1

A little shy of two nautical miles away from the Royal fleet—a vast-seeming distance on land, yet not all that impressive over level sea—preparations for the showdown of the ages were busily carried out aboard the Confederate vessels as well. After coming to a halt, all the chief Captains assembled on the deck of the Jade Tempest for a few quick last words.

“They’ve accepted our call for parley,” the Prince told the circle of men and women before him. “The talks will proceed as planned. We’ll return her majesty in exchange for the safety of the sanctuary. Immunity to the uninvolved, and pardon to those who would take it. If they want my life on top of the hostage, then they shall have it.”

“And if that’s not good enough for them,” Captain Fijord said, leaning on his battleaxe, “they get cold steel.”

“But who should we send to meet them?” Captain Ghrimeldi asked. “It’s a risky undertaking, knowing them Imperials. It may well be that those who venture forth don’t come back, if they don’t like what we have to say.”

“I’ll go—” the Prince was about to say, but was interrupted by Captain Aprophiste.

“Are you sure that’s wise, my King?” he asked. “By what we can tell, your double identity remains yet a mystery to the Navy. It could put your own people in a bad spot with the Empire if you faced them in person now.”

“I brought this on us, Apro,” the Prince told him. “I cannot ask any of you to risk yourselves on my behalf!”

“You don’t need to ask,” Captain Kayes stepped forward and said. “I’ll go.”

No one protested. As a former officer of the Royal Navy himself, Kayes was undoubtedly qualified for the job, on top of being one of the more levelheaded people around in general.

“And I shall be going with him,” Captain Greystrode declared. “To play the part of the real pirate, see? The loss of this old fool should haunt none of you, I reckon. No more will be needed either. We can take my gig. My oarsmen row like beasts, I’ve trained them well.”

Whatever they felt about this volunteer, the others kept quiet. Save the Prince, who narrowed his eyes at Greystrode, less than pleased by the proposition.

“How awfully selfless of you!” he said. “What brought about the charity act, you old dog?”

“Why, the worry for the future of our mutual way of life!” the one-armed Captain replied. “And the good will to save your face, dear boy! Or what? Do you think I can’t be cordial, if I so choose? It’s not one or two bargains I’ve struck in my life, as you may’ve heard, and I tend to end on profit! Naturally, if the thought of cooperating is so completely unbearable to your majesty, I can just take my ships now—and sail away.”

The Prince could say nothing to this. Instead, he turned to one of his own crew, a young sailor of eighteen, who was passing on the way aftward.

“Eliah!” he called. “The good Captains need spare oarsmen! You go with them.”

As the youth called Eliah came closer, the Prince seized his shoulder, leaned over, and said, “You have your wits about you! Commit to memory every last word they trade out there, so you can tell me what went down betwixt them. And seas take you all if your stories don’t match!”

With those words, the Confederacy sent off their representatives, and the rest of the Captains returned to their ships. Whether the next scene of this play would be enacted to the tune of attack bells, or to the cries of joy and relief—depended entirely on the result of the meeting.

2

The blue forenoon sky and sheep-like clouds above them, an uneasy sea under them, and scores of hard wood both astern and forward, two small boats bearing white flags met at the midway point between the fleets. Although neither vessel was armed, what unfolded from that moment on was a veritable microcosm of war, where words of love and understanding were not easily earned. Yet, it was doubtful that either side could have foreseen just what manner of a carnage they had set up.

Reaching close enough, the oarsmen stilled the ride and Captain Greystrode stood up from his seat. Grinning wide, he cheerfully hailed the navy’s boat,

“Ahoy there! Ahoy, fair keepers of Law and Order! I’ll be damned, if it’s not the bastard son of old Wittingam I spy! How fares life for you, my lad?”

Though he had been given no permission to do so, Admiral Wittingam slowly stood and faced the pirate, his countenance pale with wrath.

“Why, if it isn’t the murderer of my father I look upon!” he dryly replied. “How kind of you to remember my looks! It was to bring you to justice that I became an Admiral, and now the day my hard work bears fruit is here! The Divines must be smiling upon me.”

“Ah, if those words be true,” Greystrode replied with a grin, “then I’d say you’ve made a fine waste of your career! Just as your old man did. Apples never fall far from the tree, true as day! Your pops wasn’t made to hold a sword, and neither were you. But allow me to applaud your conviction, nevertheless, lad! For going to bed with the Imperials, just for the chance to be gutted by my cutlass—it is a man’s work you’ve done! A fool of a man, but a man nonetheless.”

Greystrode raised his arms and slapped his wooden palm with the intact hand to a macabre applause.

“Before the day is over, I shall be listing your name among the fallen!” Wittingam growled in answer. “This I promise to you!”

“Sit down!” Miragrave grunted at the Admiral, her patience at its limit. She kicked his shin for additional encouragement, and the man begrudgingly obeyed.

It was certainly the worst possible start for any manner of negotiations.

As the boat gradually steadied, the Marshal then stood herself, addressing the pirate in less colorful words.

“Am I correct to assume I am speaking to Mr William Greystrode, the representative of the so-called pirate confederacy?”

“Aye, the honor is all yours!” Greystrode replied, his hands cockily on his belt. “Why, has my fame reached as far as the mighty Empire now? I thought you lot lived too far from water to care about us little people in our tubs!”

“Our terms are as follows,” Miragrave cited, ignoring him. “You will return her majesty, Empress Ashwelia, to us—safe and unharmed. Do so, and we will allow your fleet to sail from here uncontested to a destination of your own choosing. All pirates who wish to give up their trade will be granted full pardon, so long as they turn themselves in and register at the port of Efastopol. The blood money offered for pirate heads will be removed in both nations’ territories. These are our sole terms. If you need time to discuss them with your people, you have until noon.”

Behind, Admiral Wittingam gritted his teeth, squeezing his fists. They had discussed the terms in advance, of course, but the idea was still no less intolerable to him. Allowing a monster like Greystrode get away was surely a crime against humanity.

Yet, for the Imperial side, the safety of their Sovereign was all that mattered. Even if that meant letting the purge they’d started fade to nothing, and giving the criminals the opportunity to reclaim all they had so very nearly lost.

The rogues had far more to gain from taking the deal than their opponents—which was, of course, the whole point.

Only a madman would refuse such terms.

But sane was not the negotiator.

“Aha!” Greystrode answered with a laugh. “Not bad, not bad at all! Were I a whimpering, scurvy dog on the verge of my demise, I’d certainly take those terms without thinking, aye! But alas! I cannot be what I’m not! For it is you, my dear lady, who even now hover over the merciless abysses! So have my terms instead! My terms are these: your proud navy’s unconditional surrender! Aye! I want to see all your so-called captains and officers hanging from their own masts before the day’s done! I want those hideous piles of shoddy timber you call ships to go down in the waves, every last one of them! I’ll let you gents do the honors yourselves! Pick up your axes and make short work of it! That’s what I want! I want your sailors down there in the waves, swimming circles with the sharks! I want your proud knights to shit in their helmets and wear them, as I dowse them in oil and set them on fire! Also, I want to see the bastard son of the late, demented lord Wittingam there to choke on his own testicles! And you, you redhead witch, I want on my ship, for the pleasure of my men on the voyage back home! That’s for starters! Meet my demands and I might consider shipping your highly idealistic figurehead back to her people, hale and whole, and my pity with them! Should you refuse—why, you’ll get her anyway! In one-pound chunks, cooked medium-rare! If there’s one thing for sure, it’s that we’re not keeping your mouthy broad for one day longer, and you can lay to that! Ha! Do you accept? Try not to think it overlong, I have places to be!”

For a long while, only the splashing of waves could be heard, the listeners stunned into silence by what they had just heard.

Had there ever been a more absurd list of terms?

Miragrave stared back at the old captain, not blinking, not speaking, not moving, like a statue of marble veiled in black. And Greystrode stared back at her, grinning, his audacity overflowing.

“…As you wish,” the Marshal then spoke. “We shall soon meet you in battle, Mr Greystrode.”

“Oh-hoh-ho!” the pirate jeered. “Are you quite sure you’ve made the right choice there, young miss? Do you think I shan’t follow through with my threat? I believe the twink of an admiral there may attest I am every bit a man of my word!”

“Rest assured, I believe you,” the woman replied. “And, as a man of principles, I trust you shan’t be changing your mind, whatever comes next.”

The Marshal sat down and nodded at the Petty officer in the aft, who ordered the oarsmen to turn around and return to the ship. Left with no reason to linger, the pirate boat did the same.

The young sailor called Eliah clutched his oar, struggling to digest what he had just seen and heard. Nothing about the negotiations went as previously agreed! Captain Greystrode had ignored all of the Council’s and the Prince’s plans and provoked the navy to battle on his own. Why didn’t Captain Kayes interfere? Why did he do nothing to stop lunatic, or protest? Weren’t they of the same rank? Yet, Kayes sat quietly leaning on his knees, his head hung, as though one already dead and beyond care.

Greystrode sat back down next to his colleague.

“There. A little lackluster, but fun while it lasted, aye?” he said. “Your turn now, old sport. You’ve played your part well enough. Being orphaned blows, for sure, but your daughter still has a bright future ahead of her. You can take my word for it.”

Saying nothing, only exhaling a heavy, resigned sigh, Captain Kayes picked up the boat anchor at his feet. He embraced the iron tight against his chest, stood, and turned to the side. In one long leap, he hopped overboard and plunged into the sea, soon to disappear into the dark depths below the craft. There was no rope tied to the anchor. Eliah stared after the man, wondering if he had lost his mind himself and was dreaming it all.

“Hey, piss-pot!” Greystrode snapped the youth from his daze. “Not a damned word of this to your Captain, boy! Or he’ll be in Hel tonight, and I’ll have your snitching tongue for breakfast—raw and straight from the lips! YARR!”

The mad glint in the old man’s eyes as he bared his teeth at him left no doubt in Eliah’s mind that he was serious. Seriously insane. Eliah looked to his sides, at the other oarsmen. They answered his dread and confusion with malicious grins, open scorn and ridicule in their foul eyes. They were all Greystrode’s men, handpicked, hardened, and loyal to death. He had not one ally among them. Were there real allies to be found anywhere, if even the other Captains of the Council lived and died at the old man’s will?

Under a heavy, thick silence, they rowed back to the Jade Tempest to report the wretched result.

“What happened?” the Prince asked as soon as they got up on the deck and he saw their faces. “What did the Imperials say? Do they accept?”

“I’m afraid things did not go quite as we would’ve liked!” Greystrode confessed, assuming a repentant visage. “We found their terms simply too much!”

“What terms?” the Prince asked, astonished. “What did they want?”

“Why, your head, son, of course!” the old man exploded in a loud, almost jolly description. “And mine! And the heads of all the Captains! They want to see your men hang from their masts, the whole fleet sunk on the spot! Your ship torn apart and paraded in pieces, to be auctioned off at Bhastifal’s markets, a legend to the highest bidder! No mercy, no! Not for us, any more so than for the poor women, children, and old fools back home! They are criminals by association, and the only reward fit for a bandit is death! Death, death, death! That is the word ever on their people’s lips! Such is the Imperials’ promise to us, my friend, the only language these noble men of ‘justice’ speak! Surely this doesn’t come as a huge shock to you, after all you have seen?”

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“What…!” the Prince staggered, shocked nonetheless, before his spirit stirred in him. “Eliah, is what the man says true!? Did they truly ask for such things?”

“...Yes, sir,” Eliah spat, hanging his face in shame and torment. “It is...as he says.”

“I don’t believe it!” the Prince exclaimed, stepping up to confront Greystrode.

“Ooh, you do me injustice, my King!” the old Captain wailed. “If my word’s no good to you, then see for yourself! There! Look! Our enemy drops their gallants and royals, even as we speak! Hear their bells ringing for attack? They are ready for us! The real question is—are you ready for them?”

The Prince looked ahead and saw, to his despair, that Greystrode was right. The rapid clangor of numerous bells carried clear over the waves, signaling the start of the battle, and the great frigates in the middle of the line were lowering their sails.

“What have you done, you villain!?” he cried. “Where is Captain Kayes!?”

“Alas,” Greystrode explained, “the sight of our enemy’s might was too much for Captain Kayes to endure! He chose to take his leave of this life, before seeing his life’s work ripped from his hands! He went down as a pirate, and we’d do him injustice if we left him unavenged. Ah, but I’d best return to my ship now. With your leave, my King. Try not to die too soon.”

“Damn you to Hel, old man!” the Prince answered him. “I will yet see that you get what you deserve!”

“You know where to find me!” the pirate replied, climbing the ladders back down to his boat, to be taken back to the Hammer.

3

Miragrave spoke not a word on the whole way back to the Crucifico. Her eyes were fixed at the distancing pirate gig, as though in an effort to drill a hole in its hull through sheer malevolence. She followed its course with care to the green-sailed brig in the distance, her countenance like death itself, and no one else dared to break the silence either.

Admiral Wittingam alone was glad for the terrible conclusion of the negotiations.

For a moment, he had dreaded the Marshal would let the pirates off scot-free, only for the Empress’s sake. Or that her spirit would crumble and yield before an evil like Greystrode, and she’d beg for better terms, even at the cost of her dignity. In that case, the alliance would’ve fallen apart and the two nations would have returned to being enemies at once. But Wittingam’s faith in Miragrave’s hard heart, and the pirates’ ability to bring about their own ruination was not misplaced. The time for vengeance had come at last and he struggled to hide his smile.

“Row,” he urged the sailors. “Give way, with a will!”

As soon as they got back to the galleon, bells signaled the result of the parley.

Ready for battle!

Half a watch was kept on deck to operate the sails, the rest of the crew were ordered below. In their place, knights were called up, archers and mages to their stations, armed and ready. The ballistae were manned. Combat supplies brought out.

However, against Wittingam’s expectations, Miragrave gave no order to begin the all-out assault. Letting the other officers manage the troops, she took her post on the quarterdeck, viewing the enemy fleet ahead.

“Frigates windward for cover!” she ordered. “A quarter mile ahead, and stand by! The rest are to hold positions. Sails ready but furled! Stand by!”

“What are we waiting for?” Wittingam asked her, half by reflex. “Why give them the initiative? We can strike their formation apart if we act quickly now!”

“Be very, very glad I won’t have you in chains for speaking out of line, Admiral,” the Marshal answered him. “And that makes it twice now! You’ll have your chance to die yet, I assure you. So, for the time being, stand back and shut up!”

The Admiral fell silent, flushed out of shame.

Meanwhile, Miragrave turned to Uleison,

“Major, orders to the Magic Battalion: the Crucifico has the mana priority. Only internalized casting methods are allowed until further notice. All channelers are to equip conventional weaponry.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Already accustomed to the Marshal’s eccentric tactics, Uleison relayed the senseless-seeming orders without delay.

From there, Miragrave directed her words to the woman standing behind her.

“The green brig in the middle of the line is their flagship. That must be where they are keeping Yuliana. Sink the rest.”

“Very well.” Aurlemeyr raised her golden arm to point high at the sky. There was no more weariness to be spied on her pale visage. All human burdens and considerations vanished from her gleaming brass eyes, and her voice turned cold and hollow, ringing as though from great depths.

“Initiating firing mode: strategic,” she chanted. “Acquiring targets. Warning: incompatibility with the local spirit ecosystem limits available output. The efficiency of mana conversion is lowered by approximately thirty-two percent. Entering Economy Mode. Warning: the instability of the firing platform impedes aiming. Accuracy is lowered by approximately twenty-six percent. Correction: twenty-eight percent. Lock-on is disengaged. Switching to manual aiming.”

“Can you do it, or can you not…?” Miragrave groaned while listening.

“Affirmative. Meeting the given task parameters remains possible.”

“Then spare me the details. Fire at will!”

“Commencing fire in eight...seven...six…”

On the opposing side, the Confederates followed the events in growing confusion. They had begun setting sails and were anticipating the Navy to follow suit as soon as possible. With their superior mobility, the wind on their side, the pirates were confident they could counter whatever tactics the enemy would employ. But beyond ringing bells and moving the two royal frigates forward to cover the flagship galleon, the enemy appeared to be doing nothing at all.

It was too strange.

“What is that…?”

Everyone’s attention was then drawn to a bizarre sight in the distance. Every man from sailor to officer halted whatever they were doing and turned to gaze ahead, struggling to explain what they were looking at.

Behind the royal frigates’ masts and sails shone a bright light, like a small star. It grew quickly brighter and brighter, drawing from its surroundings, overpowering daylight, and filled the witnesses with a gut-wrenching premonition.

There was nothing natural about that light.

With Imperials in the picture, some manner of magical trickery was always to be expected, but none had ever beheld such a spell in their lives. The sense of wrongness that shine imparted was downright sickening.

The few conjurers with magical potential among the pirate fleet could feel, even from this distance, the anomalous, draining sensation, as energy was sapped from everywhere in the region to fuel the abominable star. Because of this, they could tell that whatever it meant, it was decidedly deadly. The casters hurried to warn their comrades, but it was already too late for their words to have much practical effect.

All of a sudden, like a bursting bubble, the great star ruptured.

The light divided into numerous hair-thin lines, which sprung swiftly upward and fanned out, painting a breath-taking image across the pale blue background canvas, like a magnificent golden oak, a revived tree of life.

A sense of wonder took over the witnesses, briefly overpowering fear. Briefly.

The glowing strings continued to curve, the material plasma bent by the force of gravity. Those shining threads passed over the heavens and began then to fall, straight at where the line of Confederate vessels stood. Down, down they fell. Now terrified cries rang out, calls to take cover, but no cover was there to be found from such a hail. As treacherously slow as the rain of fire looked in the ambiguous distances of the troposphere, it was still much faster in truth than any earthly arrow.

In another blink of an eye, deathly shower fell upon the corsairs.

Plasmic threads hotter than any blacksmith's furnace pierced straight through sails, through deck boards, through any and all compartments along the way, like needles through linen, and exited below the hull, without perceptibly slowing down.

The actual destruction followed with a slight lag.

From the far starboard end of the line of ships began the blooming of great flowers of flame. Starting off as round, blindingly bright little buds, taking root on the spots where the threads had touched material, the explosions rapidly grew and blossomed, changing color from bright golden to a warmer red, then to don cloaks of black smoke, as they rose to the sky. The infernal lilies embraced the masts and fondled the sails, clinging to ropes, and swallowing sailors. All of this was accompanied by the bone-shattering, high-speed rattle characteristic to an air strike, for which exists no natural comparison.

The explosions gradually faded, too short-lived to consume the ships in full, but the devastation they'd left in their wake was well more than enough. Those caught anywhere near the deadly rain drops were either burned to cinders on the spot, or blown overboard by the explosive pressure. Even those standing further away sustained crippling injuries from the heat and the shrapnel.

That was but the start of the calamity. The sharply heated sea water under the ships sprung soon up in boiling geysers, throwing the damaged vessels around, shattering boarding, cracking masts, tearing sails, snapping lines, and enhancing the overall suffering of the men to levels outside human tolerance. Heavy smoke and the scent of burning wood and flesh shrouded the pirate fleet.

Only one ship was spared entirely from the havoc.

No golden threads fell directly on the Jade Tempest, sparing the brig from the worst of it. Amid all the fire and wreckage, her masts stood intact. In shock, the Prince wavered by the wheel, staring at the catastrophe unfolding all about him. In shock, he then turned his eyes at the Royal Navy, the source of the calamitous light.

“This isn’t battle!” he exclaimed. “It’s extermination!”

No hope whatsoever could he see in the situation, but none did his trained body need to move. For his people’s sake, if nothing else, the idea of surrender never entered his consciousness. Instead, he acted. He raised his gaze aloft, to their sole lifeline on the main mast.

“Eryn, please!” he called. “You have to stop them from firing again!”

“Aye-aye, Cap’n!” Erynmir yelled in answer, only happy to be depended on.

Leaping nimbly down onto the studding sail boom, she went running over the side of the ship and soon soared the sky in the shape of the great beast, headed the Navy’s way.

Meanwhile, the Prince turned to Smith.

“Full speed ahead! Signal the others! Forward, all who remain seaworthy! We have to attack! They can’t shoot at us like that if our ships are mixed among theirs!”

Aboard the Crucifico, the officers were following the tumultuous events with healthy fear and unease, albeit in the reasonable safety of distance. Many of the witnesses even on this side of the conflict found the unholy light show more disturbing than it was uplifting. However, they soon got over their doubts, given better things to think about.

Out of nowhere appeared an enormous, winged beast, flying straight at them while loudly roaring. The closer it got, the larger and larger it seemed, until standing in place and just looking started to feel like too much asked.

“So that is the dragon?” Miragrave remarked, observing the creature’s approach. To one who had faced daemons, even the seventy-five-foot mountain of horns and claws appeared no different from a somewhat larger eagle. “Aury, change of targets. Eliminating the beast is now your top priority. Destroy it, by any means necessary.”

“Understood,” Aurlemeyr replied, adjusting her aim.

A target like any other…She took aim at the approaching beast, adjusting to its speed, reading its course, and began to gather power again. A curving shot, to nail the heart through the soft spot below the shoulder joint—that should have been more than enough. No need to make it any more complicated than it had to be.

“Commencing fire——”

The celestial relic tore the sky again.

A blinding beam flashed past the masts, more voluminous than the earlier, scattered threads. Had such a bolt hit an individual ship, not a single taffrail board would’ve been left even of a larger galleon. Going by the raw numbers involved, it ought to have been able to penetrate eighteen inches of layered steel—dragon scales couldn’t possibly have been much harder than that.

“—?”

Yet, as the brilliant flash soon faded, the dragon continued to fly, unharmed.

Against her looks, the enemy was anything but a mindless beast. Erynmir sensed the accumulating mana already from a distance. Sporting reactions beyond those of man, she estimated the right timing by the build-up, pulled her wings close and rolled aside, evading the fiery projectile completely. Curving westward, laughing on the inside, she drew a quick breath and stared down at the navy’s clumsy vessels.

Not every dragon breathed fire.

Like humans and all living beings, they were each born with a fixed elemental affinity. Yet, that was quite as far as the similarities went. Where human mages merely imitated existing natural phenomena in their Art, dragons embodied that nature itself, and could draw upon their own element with the ease of respiration, speaking no words, weaving no forms.

Erynmir’s element was Air. And who has ever seen a storm wouldn’t question the deadliness of winds. She blew a fast lungful at the ships in front of her as she passed over, and nothing more was required. The third-rate frigate closest in the line of the puff was smashed apart and became sucked under the ocean surface in the created whirlpool. Two other vessels nearby were thrown aside, their masts and rigging torn broken and nearly capsized, sustaining heavy damage throughout the hull. The tall waves born in reaction shook all of the western fleet. Well before the archers or harpooners could recover, Erynmir turned up and, scooping the air with her powerful wings, climbed high up to the sun.

“In case I didn’t make it clear the first time,” Miragrave told Aurlemeyr, steadying her balance, “you are permitted to hit it.”

“It is rather quick,” Aurlmeyr replied, aiming again.

“Admiral,” the Marshal turned to Wittingam. “It mustn’t get us all in one swoop. Scatter the fleet. Signal all ships to take distance.”

“As you wish,” Wittingam replied, at the same time glancing ahead. “But...the pirates are not all defeated yet. They are coming at us, ma’am.”

Miragrave looked forward and narrowed her gaze in displeasure. As he had said, what was left of the Confederate fleet was sailing fast downwind at them, the smoke of their burns for cover. Even if pierced through, the larger ships could endure one hole and keep afloat by sealing off the damaged compartments. So long as their main sails and rudders were intact, they were operable, and all operable crafts charged now at the Navy, to seek shelter under the belly of their enemy. Moreover, some of their ships were yet on fire, and were likely to spread the flames on contact.

The Navy had to spread out to minimize the damage the dragon could do, but this left them vulnerable against the agile pirate ships. To secure enough natural resources for the Bow, the Magic Battalion’s capacity was sealed. All ships’ defensive capabilities were significantly lowered. The battle was turning from an orderly suppression to a chaotic game of tag, where those best accustomed to conquering by dividing were strong.

“Captain,” Miragrave called the commander of the Crucifico. “Seek to steer clear of the fighting, for as long as you can. Steady as she goes.”

“Can I get you the moons from the sky while at it?” Captain Belfraum replied, anxious for his ship. “It’s no pleasure yacht we’re on!”

Leaving his remark without response, loosening her sword in the sheath, Miragrave turned to General Phereis instead.

“Tell all hands to ready for close combat.”