damn good time, and with the bird leading them, they hadn’t encountered a single Islander or powerful creature in the jungle that would’ve slowed them down.

Leon didn’t immediately proceed on to his destination, though. He stayed with the marines as they built their camp. The Tribune took the biggest role in ensuring it was built since Leon was a rank amateur at such things, but Leon still made his presence and authority known by constantly pushing the eight companies that had accompanied him up the huge volcano to send out scouting patrols and to thoroughly check their surroundings. With the Islander’s ambush with the Flame Lances fresh in his mind, Leon also had a company go around digging through the ground just to make sure that there weren’t any hidden chambers nearby filled with pirates just waiting for them to build a camp over them and let their guard down. Leon did everything he could to ensure that the bird hadn’t led them into the perfect place for an ambush.

As far as he could tell, however, the bird had legitimately brought them to a great spot to build a new fortified camp. Relatively high position, plenty of building materials, and no enemies that he could see around.

So it was that Leon ventured back out into the jungle late in the day, following the bird to their goal. He only made on stop on a nearby ridge overlooking practically the entire southeastern coastline—the one place this deep inland within at least five miles where Gaius could easily send a message back to Sigebert to report on their current status. At roughly thirty miles away from the city, Leon couldn’t even check in on the city using his magic senses.

Things back in the city were relatively peaceful, so once Gaius finished sending off his report and relaying Sigebert’s status to Leon, Leon and the bird led them on.

The location specified had left Leon feeling more and more suspicious as they drew near. The jungle this far up the volcano was relatively sparse, enough that Leon felt like it should’ve been fairly easy to see any temples or ruins of any kind.

And yet, he saw none. The slopes of the volcano looked completely untouched by man, with not even a single ruined column sticking out of the dirt. There was nothing here, at least as far as Leon could tell.

But the bird was adamant that they were going the right way, that there really was something here. Leon decided to reserve judgment until they actually reached their destination.

When they did, Leon found it about as empty as he’d expected. A clearing on a gentle slope, surrounded by tall jungle trees and spare foliage. Nothing more.

“We’ve arrived,” the bird said to Leon as Leon made a few hand motions to the marines who’d accompanied his squad this far, silently ordering them to secure the area. He’d brought three companies with him, and the Centurions already knew what to do, quickly moving their people into defensive positions while scouts were sent out to get the lay of the land.

But everything seemed peaceful. There didn’t appear to be any Islanders anywhere that Leon could see, though if they were in small enough groups and hiding well enough, it was far from guaranteed that he’d be able to see them even with his magic senses.

“Doesn’t look like there’s anything here,” Leon said.

“It’s been hidden,” the bird replied as it landed upon a fallen log in the center of an ashy depression in the center of the clearing. “Buried beneath this log is your destination, the next ritual site that was marked on that map I showed you. You need only to unbury it.”

Leon scowled. “How do you know?” he asked. His senses were unable to pick up on anything magical beneath their feet, and neither could he see any tracks around the clearing that might indicate someone had been here recently.

“I saw someone unburying… it about two years ago…” the bird replied. “I believe… there may be… other entrances… but this one is the only… one that I know of…”

Leon nodded as he slowly walked over and, with a deep breath, pulled a shovel out of his soul realm.