Chapter 853: Path to Hell IV

With the outpost in hand and plans made with the Jaguar, Leon decided that it was time to leave. There wasn’t any point in staying other than to rest, and his people were strong enough that they didn’t need much of that.

‘Better to just get to the ships waiting for us,’ he thought as he left the outpost’s office. As he walked out, however, he found a rather heated discussion taking place in front of the tavern between Santiago and several of the older former slaves.

“… doesn’t excuse barbarity,” Santiago whispered, but Leon was still more than able to hear him.

“It’s not barbarity!” the oldest of the former slaves insisted, his expression contorted with anger. “It’s justice!”

“That sounds more like vengeance than justice,” Santiago replied. “Let’s not go down this path. We won’t become monsters, we don’t need to—” He cut himself off as he saw Leon appear, Maia and Anzu right behind him. “Leon!” he called out, giving Leon a respectful nod.

Leon hesitantly returned the nod and asked as he approached, “What’s going on?”

“Justice,” said the former slave that seemed in charge, if his assertiveness was anything to go by.

“I’m trying to talk these people out of taking vengeance on the prisoners you’ve taken,” Santiago explained. “Such actions are unnecessary and immoral.”

“Arguing morality, are you?” Leon asked.

At that moment, Gaius and Alix exited the tavern, briefly acknowledging Leon before glaring at Santiago. “Rich statement, coming from you,” Alix growled.

Santiago visibly cringed and replied, “Yes… yes it is. But it’s never too late to try and be better, is it?” His last words sounded almost pleading as he turned his eyes to Leon.

“No, no it isn’t,” Leon answered.

Santiago sighed in relief, then, addressing the three former slaves, said, “I will not allow you to touch the prisoners. That’s the end of it.”

The former slaves did not seem happy, but with Leon and several of his people around, none of them seemed willing to continue their argument, so they simply bowed slightly to Santiago and went back inside the tavern.

As the door closed behind them, Santiago sighed again. “Thank you, Leon. And all of you. Thank you.”

Alix snorted, while Gaius offered a half-hearted, “It’s good to see that you’re not baying for blood. Unexpected.”

“I…” Santiago hesitantly began before falling silent. After a moment of what looked like rather intense thought, he said without a shred of dishonesty to be seen, “I’m sorry. I’ve made many mistakes in the past. The men I led did terrible things, and I allowed them to carry on unchecked.

“At first, I thought that rebellion against the pentarchs was justified; they didn’t supply my forces with food or pay, after all. But any claims to justice were washed away in the tears and blood of those who suffered due to my actions.

“I did not set out to become a bandit. I merely wanted to protect my men. But in doing so, I compromised my honor repeatedly, in larger and larger ways, always in the belief that it was the lesser evil. I can see now that I have more distance from the problem that I could’ve prevented myself from becoming a rebel, a bandit, a man without honor. But walked that path, and now I’m here. Years of torture and slavery behind me. And an unknown future…”

His eyes found Leon’s, an unspoken question glimmering within.

“We’ll let you go,” Leon said. “Wouldn’t have unchained you if I was going to kill you a mere hour or two later. Besides, those we freed will need escorting to the nearest bastion of civilization, as will those we’ve taken captive. Are you up to that task?”

Leon registered some curious looks from Alix and Gaius, but neither argued his decision.

Santiago mulled Leon’s question over for a few seconds, flexing both his fists and his aura. “I… think that I am,” he said. “I’ll be even readier after a few hours of rest and with some food in me.”

“Then see to yourself. I and my people won’t be staying long, we’ll probably be leaving before you do.”

“Understood. I can see to everyone.” Leon nodded and was about to head into the tavern, but he paused as Santiago continued, “And Leon? Thank you. Not just for freeing me, but for giving me the chance to redeem my honor. Whether that part was intended or not. I will not squander this gift you’ve given me. Its value is beyond measure, greater even than my very life.”

Leon turned that over in his head for a moment, his eyes searching Santiago’s face for any signs of deceit. Finding none, nodded and said, “Prove me right. It would be mighty embarrassing to have to hunt you down if you fall back into old habits.”

“And even more so to die at your hand,” Santiago chuckled.

With that, Leon nodded once more and headed back inside the tavern. He had to make sure his people were informed of what their next steps would be, namely flying to the Sword and finding the spot where the Jaguar’s people were waiting for them.

It was going to be risky flying over the Veins of Vigilance—Leon could only speculate as to the defenses and monitoring magics that the Empires and the Pegasi States had active in the region, let alone the Sky Devils who might mistake them for Imperial spies—but Leon was at least comforted with the knowledge that he wasn’t abandoning these people he’d freed to a hard trudge through dangerous swampland back to civilization.

—

Leon’s estimate proved prophetic; he and his people, after only a couple hours spent in briefing and at rest, departed the smuggling outpost before Santiago and the free slaves did. Leon had made sure to call up the Director again to make sure that Santiago would be watched when he returned to civilization, and that however many people were accompanying him would be counted. If Santiago proved himself a liar in his stated desire to regain his honor, Leon fully intended to hunt him down and put him to death himself.

At the same time, Anshu had ordered his people to head back out into the swamp and return to their usual duties. For the next leg of their journey, it would just be Leon and his retinue, without anyone else.

As Leon led his people into the sky, leaving the freed slaves to cheer and wave as they departed, he put Santiago out of his mind. He had more important things to focus on, now.

After rising several hundred feet into the air, Leon and his people turned invisible and turned eastward. The Sword wasn’t that far, relatively speaking, and they could cover that distance quickly if all went well.

At first, all didn’t seem like it went well, for they’d barely made it out over the water of the Veins of Vigilance before an Imperial patrol ship came cruising past. Fortunately, it didn’t seem to notice them.

After about an hour of flying, however, a larger Imperial patrol came sailing past, and this time, they’d blanketed the surroundings with some kind of element-less magic that Leon had rarely experienced before—someone on the leading ship was using an enchantment to greatly enhance their magic senses. In Leon’s experience, this sort of thing was usually done when trying to zero in on something specific, such as demonic magic. He couldn’t guess from the magic he sensed alone what they were looking for, but he counted himself lucky both that his people were flying through clouds at the time, and that they’d been giving the patrol a wide berth already, and when the pulsing magic coming from the patrol disturbed their invisibility, the ships made no moves to indicate that they’d seen Leon’s group.

Needless to say, despite not being caught, Leon’s confidence in his invisibility when going up against Imperial ships was shaken, and he ordered his people to fly even higher and stay even further away from all ships they saw at sea, for he could easily envision the so-called ‘dread ships’ of the Sky Devils having similar capabilities, and he didn’t want them to see his party and assume they were Imperial spies.

‘Better to keep all encounters to a minimum,’ Leon had thought.

After that Imperial patrol, Leon only had to order his people to stop once when an ark came speeding several miles ahead of them. Judging by its markings, Leon guessed it was from the Sunlit Empire, which just gave him even more reason to keep his distance.

Soon enough, they reached the shores of the Sword. The island had long served as the staging point for Imperial navies that kept the Sky Devils confined to Kataigida, and from the air, Leon could easily see how it had done so, and why the Sky Devils had targeted it. An island-covering enchantment prevented magic senses from being used there, but Leon could see that every settlement upon the island was some kind of fortified structure. There weren’t many farms or other civilian infrastructure, it was fortresses and dockyards just about the entire way around the island.

The interior of the island was completely undeveloped as far as he could tell with just his eyes, with all of the fortifications concentrated within just a few miles of the coast. These fortifications had been occupied by the Sky Devils for years, now, and Leon could see their influence. Totems had been erected, fields had been cleared to support war beasts, and the Sky Devils’ dread ships patrolled the shallows in numbers so great that Leon didn’t think there was a single inch of the coast that didn’t have at least one eye upon it at any given moment.

Leon didn’t spend too long taking in the sights; instead, he turned his attention to the southeast, where the Jaguar’s tribesmen would be waiting. He remembered how the vampire Bran had been detected during the Bull Kingdom’s war with Talfar, so out of an abundance of caution, he led his party along the coast, remaining outside of the Sword’s airspace and keeping his eyes open for the landmarks that the Jaguar had told him about.

He knew he was getting close when his people had moved about the southern tip of the island and began the turn northward, and he saw the first of the landmarks: a long mountain sitting at the mouth of a bay so shallow that it essentially became a lake at low tide.

A little further north was a small river that wound its way north to a proper lake that had once been used as a training location for Imperial navies, but now lay nearly abandoned, save for a few Sky Devil occupiers making sure no Imperials snuck back in. The lake was perfectly circular, indicating it had been created by magic, and from what Leon could see, had no rivers feeding it. The river flowing out was narrow and shallow, but the lake also had a short canal connecting it to the ocean.

Within the lake’s training docks, Leon spied eight dread ships, three of which were the ships he was looking for. The Jaguar had told him what to look for, and he quickly spotted the totems of the Blood Thunder Jaguar and the founding members of the Jaguar Tribe on the command tower of the largest ship at the dock. A totem of the Thunderbird was also present, prominently displayed on top of the command tower in a manner that he’d never seen any other Sky Devil ship do before, and he couldn’t help but smile when it caught his eye.

The ship itself was quite large, about on par with that of a Bull Kingdom dreadnought, but with a complement of four Lances instead of only two, and with an outer hull of enchanted steel and a deck of even more-heavily enchanted wood. Standing on the deck was what looked suspiciously like an honor guard, led by an eighth-tier mage and more than a dozen seventh-tier mages.

The eighth-tier mage matched the description of the man the Jaguar had told him to look for: golden skin, several prominent moles on his cheeks and forehead, and long hair tied back into a loose bun. His features were severe, almost gaunt, and his eyes were sharp and constantly flitting about his ship. He wore a perfectly-tailored crimson suit with a charging jaguar emblazoned upon the chest.

With dozens of people assembled on the deck clearly waiting for someone—waiting for him—he dove, alighting upon the deck with an ease and grace that he ensured was seen as he’d disabled his invisibility enchantment during his descent, his party doing the same.

Without missing so much as a beat, all of those waiting on the deck made their allegiances and attitudes known as they, as one, fell to a knee.

“It is my honor,” the eighth-tier Sky Devil loudly declared, “to be the first to declare that the Jaguar once more bows to the Thunderbird!”

The others then shouted, “With bloody fangs, our enemies will tremble!”

Leon smiled and pulled his armor back into his soul realm, though he’d ensured that his retainers knew to keep theirs on until directly ordered to relax. In the same breath, he clad himself in rich silkgrass, dyed brown, trimmed in gold, and with dozens of golden flecks gleaming throughout, invoking the Thunderbird’s coloring.

“Please, rise,” he said. Though he acknowledged the necessity of it, he wanted the ceremonial part of this over and done with. He walked forward until he stood just a pace away from the eighth-tier mage, who rose to greet him. “Your fidelity is greatly valued.”

“The Jaguars have always stayed true to our people,” the eighth-tier mage said. “We have never forgotten the dynasty that made us a power to be feared. The Thunderbird Clan is our rightful ruler, the only dynasty that we will ever accept. And now that you are here to claim your throne, we all know that the world is returning to its proper order.”

“Hmm,” Leon hummed. “Why don’t we get underway, then? While I’d appreciate the world falling back into place, I’d rather not make gravity do all the work.”

To emphasize his point, he waved his hand through the air, silver-blue lightning dancing about his fingers. Every eye on the deck of that ship watched his hand like it was the single most important thing any of them had ever seen in their lives.

Only a moment later, the eighth-tier mage lightly smiled, appeared to relax slightly, and began calling out orders to get their ships back to Kataigida as quickly as possible.

—

The journey to Kataigida was quite easy. Leon and his people were given quarters that were about as luxurious as could be expected on such a ship, and he quickly suspected that the ship’s captain had given up his cabin for Leon’s personal use. The captain himself, the eighth-tier mage, was named Yun Neh, and one of the Jaguar’s most experienced naval commanders, having led some of the Ten Tribes’ most successful scouting missions of the past few centuries. In fact, while no one ever claimed as much, Leon got the impression that his scouting had been critical to the swift invasion of the island by the Ten Tribes.

Under normal conditions, he might have enjoyed staying on the Sword for a few days, discussing the invasion in greater detail. However, the Jaguar Tribe hadn’t been present for the fighting, having been preoccupied with the sacking of Argos, and they hadn’t been tapped to occupy the island. The Thunderer’s army had left years before, leaving the occupation to three Tribes: the Lions, the Rock Mane Bisons, and the Heart-Stabbing Hawks, none of whom could be assumed to be on Leon’s side yet.

‘None of them likely even know about me,’ Leon thought. He conceded that it might be possible that they did, but he wasn’t going to assume so. At the very least, it was better to get to Kataigida as soon as possible where he could link up with the Jaguars and start networking with the elders of other Tribes to shore up his support before the Thunderer could respond, so sticking around was a bad idea all around.

Perhaps it was because of Yun’s experience sailing between Kataigida and the Sword, but they made great time, finding a current and riding it at fairly good speed had them approaching Kataigida in a matter of days.

The ride there was fairly uneventful, though there was a brief moment where Leon thought they were about to be attacked: an ark appeared flying through some clouds, and it was quickly determined to be of Imperial origin. Leon’s ship and its two escorts nearly started firing off their Lances to get it to leave when another ark came flying in from the opposite direction, this one of the Ten Tribes, and being more heavily armed. The Imperial ark quickly flew away, pursued by the Ten Tribes’ ark, though given their speeds, Leon didn’t think the Imperial ark was going to be caught.

All told, though, they made their final approach to Kataigida in good time.

Kataigida had one of the most potent defenses Leon had ever seen: a veil of mist that surrounded the entire island. He wasn’t quite sure how it had been accomplished, and Yun wasn’t privy to that information either, but the veil ensured that all but Ten Tribes and Imperial ships were lost, either run aground of the many islands and sharp rocks within, turned around and sent back the way they came, or destroyed by storms that the veil frequently conjured.

Hearing of these defenses, Leon expected to at least see or sense something interesting as they passed through, but as far as he and his magic senses could tell, the mist was just that: normal mist. That it all swirled in a thick, never-moving band didn’t even seem unnatural, with all of the magic in the air around it seeming quite undisturbed.

He’d been hoping for something a little more spectacular moving through it, but it seemed that fate decided to reserve the excitement for after he’d passed through; as soon as their ships emerged on the other side of the misty veil within spitting distance of the port of Raimondas, a group of seven Ten Tribes warships, three of them larger and even more heavily armed than Yun’s ship, turned toward them and began moving to intercept.

All seven of these ships were flying a black banner of ten small stars arranged in a circle around a large star—the colors of the Ten Tribes as a whole rather than any one Tribe specifically.

Leon had been standing on the observation deck of the command tower with Yun at the time, and the captain muttered, “Those are ships from the Thunderer’s fleet. We’d best prepare, it looks like they want to stop us from reaching the port!”