Chương 1336: 1366 - Defending Artorion III

Leon's team tore out of the storm wall, Leon himself bringing up the rear. Wordlessly, he led them to the nearest mountaintop that could accommodate their numbers.

"Anyone injured?" he asked as they landed around him. He looked around, searching for blood on their armor or wavering auras. His attention, however, was captured by Red transforming back into her human form and stalking over to him, fire in her eyes.

"We could've gone further," she hissed as she pressed into his space.

"We won't win if you don't let us kill the fools who stand against us." Leon stood firm, his lips quirking upward.

"We did damage and left." He glanced around again, noting that everyone seemed just as fine now as they had when he called for their retreat.

"And we haven't spilled so much as a drop of our own blood. And you're angry about this?" Red sneeringly replied, "We rampaged out in the planes! Such glorious fire I brought to our foes!" She smiled, all teeth and malice.

"Why do you now ask me to restrain myself to a single blast of sky-scorching fire?"

"Do you believe yourself capable of taking on ten thousand arks all by yourself?" Leon asked drily.

"No," she admitted without hesitation.

"But we could've stayed longer."

"If you'd done that," Theron cut in, "you'd have returned broken and bloody—something that might have thrilled me once upon a time, but no longer now that I've lost the taste for blood."

"Another doubter," Red scoffed.

"I almost can't believe it," Cassandra said, "I think I'm agreeing with Red, here." Red perked up, smiling in victory as she fixed Leon in a boiling glare. Leon sighed.

"You're acting as if this was the only raid we're going to go on. We're now going to get a bit of rest, let them lower their guard, and then we'll hit them again. If you have any fight left in you, save it for then."

"We'd better stay longer next time," Red growled.

"We'll stay exactly as long as I say," Leon retorted, his aura rising to eclipse hers. She glared back for a moment, but eventually backed down, her smile slipping.

"Good job, everyone," Leon continued.

"Next time will be harder, so rest well." His team largely recognized the dismissal for what it was and began filing away, but Leon held Nestor back, using his aura to hold his metal frame in place until the others made their way back to Westmount. Only Maia, Valeria, and Cassandra stayed when they realized he wasn't following.

"Is there something you need?" Nestor asked Leon once it was just them—and the three ladies a short distance away, still close enough to listen.

"That rune Triton used at the end," Leon stated, his golden eyes swiveling back in the direction they'd come from, piercing the storm wall, and landing on Triton flying through his fleet. The Basileus seemed to sense his gaze and turned, pausing as he directed his fleet to repair the damage inflicted and salvage the arks that were shot down. Their gazes didn't lock, but Leon still glared his way until the man turned around again.

"What was it…?" Leon finished.

"A shield," Nestor said simply.

"Can you copy it?" Leon frowned as he recalled it. It had been seared into his mind for how seemingly easily it deflected one of the spatial arrows loosed from his Stormborn bow, and with a wave of his hand, he projected it in the air. The whole thing somewhat resembled a complex spiderweb, chaotic and uneven—rather than spiraling out from a central point, it was more like three separate blobs of runic lines, only barely conforming to what Leon knew of ancient runes.

The locus of the ancient rune was hard for Leon to find, so complicated and chaotic was it. Taking on a didactic tone, Nestor asked like a teacher to a student, for that was precisely what he was, "What is the original rune? Can you tell?"

"Hard to say," Leon answered.

"I'd think that most of the rune would be here, where it's most complex…" He indicated the largest blob of runic lines, his eyes finding a large cluster of straight lines surrounded by curved lines.

"But I can't see the original rune within. Some that might be an original rune, but not quite…"

"It's exceptionally tailored," Nestor said.

"But the core of the rune is here." A metal finger, perfectly polished and almost surprisingly delicate for the amount of physical work that the large frame was put through, pointed to the smallest of the three main 'blobs'.

"If you look carefully, you can see some aspects of shield runes around the edges, and a core of 'halt'." Leon squinted into the lines, and sure enough, almost buried beneath the rune's complexity, was exactly what Nestor said.

"Triton… doesn't strike me as a rune master," he said as his eyes traced the many runic lines springing from the central rune, how they diverged into a pair of separate blobs rather than staying concentrated around the core.

"No," Nestor admitted.

"He would fight differently if he were one. More runes and cleverness than spears and brutishness. He acquired that rune from someone else."

"Kamran?"

"I did not try to read his mind."

"Probably Kamran. He's a fifteenth-tier mage."

"Many fifteenth-tier mages ignore the defining aspect of their tier."

"Do such figures have aspirations to become Elemental Kings?"

"No one reaches that level without ambition, Leon. All look in the mirror and see future Kings staring back at them. Whether or not they act on those ambitions is something else entirely…"

"Kamran is certainly acting on his ambitions. He's also perhaps the single most responsible man alive for the fall of the Clan. Two of his vassals attacked us. Is it so wrong to think that he's giving them runes to use against us?"

"Your logic is sound enough for me."

"Hm. We'll have to consider the possibility that Kamran has given Triton other runes. Who knows what they might be?" Nestor paused, considering something. Then he said, "When he arrived and put Artorion to siege, he was stymied by the valley's defenses. He did not initially use that rune of his to penetrate the storm surrounding us…" This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

"Another one given to him by Kamran," Leon definitively stated.

"That makes sense to me. He can't show up personally because he's fighting Halbast and Auset, so send two others who should be strong enough to get the job done, and furnish them with runes to ensure victory." [Their victory is not assured,] Maia declared as she descended to stand beside Leon. [I will drown everyone who thinks otherwise.]"Determination and good old-fashioned violence have gotten us this far," Cassandra said as she joined them, too.

"If Triton is being hand-held by a fifteenth-tier mage, then he's even more pathetic than I realized. Even without you here, he couldn't get past the valley's defenses."

"He's still done considerable damage," Valeria stated, the last of the three to descend from where they'd been listening in.

"He should not be underestimated."

"Did you think I was?" Cassandra shot back, her tone sharp, a challenging smile spreading across her face that looked more like a lioness baring her teeth.

"I watched him do that damage, Val; don't lecture me about underestimating him." Valeria cocked her head slightly and said nothing more. Leon decided to end any arguments that may have been brewing and said, "We'll kill him, then secure the Kingdom. Triton is hardly the last enemy we'll ever face—Alderion, I'm sure, will be wanting words soon, too." [Then we will kill Triton the next time we fight!] Maia insisted.

"… If the opportunity arises," Leon conceded.

"Nestor, if you can help us with any potential counters to Triton's runes, I would be most appreciative."

"I'll see what I can do," Nestor said. And with that, Leon and these members of his family took back to the skies and returned to Westmount. Their rest would be short, however, as Triton wasn't going to passively wait for them to launch another raid…

The mood amongst his Captains was murderous—that their bestial quarry was able to launch such a raid on their fleet rankled every one of them, especially since one of the destroyed arks in their fleet was a dreadnought. That the ark dreaded nothing hardly helped it when it was struck by one of those fell arrows that Leon Raime counted as one of his weapons. On the whole, losses were relatively light—a dozen arks or so, depending on further damage analysis of other arks, out of twelve thousand.

Hardly a cataclysmic defeat, skirmishes with Raime's fleets could do that much in a day. Fortunately for Triton, he possessed a fairly expansive Empire out in the planes, and he could replace those losses easily. He'd already ensured that all new production of arks be directed toward him in this endeavor, which was where most of the relative trickle of reinforcing arks throughout this campaign was coming from. But if he tried to tell any of his Captains that they were expendable, their loss easily recovered from…

he surmised that would lead to immediate mutiny. Basileus though he was, his Captains were the backbone of his fleet, and they knew it. He couldn't be delicate—they'd take it as a sign of weakness—but neither could he dismiss their concerns outright. Confident, yet understanding. In all of his years, he'd learned that this was the key.

"We will remain vigilant!" he declared, his comms tree carrying his voice to every one of his Captains on their own vessels.

"If the enemy dares to show himself again, I will be there to personally show him Khosrow's light!" His tree was particularly attuned to his Captains' respective comm systems, so he could easily hear some supportive murmurs, but hardly enough to shake the earth. They approved of his promise to take to the field himself, but after the massacre of their fleet stationed at the portal, they needed more.

His initial move not to engage Leon Raime after that battle, while practical, still caused many to lose respect for him.

'Emotional fools,' he silently grumbled.

'Can't see the best currents through the mist of their own pride.' Aloud, he continued, "But that is only if we wait! And I, for one, refuse to wait for my enemy to come to me! Instead, we should push, fight him on our terms! Why wait when we can amass all the waves and bring them crashing down at once! Even the highest mountain will succumb to the shifting tides, and even the greatest walls will fall to the surging waves!" His Captains murmured more loudly, encouraged.

His post-Apotheosis vassals were silent, but he knew they were on his side. He'd long ago gotten rid of anyone who wasn't absolutely committed to the Great Lord's cause. It had left him relatively weak in years long past, but he knew that he was now stronger for it.

"You will be receiving your orders soon," Triton promised.

"We begin in two hours." A short time frame, and he'd hoped to amass greater forces before then, but he'd already rallied most of his available forces, and as Leon Raime just showed, waiting around at this point was asking to be harried to death. He was not going to float around and wait for a self-important pigeon to peck at his heels and elbows until he bled out. He would attack first, and this time, he would hold nothing back.

With the runes Kamran had given him, after all, he knew that he but had to close his fist, and victory would be in his grasp.

His heart thumped in his chest hard and fast as adrenaline shot through his body. The rush was almost enough to get him to begin immediately, but Triton held himself back for a few minutes more. He needed his entire fleet in position before he could truly begin. He kept his eyes on the storm wall ahead of him. The damned thing had been the primary reason for his failure so far to take Artorion, defying even his most mist-focused mages' attempts to disrupt.

Only Kamran's rune had been sufficient to cut a path through, but even that had been quickly countered by what had appeared to be an autonomous golem. Triton intended to inspect that thing once he'd forced his way into the city, but he forced himself back before he could get too far ahead of himself. He couldn't see through the mist, but he knew that his enemy couldn't have missed his fleet amassing on their front door. They'd be ready for him to attack, but not, perhaps, for what he was about to do.

If the impenetrable mist was their greatest defensive asset, then all he had to do to break this storm was get rid of it. He flew out in front of his fleet, putting himself at what he considered an acceptable amount of risk. The fleet had been stationed a far enough distance from Artorion's protected valley that they'd have a bit of warning if Leon Raime attacked before they were ready, but so far, their caution hadn't seemed warranted. Their advance had gone largely unchallenged.

Now, Triton took the biggest risk out of anyone else in the fleet, drawing so much attention that it felt like he'd sunk to the bottom of the Elemental Plane of Water. He grinned throughout it, his bared teeth visible to all since he'd chosen to wear an open-faced helmet for this battle. He halted about a third of the way to the mist. A hand rose, magic flared, and a rune appeared in the air, the same one that he'd used to cut through the mist several times before.

And then other runes appeared next to it, amplifying its power, broadening its area of effect. Triton was no enchanter, but one of his Despots had been able to throw this together for him.

'Lord Kamran will never know about this,' he vowed even as he let the new enchantment feed on his power. He doubted Kamran would disapprove of anyone else being given access to the rune he'd given Triton, let alone modifying it, but just in case… The enchantment glowed with power, and Triton braced for any kind of attack. When none came, his sense of triumph spiked. Magic pushed out, and the mist receded.

Mountains were revealed, the trees that carpeted them opened to the sun, and the arks above shone in the light, now revealed. Triton reveled in seeing them still maneuvering into defensive positions, not quite ready to combat his readied fleet. And there, he saw Leon Raime, rushing out of his palace in his storm cloud-colored armor, his golden eyes wide with shock at seeing the mist part before Triton.

With one final burst of power, the mist on the western side of the valley was almost entirely disbursed, revealing all within. Arks, walls, towers, all of them, ready to be targeted. Triton's fleet let loose their readied cannons, and a hellish salvo of steam and ice crashed upon those western slopes. Trees splintered, rock shattered, and mountains shuddered; towers broke, walls fell, and arks were struck down.

The enemy responded, rising higher into the air and spreading out, all while unleashing an apocalyptic torrent of lightning upon his fleet. He took losses, especially since his fleet was in a static position, but they were acceptable. His arks began their charge, confident now that their enemy had been revealed. Triton himself led the charge, his eyes on Leon Raime. He could feel the weight of this moment already, the day that the Thunderbird Clan would finally die.

He saw the golem-thing try to restore the mist as it had done every time since he'd first started cutting corridors through it, but only a few sputtering clouds appeared, drifting lazily across the mountain peaks without doing anything other than making the remaining towers damp. A spear with a blade of black ice appeared in Triton's hand. It almost felt like it was crying out for Thunderbird blood. Triton thrust forward, intending to oblige…