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It was with a glad heart that Leon bade farewell to the second of the Serpentine Isles.  It had been more than a week since he’d found the ritual site, and in that time, he’d focused mostly on calming himself down and practicing the mental defense techniques that Nestor and the Thunderbird taught him.

He remained tremendously anxious about what lay ahead, but since the Fleet Legates wanted to proceed using more conventional strategies, his hands were tied.  After having time to think, he was glad that he hadn’t grabbed Maia and Anzu and flown half-cocked toward the next island, abandoning his squad and the rest of the task force in the process.  With the power that Jormun had already displayed, even with Maia at his side, he would’ve lost and probably been killed.  He needed the Legion fleets if he wanted even the slightest chance of stopping Jormun from unsealing this Serpent, or whatever it was that he was planning.

To that end, while Leon accepted the decision of the Fleet Legates, he’d still managed to convince them to allocate a marine battalion to him to investigate the point marked on the stone map he’d found deep in the jungles of the third island.  They were still focused on the more mundane political sides of this conflict, so their focus was going to be on the Islander settlements of the island.  Leon and his battalion would be practically on their own in the jungle as the rest secured the inhabited areas and searched for signs of Octavius.

For that, Leon wasn’t too happy, but he supposed he could understand their perspective.  He just wished that Sigebert, who’d been given the same mission as he—bring Octavius back to the Bull Kingdom—would treat finding and defeating Jormun a little more seriously.  As far as Leon could tell, finding Jormun would essentially be the same as finding Octavius, but it seemed that Sigebert wasn’t too convinced about Jormun’s motives as Leon; the Fleet Legate was of the mind that Jormun was simply sadistic, not a fanatical cultist worshipping some ancient god.

But Leon simply pushed those thoughts out of his mind as he watched the second island disappear behind the ship.  The decisions had been made, and he didn’t want to waste his time being bitter.  There were too many things he had to do to waste his time like that.

Over the past week, the thing he placed most emphasis on was his mental defenses.  The fact that he was seeing a bird fly around that no one else could disturbed him greatly, and while it had been quite helpful so far, so much so that Leon thought it impossible that the bird wasn’t real in some form or fashion, Leon didn’t want to just trust that this bird was exactly as benevolent as it seemed.  If it was just a targeted illusion, some magical trick played upon his senses, Leon wasn’t about to let it continue.

The easiest way for magic to create an illusion was by creating some kind of magical projection, much like the light projections that decorated the slanted walls of so many Thunderbird Clan facilities, but the bird was clearly not that—others couldn’t see the damn thing, after all.  That meant, as far as Leon, Xaphan, Nestor, and the Thunderbird could tell, there were much fewer possibilities as to what it was.  The most likely was an application of foreign darkness magic that was entering Leon’s brain somehow and causing a controlled hallucination.

The possibility that the bird was real and just somehow concealing itself from everyone else was floated, but all three of the ancient beings living in Leon’s soul realm agreed that that possibility was remote, and that it was a better use of Leon’s time to focus on defending against darkness magic.  He already had the means to defend himself against physical threats, after all.

In that vein, they taught Leon a rather easy and boring, though quite effective, technique.  Leon could, of course, always send silver-blue lightning magic coursing through his body if he ever felt like he was being influenced unduly, but that was more of a contingency if he ever realized that something seemed off and that his senses were being toyed with.  This technique would keep darkness magic from entering his mind in the first place.

The technique was almost insultingly simple, consisting of insulating the brain from any possible foreign magic that might’ve entered the body and slipped past Leon’s senses and other bodily defenses.  A ‘shell’ of sorts was created from element-less magic power around the brain, forcing any darkness magic to try and crack through it to create any such illusions as those Leon might’ve been experiencing, and if that happened, Leon would be able to detect it and immediately blast himself with lightning, hopefully freeing himself from that influence.

As far as these things went, it was quite practical, too, requiring nothing more than using the magic power already in Leon’s body.  It slightly lowered the amount of magic power available to him, but otherwise required no power maintenance, so long as the defenses weren’t tested.

By the time the fleets departed the second island, Leon had already gotten a reasonable handle on the technique.  Maybe not enough to defend himself against a dedicated darkness mage who wanted access to his mind, but enough to feel at least somewhat secure.  Besides, it wasn’t like such mages were common, at least in this part of the world.

But his mental defenses were only a single part of how Leon had to prepare himself.  He had an entire marine battalion to watch out for, now, and he didn’t want to repeat the mistakes that had led his unit in the civil war to wiped out.  For the moment, his biggest issue was that he wasn’t a known element amongst the fleet’s marines aside from rumors and speculation.

He solved that about as best as he could, which wasn’t that great.  He spent some time with the marines he’d be leading into the jungle, but there wasn’t much conversation.  They were fairly well intimidated by him, and his misanthropy kept him from trying too hard to make up for that gap.  Still, he exchanged a few words with the Tribune who’d be traveling with him—the same Tribune who’d survived the march along the coast, as it so happened.

Spending time with his small company was easier.  He and Gaius played another gave of keeps, he sparred with Alix and Alcander, and he debated the current situation with Marcus, who argued for the side of the Fleet Legates.  He and Maia were practically inseparable when the sun went down, and Leon took Anzu on a few scouting flights over the coast just to give the young griffin some exercise—he didn’t dare bring Anzu into the jungle, not with some of the auras he sensed from deeper in.

All-in-all, he was much calmer when the ships left the fortress than he was the day after Jormun’s attack and his subsequent discovery of the ritual site.  That calm did little for his mounting dread, though.  While it didn’t seem to be supported by any other evidence, Xaphan mentioning that the serpent colossus in the center of the ritual courtyard possibly had divine power within it stuck in Leon’s mind.  Leon desperately hoped that the Fleet Legates were right, and that what Jormun was trying to do was impossible.

He hoped it was all just Islander stories.  He hoped this Serpent wasn’t real.

But that hope did little to alleviate his dread.  He suspected nothing save for seeing Jormun dead on the ground at his feet would help.

Leon wound up spending a lot more time on the deck of Sigebert’s flagship on the way to the next island than he had previously.  He kept himself as calm as he could, but he couldn’t help but wonder just what they’d find on this next island.  The first island had an ambush with Flame Lances, the second had the massacre of the Bull Kingdom colonists and the reveal of Jormun’s krakens.  The next island was going to be much worse than that, Leon could feel it in his bones.

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It was with both a great deal of trepidation and a lack of surprise that Leon finally landed on the black volcanic beach of the third island, and both feelings were due to the same thing: the landing of the Legion marines had been uncontested.  Two and half days of sailing, and not a sign of Jormun anywhere, and not for lack of trying; Leon had been bathing the area around the fleets with his magic senses, constantly scanning for the pirate the entire journey.  But it seemed like Jormun had simply disappeared.

Perhaps more accurately, Leon assumed that Jormun was preparing whatever was awaiting them here.

Whatever that was, however, it was clear that Jormun wasn’t planning on suddenly resisting them with more conventional means now that they had reached the rough halfway point of their campaign.  No ships, no krakens, no forces on land resisted the Legion’s advance as they secured the seat of the island’s Earl.  Much like Kraterok, however, the city was severely depopulated—by Leon’s estimation, about a third of the city was deserted, or about five thousand people.

The Earl herself was also absent, allowing Leon and the others who’d landed further up the coast to practically walk right into the city.  Leon’s eyes were open for any traps, whether that be explosive spells hidden in empty buildings or along their path, enemies in the jungle, or places that he, if he had to defend the island, might’ve placed a salvage Flame Lance or some other such weapon.

But the march was uneventful, and not a single Legion life had been lost by the time the sun went down.  To Leon, this was practically incontrovertible proof that Jormun didn’t care about the Isles, that his goal was worse than what the Fleet Legates had assumed, but the counter argument was always that Jormun was smart and that he was simply avoiding an unwinnable battle.

Leon didn’t push his beliefs too hard this time.  He’d be leading his battalion of marines out into the jungle in the morning, so all he could do was hope that Jormun wasn’t waiting out in the sea somewhere underwater with his pirate allies, just waiting for an opportunity to attack, an opportunity such as Leon leaving the fleets.  Fortunately, this was a possibility that Basina was taking seriously, and she’d drilled her scouts to check not just above the waves, but beneath them as well.

Heading out into the jungle was still a risk, but Leon couldn’t set aside his dread, he couldn’t just sit by while Jormun spilled blood to try and summon a possibly mythological creature.  He hated leaving the Legion fleets somewhat vulnerable by taking away himself and Maia, but he put his faith in the Fleet Legates; they knew their craft better than he did, and at the very least, they were putting in counter-measures to how they’d been attacked before.  Jormun wouldn’t surprise them again if he stuck to the same tactics.

So it was that Leon, early in the morning the day after the task force made landfall on the third island, led his squad and a thousand Legion marines out of the Earl’s city and into the deep, dark jungles that blanketed the island’s interior.

His destination was whatever had been marked on the map he’d been led to, and he intended to find whatever it was even if he had to burn half the jungle to the ground.

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“You seem jumpy, Leon,” Marcus observed as several Legion marines cut through the thick jungle underbrush ahead of them, clearing the way for the long line of Legion marines behind them to follow.  They were only about half a mile into the jungle, but it was still dense enough that the going was almost excruciating slow as everyone waited for these few marines to create a usable path.  There were so many trees that it was almost impossible to spread out too much, and Leon could see with his magic senses that the terrain was only going to grow rougher as they proceeded farther inland; the volcanic mountains had, over thousands of years, torn the landscape asunder, rendering the jungle a web of sheer cliffs of black stone—rather reminiscent of the trap rock pillars of the Border Mountains, Leon noted—and deep ravines that defied the sun’s attempts to bring light to their floors.  The jungle would eventually clear up a little bit with the landscape breaking it up, but that didn’t mean they’d be moving any faster.

Leon’s eyes were darting every which way as they slowly proceeded.  From the perspective of a man well-versed in forestry, if he had to defend this place, Leon could see countless places he could operate from, an almost endless number of defensible locations in their way that he could launch an ambush from.  It was almost dizzying the number of places he had to keep track of, just in case any of them revealed themselves to be a hiding place for Jormun’s people, or maybe for the missing folks from the Earl’s city.

“Is there any reason I shouldn’t be jumpy?” Leon drily asked.

“None that I can see,” Marcus replied.  “Personally, though, I think if anything’s going to happen, it’s going to happen further into the jungle, so I’d save being stressed until we’re a little deeper…”

Leon nodded, understanding his words.  If he were Jormun, he’d start launching his ambushes in a place deep enough that reinforcements couldn’t easily be sent from the city.  As it was, their line was so thinned by the jungle that their rear wasn’t all that far from the outskirts of the Earl’s city.

On the other hand, that also meant if any part of the line were to be attacked, then it would be difficult to reinforce.  Leon wasn’t too worried about that, though, since the jungle was too thick to move even a small ambush party around without it being visible.

“There are things other than humans out here that can do us harm,” Leon pointed out.

“Oh?” Marcus asked.  “Things that might attack even a group this size?”

“Most predators in places where people don’t frequent have no qualms about picking off a straggler or two,” Leon pointed out as his eyes drifted in the direction of a large jungle cat with dark green fur that blended in perfectly with the jungle foliage, and a robust fifth-tier aura, that was watching their group from the safety of the branches of a massive seventy-ish foot tall tree about three hundred feet away.  He had no doubt that it would grab one or two marines if it thought it could get away without injury.

“I suppose that’s true,” Marcus replied.

Leon paused a moment, a spike of confusion going through his head.  “Aren’t you an experienced hunter?”

Marcus shrugged.  “Hunting in Aventino is a far sight from these parts.  Hells, I didn’t even bring my bow with me for this…”

Leon sighed and turned his attention back to the task at hand.  As far as he could see, there weren’t any signs of an imminent ambush, but the jungle was both dense and wide, there were more than enough places for someone or something to hide in wait.  Besides, Leon remembered during his attack on the fortress on the second island Jormun had at least a handful of people creep near the walls with some kind of cloaks that rendered their wearers invisible to magic senses.

Or, Leon assumed they were on Jormun’s side.

If his assumption was correct, then those people could be out in the jungle, just waiting for Leon and his people to walk right into an ambush.  He’d never even see them until it was too late.

Leon quietly swore, wishing that he had even just a few earth mages.  Unfortunately for him, there weren’t many earth mages in the fleets, and they were almost entirely relegated to the engineering corps.  And all of the engineers were back in the Earl’s city with the Fleet Legates.  If they weren’t, he could’ve easily built a few fortified locations along their path that would’ve greatly mitigated the risks of being ambushed on the path.

As things were, he couldn’t do that without slowing their pace down to a crawl—without earth magic and the expertise of the engineers, clearing enough ground and then raising defenses in a timely manner was practically impossible.  If he wanted to actually get to the location the stone map had specified in a timely manner, he could only build on fortified camp per day, so wherever it was built would be where they’d rest for the night.

So, they pushed onward into the jungle, the heat and humidity bringing forth all kinds of discomfort to torment them, from coaxing out sweat from even the most powerful of their number, to harassing them with giant alien-looking insects who seemed to make it their sole purpose in life to buzz around in the ears of Leon’s marines.

Those that drew too close to Leon were quickly zapped, though.  A quick flash of lightning and Leon got some momentary relief from the constant droning, though even just a second or two later another damn buzzing thing would come too close.  Still, a more useful application of his magic he’d yet to find.

Leon was a little surprised to find that, as the sun started to set, there had been barely a peep from the jungle that might’ve given him some amount of worry.  Perhaps it was because of the sheer denseness of the jungle and how difficult it was to move around within it, or one of a myriad of other reasons, but they hadn’t been attacked.  Now, however, they were moving into rockier terrain, further up the outer slopes of the handful of relatively barren volcanos that formed the center of the island, and upon which was whatever their destination was.

But only relatively barren by the island’s standards; the jungle merely thinned to allow more comfortable movement as the jungle was broken up by enormous boulders, and the cliffs and ravines started to carve up the land.  Still, the jungle opened up in those higher altitudes to allow for a camp and had room for the defenses Leon wanted.

Leon called everyone to a halt, and the Tribune who commanded the marine battalion ran forward to ask what was going on.

“We’re going to stop and make camp here,” Leon told him as he looked around at their location fairly high up on the slopes, with enough sheer cliffs around that they wouldn’t have to defend every side of their camp if they were to be attacked.  “We only have an hour or two of daylight left, I want to use that to build our camp.  Nothing less than a proper walled compound will do.  We also need to set up a heavy scout patrol and a strong Quick Response Force; I want to know what’s in our immediate vicinity, and those that are going to find out must have support.”

“Got it,” the Tribune replied.  There wasn’t much respect in the man’s voice, but there wasn’t much defiance either.  That started to change when Leon proceeded with his next order.

“We’re going to be at fifty percent watch for the night,” Leon said.  That meant at least half of the marines within the camp had to be awake and on guard at any given moment.

The Tribune visibly winced, asking, “Is that necessary?  Surely ordering everyone to sleep in their armor would allow us to have—”

“Maybe it isn’t necessary,” Leon conceded as he glared at the Tribune, “but we’ve underestimated Jormun enough.  If we’re going to be killed tonight, it won’t be because we were lazy.  Fifty percent watch.  And scouts.  By the time the sun comes up, I want every leaf, every fern within half a mile of this camp to have had Legion eyes on it at least once.”

“Very well,” the Tribune replied as he turned and started relaying Leon’s commands to the Centurions.  He didn’t seem particularly happy, but Leon didn’t care that much.  If he had to pick between keeping these marines happy or alive, he’d pick alive.  He’d made a few concessions with his previous unit for their comfort during the civil war, and it was quite likely that it was those concessions that had allowed the Octavian force that destroyed his unit to come so close.  He wasn’t going to do that again.

Fortunately, it didn’t take long once the Tribune got everyone into gear.  They weren’t trained soldiers used to fighting on land, but the marines were no slouches when it came to this sort of work.  They cleared the land as best as they could, and the few logistics knights that were capable of it broke out some wooden wall pieces from their soul realms that the marines quickly assembled into proper fortifications.  A few of the trees were taller than the wall’s battlements which had Leon a bit concerned, and there wasn’t enough wall to cover their entire camp with the way the terrain forced them to spread out, but the marines made do with some of the cut trees they were left with when clearing ground.

When the sun fell, Leon’s battalion of marines had a fairly nice camp constructed, and strong enchanted palisade on every vulnerable side of the camp.  To their south was a long, steep slope that they’d climbed up, topped with a fairly even twenty-foot-tall or so cliff.  Leon had some marines patrolling the cliff, but apart from the small pass they’d taken to climb in, there wasn’t much else they had to do to protect that side, freeing up plenty of marines for the north, east, and west.

As they were working, Leon kept his magic senses projected, constantly scanning the fraction of the island within his range.  They’d moved about ten miles inland, and as far as he could tell, were still about twenty miles from their destination, a distance that was just inside the range of his magic senses, so he began to sweep the area looking for anything of interest.

Nothing immediately jumped out at him—no ruins, no large camps full of Jormun’s goons, no signs of any human habitation at all, but again, Leon knew that the jungle was large and dense and could hold secrets that would require more than a brief scan with magic senses to discern.

As he scanned the volcanos, Leon also spared a few seconds to check out the Earl’s city behind them.  So far, things looked peaceful enough—the streets were absolutely jumping with activity, though that was mostly due to the Legion occupying it, but there didn’t seem to be anyone running around in panic, and none of the guards on the hastily-built outer walls of the beachside city seemed disturbed.  The ships out in the sea, too, appeared to be at rest.

That could all change quickly, Leon knew, and if it did change, he didn’t intend to miss it.  He wasn’t going to sleep that night.  He was a seventh-tier mage, so while it would be uncomfortable and rather against his instincts and preferences, he could go weeks without sleeping if he were pressed.

It was like this that Leon settled in for the night, with his small squad asleep in his tent, Maia resting next to him with her legs thrown over his lap, and Anzu lounging just outside.  Leon’s magic senses were constantly projected, his eyes always on the lookout for anything and everything that might seem suspicious, taking note of every dangerous looking jungle creature—and there were quite a few, though they gave his huge group a wide berth—and keeping an eye on all the scouts that the Tribune was sending out.  If any of them disappeared, Leon would know almost instantly, so long as his focus wasn’t pulled away.

By about midnight, nothing seemed out of the ordinary.  Nothing, that is, save for a large eagle-like bird that flew almost entirely unnoticed into the camp, flew with remarkable dexterity through the entrance of Leon’s tent, past Leon’s resting comrades, and into the small, attached room where he and the sleeping Maia were.

It defied Leon’s magic senses, despite having been revealed by them on the previous island.  It landed in front of Leon, perching on a small desk that Leon had taken out while unpacking.  Its eyes, so like the Thunderbird’s, locked onto Leon just as Leon’s golden irises locked onto it.

And the two stared at each other, the bird almost mocking, daring, throwing its presence in Leon’s presence, and Leon almost shocked into motionlessness by its sudden and brazen entrance.

But that shock quickly wore off as Leon pushed himself to his feet, waking Maia as he did, conjured his sword and armor, raised his mental defenses, and faced the bird head-on, ready for whatever its appearance might herald.

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