Year 941,

The three islands that the League's fleet was tasked to conquer along their route were Rogeria, Malgadra, and Arvis.

The first, Rogeria, was reached on the twenty-fourth day of Germinaticus. It was a rocky outcrop surrounded by sharp rocks on which stood a small fort, poorly manned at the time. The Ashalmazites had recently conquered it, and the fortifications still bore the scars of the recent battle. Three hundred soldiers from two galleys of the League, Marzela and Bellum, disembarked. In just four hours the troops breached the fort and conquered it. Twenty-one soldiers perished, and there were no survivors among the enemy lines.

In the conquest of the second island the clash was harsher.

First it was necessary to board two galleasses, of Kellerian handicraft and captured by the Infidels, that were stationed in front of the island's small harbor. The attack was launched under cover of darkness, and the ramming maneuvers were managed by Lyndabel and Jexter, as both possessed advanced night vision spells. They recaptured the galleasses and threw the defeated enemies into the sea.

The landing at Malgadra took place on the first day of Tetrestes, and the island was besieged from the first light of dawn to sunset. The islet consisted of a plateau surrounded by promontories overlooking the sea, in the center of which stood a raised fortress surrounded by two orders of walls. Once again Marzela and Bellum easily breached the walls of clay bricks, but beyond the second wall the infantry platoons came across two colossal Black Goiter Mastiffs, trained and left in defense of the fort by Suljukian officers. The two Ferenkelts set about massacring the defenseless crusaders. The five knights who had landed had to deal with the beasts personally, on a battlefield now reduced to a pile of corpses, under a rain of steel arrows.

The fortress of Malgadra had been built on a boulder in the center of the walls, and a considerable number of archers hid behind its battlements.

Once the Mastiffs were eliminated, the knights, protected by their ethereal armors, engaged in a long-range battle, and with their spells decimated the archers who were peeking out from the tops of the defense towers around the keep of the fortress. Brombelt gave the final blow, casting the spell "Blast Sphere" on the landing of the last standing bastion from which projectiles were still flying. The explosion knocked down all the survivors.

Once the way was clear, the infantrymen clambered up the boulder and forced open the rickety wooden plank gate of the fort. A melee ensued in the halls of the fortress, but the swarm of crusaders outnumbered the remaining Infidels, and after a cruel purge, the banner bearing the Water Cross of Lazul rose on top of the keep's highest tower.

On the banks of Malgadra, under the jaws of the Black Goiter Mastiffs and the merciless arrows, sixty-six crusaders perished.

*****

For Viryl the crusade really began on the third day of Tetrestes, when the island of Arvis was sighted on the horizon.

It was late morning, and Lyndabel was resting in her bunk below deck: she had participated in the siege of Malgadra and she was still recovering. Viryl had come up on deck, and was cradled by the cool breeze that billowed the sails.

When the cry of “Land!” rang out, Viryl lazily climbed onto the forecastle and made his way to the bulwark by the bowsprit. Leaning out from the Fortuna Serena, scanning the long, hazy outline of the island he was about to land on, the knight realized that the battle that was waiting for him would not end in a single day. The island of Arvis was large, covered in thick woods, and with the naked eye he could already make out two settlements and a bastion protected by thick stone walls on a high promontory. There was no doubt that he would have to get his hands dirty. The League general had already announced that he would deploy all fifteen knights on the galleon to complete the conquest as quickly as possible. The primary goal of the enterprise was reaching the city of Surelekem, and they did not have much time for sidetracking.

Viryl was lost in thought, perched on the gunwale, when the ship shook, and then the trill of the bugler went off. They were under attack. Viryl leaned over the rail and looked back at the side from which the vibration had propagated. A dart had broken through the ship's side, burning a black hole in the planking, and three more were in flight and about to embed themselves in it. Instinctively Viryl grabbed the gunwale and braced for the blow, but it didn't come because the helmsman quickly took evasive action. The iron points, as wide as a spade and as thick as a hammer head, hissed beneath the surface of the water and made it boil.

Where had those bullets come from? Had the scouts not noticed the ambush? Viryl scanned the sea and sky, and saw the assailants. Four Suljukian raiders, riding flying beasts covered in sky-blue camouflage, were half a mile away. They carried powerful hand-held ballistae, and the mounts were Ferenkelts that Viryl had never faced, but they reminded him of Bonehead Griffons: probably a subspecies endemic to Venatolia.

One of the knights of the Order of Libertas on the bridge, Ollante the Bald, summoned his Ethereal Armor and his jousting lance, and lifted himself into the air with a levitation spell. Without thinking for more than a second, Viryl also took flight, following the purple knight.

Ollante, his face covered by his visor, nodded to Viryl and darted toward the raiders. Viryl followed suit.

It would take the two of them about thirty seconds to reach the Suljukian enemies, and they did not give the knights the luxury of the first move. They reloaded their ballistae with bolts drawn from their immense quivers, and fired with good accuracy at the two new targets.

The airborne knights separated, describing two mirror parabolas in the sky, and the four arrows shot along trajectories that were now clear. The raiders pulled hard on the reins of their Griffins, which began to flutter in a disorganized way to stop their advance, and prepared to engage the adversaries who were closing on them in a pincer maneuver.

The battle unfolded much faster than Viryl expected. He lifted an ice stalagmite from the water and with his advanced telekinesis spell drove it into the chest of one of the four Ferenkelt, while Ollante riddled the others with three quick thrusts of the weapon enchanted with “Sonic Piercing”.

The Suljukians fell with their mounts, and after the plunge they floundered in despair in the waves.

Viryl, reflecting on that first encounter with the Infidels, realized how unbridgeable the disparity was between Western warfare technology and the crude tactics of those beast-tamers from the East. There was no comparison. They were men, perhaps larger than average and with a stronger build, but still men. Compared to them, the knights of Boreatica, cataphracted in their ethereal armors, were to be considered gods.

Glancing toward the horizon in the direction the raiders had come from, Viryl spotted a flotilla of nine rowing galleys. Ollante had spotted them moments before him, and he observed excitedly, “Those bastards are trying to outflank us!”

“Should we engage them?” Viryl asked.

"We don't have much choice. Let's go warn the Admiral, so he can get our galleys ready for battle."

Viryl nodded, and turned toward the allied fleet. The Fortuna Serena's masts were swinging dangerously, and there was a great deal of commotion on the deck. Soldiers and knights were leaning over the bulkheads, as if they were fighting something rising from the depths.

Ollante grunted. He had the same impression as Viryl. “Those four Izpahi riders weren’t the only advance guard,” he said. “They ambushed us underwater at the same time. Let’s hurry back, they need us.”

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*****

Viryl and Ollante quickly circled the galleon, trying to figure out what the hell was going on. Pink tentacles as thick and gnarled as fig trunks were wrapped around the hull, sticking out a few feet above the waterline.

“A Rock-Helm Octopus,” the pale color of its clawed suckers was unmistakable, Viryl was sure about it.

“You're an expert hunter, huh?”

Viryl wouldn’t have dared to call himself that, but apparently at headquarters they thought so. Maybe they were right. Even if indirectly, Viryl confirmed Ollante’s hypothesis, “Go and report to the admiral about the ships we spotted, I’m enough against that beast.”

Ollante shook his head and chuckled, “Go ahead, but I have a feeling the others won’t let you have all the glory.”

The purple-armored knight was right. Viryl cast the basic “Oxygen Reserve” spell and dove in, and in the cold turquoise void of the Kaelus Sea he met the gazes of Mishiff and Morront. Both were busy extricating the grip of the colossal octopus. Morront was trying to slice off the tenacious tentacles with his serrated blade, while Mishiff was struggling against the beast’s hooked beak so that it wouldn’t sink into the hull, and at the same time he was trying to stab it with his harpoon.

Meanwhile, the octopus, which was wearing a two-ton boulder on its head as a helmet, was moving and acting as ballast for the ship, trying to bring it to the bottom.

Viryl grabbed hold of the rocky, barnacle-covered helmet and cast the spell “Rock Shaping.” He opened a hole in the shell, revealing the monster’s spotted skin, and made the extracted stone take the shape of a long, sharp rod, then with the spell “advanced telekinesis” he stuck it into the newly opened gap. The octopus responded by spraying a dense, opaque cloud of blackish matter.

With that done, Viryl felt his breath catch, and he pulled away to resurface. By the time he reached the deck of the galleon, he was covered from head to toe in Rock-helm Octopus ink.

Lyndabel had left her bunk, and in her pearl-colored ethereal armor she was helping soldiers and artificers prepare the artillery. When she saw her friend land, she couldn't help but mock him, "Hey, that’s Viryl of the Black Gale !"

“Hey, sleepyhead! You just woke up and your first thought is to play with some balls… cannonballs,” Viryl retorted, miming something obscene.

“You filthy, ill-mannered pig!” Lyndabel bellowed in an excessively high-pitched tone, and was on the point of dropping the handful of lead balls in her lap and opening a new hatchway to the vessel.

“You’ve asked for this, you stupid moron!” Viryl protested, stomping his feet and waving his right arm. He looked like a penguin, and Lyndabel laughed wickedly.

“What the fuck are you laughing at?” Viryl howled, gesticulating like a madman, evoking even more helpless laughter from the girl.

The ship lurched, like a plank of wood dropped into a basin and then released, and the two men paused in their bickering for a moment.

Mishiff broke the surface and climbed up a rope ladder that hung along the hull, then poked his head out onto the deck and proclaimed, “Morront and I managed to get that son of a bitch off,” then looked around, found Viryl, and added, “And we did it with your help, Ferlonian. We owe you one!”

Viryl waved his hand, as if to downplay the extent of his feat.

Jossolt, sitting on a bench attached to the quarterdeck awaiting further developments, rose and responded to Mishiff's announcement: "Very well, knights, we can now maneuver! It is time to prepare for battle. Ten enemy galleys have left the port of Arvis and are coming towards us from the southeast, and Ollante has reported to the general that nine more have outflanked us and are pursuing us from the northwest. Dispose of yourselves in the assault galleys, those who can fly, fly and those who can swim, swim! Today we take no prisoners!"

Viryl digested this new information, and the situation seemed vaguely worrying. They were significantly outnumbered. Thirteen galleys with auxiliary engines, two galleasses with scant crews, and a galleon, against nineteen galleys with oars. To avoid losses among the common soldiers, the knights would have to do the bulk of the work.

His prediction was correct, but there was a naval battle phase first.

The flagship was placed in the middle, and around it were formed two lines of assault galleys arranged in a line abreast. Further outwards the gun galleys and galleasses were placed in a line abreast, with all the cannons they had placed on the outer side.

When the infidel ships surrounded the League's naval squadron, a long-distance battle ensued. The Ashalmazites had very rudimentary artillery, so they fired arrows, stones, and flaming bolts. The League ships in the outer circle withstood the haphazard waves of projectiles, taking only minor damage, and when they were within range they launched a series of broadsides in unison.

The enemy galleys were battered by the volley of lead, and the League's gunboats did not wait for the counterattack: they immediately retreated, leaving the field open to the assault galleys. The two flanking lines accelerated with all the power of their auxiliary engines, and rammed the enemy ships to board them.

Each of the ten galleys of the League had a knight who crouched at the bow, and as soon as the impact occurred they boarded the enemy's deck to unleash hell and hurl powerful spells that would open breaches in the planking of the Infidel vessels.

The enemy galleys that had not been boarded yet fired new volleys of shells, but Ollante, Viryl, Mishiff and Morront hit them directly from above and below.

Viryl noticed a certain sadistic streak among his colleagues. They burned, mutilated, electrocuted, dragged underwater and drowned all of the infidels they could put their hands on. In the ecstasy of the fight, that cannon fodder was minced finely. There were no fathers of families, no young men drawn by lot for conscription, no poor souls shitting themselves for the fate that awaited them, in those tubs.

They were not Zephyrians, and therefore they didn’t deserve pity. The cross sewn onto the shoulder of the knight’s uniforms, now covered by ethereal armor, should have served as an ever present reminder of who the enemies were, but it looked pointless now. Everyone was high on blood and they didn’t need to be reminded of anything.

But Viryl had no sympathy for the clergy's bullshit and took no pleasure in killing defenseless people, so he just did his job. He created large blocks of ice and collapsed them onto the decks of the enemy galleys, tearing huge holes in them. As the ships sank, and the soldiers leaped overboard and the rowers scraped their ankles free from the iron rings that held them to their posts, tearing at their flesh and screaming, the knight looked away and moved on to the next objective.

The sequence repeated itself four times, and then Mishiff appeared from the waves to raise the alarm. A new Rockhelm Octopus had appeared in the depths, heading once more for the Fortuna Serena. Viryl sighed in relief, and dove in to lend him a hand.

The second octopus was also eliminated with a similar tactic to the first, but since it was still swimming and waving its tentacles freely, the three knights had difficulty holding onto its body. Viryl's attempts were unsuccessful, and he had to surface every now and then for air.

By the time Viryl surfaced for the last time and the octopus's corpse floated limp and discolored in the dark depths of the sea, the clamor of battle was dying down. The common soldiers had invaded the galleys of the enemy ships, and were putting the finishing touches to the work of extermination that the knights had already crudely accomplished.

Viryl withdrew his ethereal armor, spread his arms and legs, and began to float. He kept his ears under the water, and stared into the blue sky rippled by a few wisps of whitish cloud. He blew bubbles with his mouth. He had barely begun, and already he was homesick for Corlona and its smell of piss and rotten fish.

*****

Thirty-two years later, third day of Neviticus, 7:33 am, abandoned prison in the lands of the Morgraal Abbey,

“Where should we take them?” the Axazeloth cultist who had taken Anker's inanimate body on his shoulders asked. The other, who had taken Coronice, looked at the Grand Master in silence, waiting for orders.

“Throw him in some cell. Treat him with care, though, he is a very valuable resource that will come in handy. She, instead, should be taken to the Doctor Maximus. Before locking her up, it would be best to do some checks on her,” Dioryl replied.

The two subordinates nodded and set off along the scaly, uneven path that descended along the back of Fuscus and then on its left wing. Dioryl followed them slowly, watching them as they puffed and panted from the physical effort.

From the flat roof covered in white granite, the procession entered the stairwell and began the descent towards the depths of the prison. The windows of the building were bricked up, and torches were placed on the walls, burning with a blood-red fire. Flames drugged with some chemical compound. Nothing in that pit of moans and desperate screams retained its original color, and every shape was painted in eerie shades of red.

During the descent, the cultist carrying Anker disappeared into a small door that opened onto the third-floor landing, and the one tending Coronice and the Grand Master continued toward the dungeons.

When they reached the end of the stairs, the devotee of Axazeloth continued, dragging Coronice’s body down a long corridor, and then through a black-painted oak door. On the other side was a square hall with countless cells opening off it. The cells had once been torture chambers, but now they were used as laboratories for human experiments. Leaning against the door jamb, Dioryl watched the cultist throw Coronice in a free cell like a garbage bag.

His task accomplished, the cultist turned around to return to his previous occupation, towards the upper floors of the prison. Dioryl stepped aside to let him pass, and then entered the square hall. On the left was a door different from those of the cells. It led to the study of the Doctor Maximus, who had been placed in the former office of the torturer. Dioryl stepped forward to it and knocked.