“Captain Seahaven!” Leo called as he walked down the marble pier where the merchant was unloading his ship. “I need to speak to you!”

            Jarl came down from the aft deck, crossed the ship, weaving through his men, and then came down the gangplank. “What do you want, ya pirate? Haven’t you done enough to me?”

            Leo thumped a coin pouch into Jarl’s hand. “Here’s everything you paid us to land here. You need to leave—my men will help you reload the few items you already off-loaded.”

            “What?” Jarl barked. “Why?”

            “Because a few orcs, two thousand or so, carried by Orsini warships, are coming here to conquer the town and establish a monopoly on the trade up the Blue River. So I assume that’ll include, if they win, seizing your vessel and every other merchant ship they can.”

            “By Riyet, this, too!? How much can one venture be cursed? And do you always make friends like this?”

            “I’ve got rather valuable real estate, and they think I’m not too big to pick on yet,” Leo said. “Although I intend to prove them deeply wrong about that.”

            “You’re not going to seize my ship and press-gang my boys into service?” Jarl asked, tilting his head in a gesture that looked near identical to Hugh’s, even though they couldn’t have copied it from one another.

            “No… I have no moral or ethical basis for that. Why would I?”

            “Hmm… wasn’t sure you weren’t just making up your reason for charging me five percent. But you’re saying we can go?”

            Leo was getting used to feeling that the world had darker mores, and it took him a moment to realize this conversation was just another example. “Yes, you can go. I won’t take your ship just because it’s convenient to me.”

            He turned and started to walk when the captain said in musing tones, “What happens if I stay?”

            Leo glanced over his shoulder, wondering why this crazy captain was still bugging him. “Well, if I win, nothing, except you give me back the coin pouch. If I lose, I strongly suspect you get sold into slavery. I personally think you should go, for your sake and your men. But if you’ve a mind to stay, I don’t have the time to dissuade you.”

            The captain followed him a bit down the magically hardened marble pier. He was dressed in billowing white pants and an open shirt, which just gave him an even greater—and for Leo, slightly uncomfortable—feeling of being a romance novel cover.

As he followed, he suddenly asked, “If I helped you fight, and me and my boys joined your war… would you give me and my ships a one percent toll rate?”

            “You’d fight in my war for four percent? It doesn’t even add up to that much—most of the ships I’m hiring are charging a fifty gold each, enough to buy another freaking ship. Sure, done deal.”

            “Excellent. I hate the orcs anyway, and I have a feeling you’ll be doing great things if you live. Worth a bit of risk. And like I said, those pig fiskers can burn.”

            They do have a knack for making friends and influencing people, Leo mused.

            Leo held his hand out to Jarl. “Welcome aboard, Captain Seahaven. We’re putting out calls for other galleys as well, but we’re likely to be outnumbered. You’ll help us even the score.”

            Captain Seahaven tipped his hat to Leo, but Leo was already striding off the pier and back to his preparations. He had evil to vanquish.

***

            The Inner Sea was normally a place of calm and sun, but it was gray water and storm clouds that accompanied Leo’s fleet as they sailed across the sea. Eleven ships, with roughly two hundred and fifty sailors manning them. He’d gotten Captain Whitewater, Captain Seahaven, and six of the eight ships that had accompanied him to the slaughter of Chargath Bone-eater and the destruction of his camp. Two others were random ships that had signed up, and the last was his realm’s personal ship, the Averia Reborn.

            But they were operating off Captain Seahaven’s ship, Jarl’s Toy—hardly an inspiring name—since it was playing host to four dragons.

            “Have anything, Zun?” Leo asked the dragon.

            She was huddled in the center of the boat, her legs folded under her except the broken one, which stuck out awkwardly to the side. Her one remaining wing was tucked in. The only thing that even seemed alive about her was her head, which darted around, blind white eyes open wide. Leo was pretty sure it was a psychosomatic reaction to using divination powers, but he wasn’t positive.

            “Yes. Almost forty miles, nearly due west, maybe just a hint north of us closer to the shore.”

            A few cheers erupted across the deck of the ship at that. It had been a cold and wet three days, since they didn’t exactly have satellite imaging—finding an enemy ‘fleet,’ which their contacts in Steelport had estimated around thirty badly overburdened galleys, wasn’t the easiest of jobs and involved a lot of chance.

Their fleet was outnumbered, but they were also far leaner—every one of their ships was better suited for war. Each carried four of their elite, leveled archers and two of their wolf-riders and were under clear instructions to avoid engaging directly.

            On the other hand, the whole fleet was to avoid engaging—the real reason for the ‘leaness’ was to lighten weight and increase speed and maneuverability.

            “Okay, do you three remember your orders?” Leo asked Hugh and his two friends, Tea and Cal.

            “Of course, Leo,” Hugh said. “I’ve got this.”

            “You’re the one they’re most likely to have a counter for, Hugh,” Leo said. “They know about you, and they know you can swim. Pull back if they do have a counter—you’ll be badly outnumbered, potentially, and we can’t come rescue you.”

            Hugh nodded, clearly nervous, before giving Leo his feral grin. “No one has a counter for Hugh.”

            “I appreciate your enthusiasm, but you’re too valuable to go down for one ship, which’ll likely have a mere sixty orcs—you’re Level Ten. Don’t risk yourself unnecessarily.”

            Hugh nodded. “And my friends?”

            Leo turned to Cal and Tea. “Zun will be in contact with you two. I want you to fly to the enemy fleet and make a pass. Aim your lightning breath weapon at the hulls near the waterline. Stay at extreme range and stay moving! It’ll take them close to a half a day to land in Star Port. You’ll have time for multiple runs. If you hit a ship each time, they’re going to lose most of their forces.”

            “We only have essence for about five breath weapons each, Leo,” Tea said.

            “So, that’s ten hits to sink stuff on each run. Because I brought essence potions. Fly out, expend your ordinance, and get back. Recover your essence with potions. Then do it again. How strong are those attacks?”

            “They hit for about twenty to twenty-five damage on target, and splash damage around it.”

            Leo turned to Captain Seahaven. “Will that break a ship?”

            “Small hole if it hits,” the captain replied, “but a few of those at waterline will ruin a galley for sure. But you’re going about it wrong anyway. Don’t try any of that fancy nonsense on these ships. Most of these galleys, the floor is the hull. Shoot straight down, any hit will be notably catastrophic, and it’ll probably kill nearby orcs and rowers as well, making it harder to fix the problem.”

            Leo nodded. “Okay, don’t listen to me. Do that instead.”

            “Let’s do it!” Hugh threw himself off the boat.

            The other two dragons launched themselves upward, a magical blast of air carrying them soaring into the sky like a parachute in reverse. They hit a couple hundred feet elevation and started flying west.

            “Now we wait,” Leo said. “We determined they fly about eighty miles an hour, so, with the ships coming this way, they’ll get there in just under half an hour. Then, we need to keep about ten or twenty miles from them and hit them over and over every twenty minutes or so. At that pace, we can sink their entire fleet with ease.”

            “You don’t think they’ll counter this?” Lily muttered, her eyes narrowed.

            “I doubt they’ll have thought of it. Dragons working together are extremely rare from what you said, and the only allies the elves ever had who were airborne were the Sun Eagles, right?”

            Lily gave a sharp nod of her head. “Yeah. And they haven’t been seen around much.”

            “So, I truly think this’ll be unexpected. It’s Hugh I’m most worried about… and unexpected methods they have of countering our fleet, as opposed to our air force… I mean, we’ve used ships in war already, and they’d have had the knowledge and time to plan for this.”

            “Well, he’s damn near unkillable, so I’m sure Hugh’ll be fine. On the other hand, yeah, I have little idea about boat counters, or navies, or anything like that.”

            Leo reached over and grabbed the railing, looking out over the sea, his gaze distant. “We’ll need to build a navy quickly. Any empire here, on the Inner Sea, will need a fleet. Power will be naval. We’re going to need a massive shipbuilding industry, which should be extremely easy since we have an uber-tree node. But I’ll want to investigate magical methods of building ships, and maybe sources of metal for ironclads…”

            “Ironclads?” Lily asked, her eyes wide.

            “A thing for the future… but we need to be stronger. This situation with House Orsini can’t be allowed to keep happening. We have to nip it in the bud, whatever the cost.”

            “Hey, Leo.” Lily placed her hand on his shoulder.

            He turned to her. “Yeah?”

            Lily turned and shooed everyone away, and for some reason, they went, giving Leo and Lily a very small bubble of space on the galley.

            “Hey,” she whispered. “I know the time probably isn’t right, but I wanted to ask you… Please don’t go down the route of tyranny and violence, okay? Even if you think it means helping to save the elves or our kingdom.”

            “What?” Leo asked, shocked, his eyes wide. “What the heck? What gives you the impression I would ever do that?”

            Lily’s voice was still low, shivering as she talked despite her warmth ring. “Well… I know I said we needed to bear any burden, but you’ve got this new vibe about you. When you got to this world, you spared and saved everyone, and it worked for you. And you had this wide-eyed innocence and wonder. But since Damien and the dragons, you’ve been harder-edged. Talking about killing to make a point, to make people afraid to attack us. I’ll admit that I don’t have any real good counterargument, and your methods seem to work… but in my soul, I believe that the Leo who felt wonder at this world, who saved everyone, is the king we need. I know that we must fight the orcs. Just like I know, deep in my bones, that some things in this world are evil, but I worry that this might lead to bad places.”

            Lily trailed off.

            Leo waited, not sure how to respond.

            Lily put her arm around Leo and hugged him hard, her silver hair falling down his arm. “Just try, okay? Please.”

            Leo gave it some consideration. As his power and rank had increased, he supposed he had been getting a bit darker, and telling himself it was for the good of his people. And he didn’t necessarily think he was wrong and certainly didn’t think that he’d done anything wrong up until this point… but he understood what Lily was getting at.

            The darkness was a slippery slope, and it went bad places.

            Leo was afraid of losing people… he’d failed and lost everyone, too many times. He was resorting to increased darkness in his soul because it was easier than constantly being afraid, afraid of his own weakness, afraid of losing more people.

            “I’ll try, Lily, truly, to make sure I stay well on the side of good. I do love this world and my people, and I love building and making. I’ll try to hold on to that as hard as I can, and not focus on my anger at the assholes screwing with us. I promise.”

            “Thanks, Leo. Really.”

            They stood there for a while, her head leaning against his upper arm, her thick hair falling down his side, looking out across the sea in the direction of a fight they couldn’t directly influence. Leo’s thoughts were only half on the war he was conducting.

            I need to find Audrey. I think that effectively abandoning her is one of the things that might be making me think in ‘darker’ terms. I want to save her. I couldn’t save my first marriage. I never even had another real relationship until Audrey, and I don’t want to lose her as well. Even though bringing back my pseudo-ex in Lily’s sister’s body is gonna be a huge problem. Once this fight is over, no more excuses, no more building until I can accomplish that.

            “Lily, do you know where I can find a powerful ‘detect person’ device, similar to what Zun is doing?” Leo asked.

            “Well… it’s a ‘detect everything’ device, but the dwarves and Stonehaven once had an artifact they called the ‘Diamond Eye Throne’ that they used to find ore and such. It became their symbol of authority.”

            “Why ‘once had’?”

            “Well, they might still have it, but it’s been a while since anyone heard from Stonehaven. They went silent at roughly the same time the Kingdom of Averia fell apart, but for far more mysterious reasons.”

            I need to get that trade route going as well… Once this war is done, I need to see to Stonehaven. It’ll get me trade, a potential ally, Audrey… Heavy infantry…

            Leo was pulled from his thoughts when Zun said, “They destroyed an enemy galley.”

            “We call that ‘scratching’ them, like ‘scratch one enemy galley,’” Leo said.

            “That seems… counterintuitive,” Zun muttered. “‘Scratching’ means ‘destroying?’ That’s bird logic.”

            “Ah, bird logic, my favorite kind.”

            Zun ignored his sarcasm and fingered the ring of telepathy Leo had bought for her. “I also just checked in with Hugh. He’s met something on the way to his target, a sea serpent. He’s engaging it now.”

            After a couple of minutes, she said, “Hugh’s won, but they’ve got another serpent, and he’s hurt. It’s wary of him, but he’s retreating.”

            Damn. If he’d been able to attack the boats from beneath over and over, this fight would’ve ended already. And thank whatever gods exist on this kooky world that he got his second rank of rocklike skin when he made Level Ten—that pushed him to seven armor, which has to be hard to deal with.

            If it weren’t so consequential, this form of combat would be downright boring… sitting here, doing and seeing nothing, while my people report telepathically on fights happening miles from here…

            “The ships are turning north, Lord,” Zun said, and Leo looked at her damaged form, his eyes wide.

            “What?” he asked, shocked.

            “They’re turning north,” Zun repeated. “They’ll reach shore in about thirty minutes, best estimate.”

            “They’re still a good forty miles from our border! Why are they turning north? Are they retreating?”

            Zun reached out and took an essence potion with her good claw, unstopped it awkwardly, and drank. After a moment, she said, “I don’t think so. They turned north, are heading directly for shore. They’re not turning any farther. And their speed picked up, I think. I assume they’re trying to make landfall before they lose too many ships.”

            “But they’re out of food, right?”

            “I don’t know that.”

            “They’d almost have to be,” Captain Seahaven said. “They’re wildly overburdened with orcs. I don’t think they expected a sea fight.”

            “So we’ve won?” Leo asked, bemused. “Just like that?”

            Val ran her hand through her metallic-copper hair, her cute pixie face marred by a furrowed brow.  “I doubt it, milord. You can force march forty miles in a day, especially orcs, if you’re in light armor—which they are. I don’t think we’ve won. But the fight won’t happen till tomorrow, and they’ll be hungry and exhausted when they show up.”

            “Crap. I outthought myself on this one.” Leo rubbed the back of his head as he stared across the sea in the direction of the enemy fleet.

            “It still worked… somewhat, milord. The fight will happen on more favorable terms for us, and we’re likely to sink another one or two ships before they land. So they’ll lose a hundred to two hundred of their number first. And they can’t just sail right into Star Port.”

            “There is that. Where should we try to meet them?” Leo asked.

            Val pulled her map out and put it down on the deck, directing Leo to the northern shore of the Inner Sea, about forty miles west of Star Port. “The dragons will force them to land here.”

Then she moved her finger to a point about five miles west of Star Port, right next to wheat town. “They’ll march across the plains to here. This is where the fight will happen, near this stream. It’ll happen near the edge of the great plateau because the stream is navigable by galley until the last couple of miles. Which means we’ll control the lower reaches of the stream, since Cal and Tea can keep putting holes in their beached ships. And even then, there is only one easy place to ford the stream, relatively speaking. Again, right here.”

            Wow, right near the dam. If the orcs win, they can seize my only real engineering project on this world. I’ll leave it the way I entered—losing my life’s work.

            “So, we’ll defend across the stream?” Leo asked.

            Hugh lunged out of the water next to them, his face covered in small wounds, and a huge rent in his side. He struggled to pull himself over the side of the galley, then flopped onto the bottom of the boat.

            Lily hurried over and used regenerate.

            Val stayed focused on his question. “Yeah. We’ll have better troops and a defensive line created by the stream, and maybe even small fortifications if we get there fast and get set up. Against three to four times our numbers of naturally larger and stronger troops… although they’ll be hungry and exhausted. But still…”

            Leo glanced up, meeting Val’s green eyes across the map she was rolling up to avoid Hugh’s runoff as they kneeled on the bottom of the galley. “It’s still going to be close, isn’t it?”

            “Very.”