For thousands of years, wind had roared through the mountains and valleys of what the locals called the Thrumbelt’. The exposed peaks were stripped bare, and the sheer slopes were no greener than the mountaintops. Down in the valleys, a few small paths could be seen, but the Thrumbelt was devoid of life—or anything else worth much by any metric.
At the highest peak of the Thrumbelt was a pavilion large enough for a hundred people to meet comfortably. The square floor tiles glimmered in the light of the local sun, white agate flecked with gold catching every ray. Surrounding the pavilion was a colonnade, each column slender and made of white marble so clear that it was almost translucent. Nothing else had been built here, leaving it a luxurious, though lonely, landmark.
But it was those specific qualities that helped Marcus understand why the Monarchos had chosen the location for their meeting. If it turned violent, the collateral damage would be limited.
Marcus had arrived first, to his mild surprise. For a location on Amethyst Star, a plane controlled by the Monarchos, he figured that the Monarchos would’ve sent men ahead to secure this location. And yet, he’d arrived first…
That fact pricked him in the back of his mind. He’d arrived with his flag ark, Star of Aventino, high above, keeping watch from the Void. A hundred other arks joined her vigil. On the surface, Marcus had only a single frigate and two dozen adjutants as far as anyone would be able to tell. Making matters worse, the Monarchos was late for their meeting. If he were doing anything untoward, Marcus would be informed by the rest of his fleet, but he still couldn’t calm the growing paranoia.
To his right stood Anda, an Ancestral Hart that Marcus had plucked from the Tempest Knights to be one of his retainers. In the ten years since his reinstatement as Paladin, Anda had become something like his right-hand man. At the ninth-tier, he was one of the more powerful of the Tempest Knights, and by all accounts, one of the most loyal. Marcus knew that if he weren’t a Paladin—and one of Leon’s closest friends and allies—then Anda likely would’ve told him to kick rocks.
As befitting a meeting of this nature, Anda was dressed in formal military green, campaign ribbons and awards gleaming on his chest and arms. As one of the longer-serving Tempest Knights, Anda had racked up an impressive service history, most of which could be read in the panoply of colors on his chest.
To his left stood Leon the Red, a relatively young Rock-Mane Bison. Born barely a century ago, he’d been named in honor of King Leon, though he followed his family’s mercantile tradition. He was only sixth-tier, a tier below the average that Marcus had brought to the meeting. He was dressed in a civilian manner, with a silver tunic and dark blue pants, evoking the coloring of Leon’s Kingdom enough to suggest affiliation while still maintaining some plausible distance. The man, after all, was a merchant, which was proudly declared by the silver emblem of the new Heaven’s Eye on his chest.
Leon the Red had been among the first to visit the planes ruled by the Monarchos, his entrepreneurial spirit opening a few doors amongst the planes that the scouts deployed the ark fleets couldn’t. He’d traded in relatively mundane goods—mostly local liquors and foodstuffs per his official reports—and in doing so, spread knowledge of Leon’s Kingdom as well as the Nexus’ common language. Despite that, he was present to serve as both an advisor to Marcus and as an interpreter, if need be.
About a hundred merchants had come and gone through this cluster over the past decade, but Leon the Red had been the most successful, to the point that he’d caught the attention of the Monarchos—or at least, his officials—and started making connections. The Monarchos, the eleventh-tier Lord of this cluster, was thus aware that Leon’s fleets were coming. He’d had years to prepare, and when Marcus first arrived at the cluster, he hadn’t been greeted by violence, but by Leon the Red passing on a request to meet.
And so, Marcus found himself on the wind-blasted peak deep in the Thrumbelt, waiting on a post-Apotheosis mage who was frustratingly late.
A part of Marcus was furious with the man for making him wait. It was a way for him to express power over those who’d come to his planar cluster, that much Marcus knew, but it still irked him tremendously. Another part of him was anxious, knowing that simply showing up to the meeting risked death. The Monarchos was the same tier as him, and much older, to boot. Any confrontation between them, despite Marcus’ confidence in his abilities, was unlikely to go in his favor. The third part of him wanted to simply leave, taking the Monarchos’ absence as a statement of intent. If the Monarchos wouldn’t treat with him, even to make introductions, then Marcus would start setting his planes ablaze and subjugating his people to Leon. The Monarchos would be sure to find his nerve at some point, surely.
The last part of him wanted to wait a little longer. He still believed that the Monarchos was going to show up, even if that belief was rapidly waning. But if the Monarchos did show up, then there was a chance that he would simply bend his knees on the spot, and Marcus wouldn’t have to deal with him as an enemy. He was the only eleventh-tier mage in Marcus’ path, and as far as Marcus was concerned, the only true obstacle between him and his strategic objectives.
Either way, he wasn’t going to leave this planar cluster behind. His part of the campaign had already added two hundred planes to Leon’s Kingdom in a matter of months, even if admittedly, only about a dozen were inhabited. He wasn’t going to stop here.
Just before he lost his patience, the wind howling through the mountain passes suddenly increased dramatically, and the men he’d brought with him went on alert, expecting some kind of attack. The frigate above them hummed, the magic within her frame purred, echoing delightfully in Marcus’ chest.
“Jumpy,” a voice said, dripping with amusement. “One might have thought such men as you would have stronger nerves.” The voice was masculine and carried not a trace of foreign accent. Judging solely by the accent, Marcus might have thought the speaker to be a Nexus native.
He turned to face the other end of the pavilion, frowning deeply as a matching number of men to his own appeared, shadows bending around them for a moment until their forms were revealed. He kept his weapons and armor stowed, presenting a confident and determined front to these newcomers, who could only be the retinue of the Monarchos.
And from what he could sense, the Monarchos had been the speaker. He stood a dozen paces from Marcus, a little on the short side but with a towering aura, richer and deeper than Marcus’ own, even if they were of the same tier. He was dressed in gray and silver, a pale white cloak about his shoulders that didn’t blow as much as it should in the heavy wind, but also blew too much when the wind died down. The man himself was pale-skinned, the same as about half of his retinue, while the rest of those at his back ranged from olive to ebony in skin tone.
“I am Marcus, Paladin of King Leon, and executor of his will! To whom do I address?” He spoke boldly, his voice steady and confident without being outright domineering. His aura flexed, not backing down at all in the face of his opponent.
“Larios, introduce me,” the eleventh-tier mage lazily said.
A thin man, with gaunt cheeks and a deeply receded hairline, steeped forward and declared, “You have the honor of standing in the mighty presence of Firakis Martionus Hyrcananthus Istil Porounouran, Monarchos of the Jewels of Rhea; Lord and Master of the Ninety Councils Adjutant; Lord On High; King of Emerald Vale, Palemont, Skydagger, Andrain, Meleagaent, Rahagoun, Crimson Fields, both Scintillants, the Quoron Heights, and Titanton; Conciliator of the Fens; Breaker of the Damned Walls; Conqueror of All the Wind Touches; Lord of the Many-Hearts-as-One; Speaker for the Myriad Voiceless; Holder of God’s Trust; Lord of Ten Thousand, by the Will and Grace of Hyarathus, Lord of all Heaven.”
Marcus exhaled through his nose, letting his irritation go with it.
“You may use my shorter form of address,” the Monarchos stated graciously, like he was offering crumbs to a street urchin.
“Which is?” Marcus asked.
“You just received it,” the Monarchos responded with a challenging smile. “Do you require another recitation?”
Marcus smirked balefully. “You’re too generous. Shall we get to business?”
“There is no business to be discussed,” the Monarchos shot back, his aura flickering even as his voice remained even. “I have heard of your King’s desires, Marcus. I do not blame him for desiring the Jewels of Rhea; we are the envy of all the universe!” His eyes narrowed, and his aura stilled, like a serpent preparing to strike. Marcus went on guard. “As I have a hundred times, I will defend what is mine. It belongs to no one else. Never shall my Jewels slip from my grasp.”
“You may continue ruling these planes,” Marcus said testily. “So long as you bow to King Leon, acknowledge him as your overlord, pay him tribute, and support his armies and fleets.”
The Monarchos sneered, and with a wave of his hand, his aura flexed. Marcus nearly jumped into action, as did several of his people, but this was no attack. Instead, one of the floor tiles shot up from the pavilion, dragging a full skeleton with it. Then another, and another, and on and on it went, until half the floor tiles had risen into the air, revealing how much of the pavilion had been built on bones. So many had come up that both parties had had to take steps back since these skeleton-bearing tiles were at least concentrated around the center of the pavilion. Only Marcus and the Monarchos stood their ground, glaring at each other.
“Niketas,” the Monarchos said, pointing to one skeleton with a golden diadem around its skull, diamonds glittering like stars within the gold. “He brought a hundred arks to my planes. I crushed him in a week.”
“Larentios,” he continued, indicating another skeleton, this one with a golden chain wrapped around its torso, “tried to have me poisoned.”
The Monarchos ran through half a dozen more skeletons, all of them with some piece of jewelry on their bodies that indicated their high station, all of them having been killed by the Monarchos—or so he claimed.
“I have ruled the Jewels of Rhea for ten thousand years,” the Monarchos declared. “You will not have them!”
Marcus smiled thinly. “The sight of bones does not frighten me. But if you insist on war, then you will be defeated at my hand. These planes of yours, every one of them, belonged to the Thunderbird Clan in ages past. Every speck of dirt on these planes belongs to my King, the inheritor of the Thunderbird’s power and will, and I intend to return them to him.”
The Monarchos laughed, as did all of his retinue. “There is plenty of room for another skeleton here, Marcus. But I think I’ll still send your skull back to your King. That should give him the proper message about coming to my planes!”
Suddenly, the Monarchos moved. The tiles descended back into the floor in an instant, pushing all of the bones down with them, and the Monarchos was upon Marcus, wind coiling around him like a thousand blades.
But Marcus moved faster, light radiating from his body like he was a new star. In less than a second, they clashed fifty times, light meeting wind in such a clash that all of their respective retinues were blasted off the mountain.
Fortunately for Marcus’ people, all of them could fly, or were equipped with flight equipment. Not all of the Monarchos’ people were so lucky, with a few falling to the jagged rocks at the foot of the mountain. Marcus’ people shot into the sky, ready to support him, when shadows suddenly appeared all around them: frigate-class war arks, numbering fifteen, hidden by the same shadows that concealed the Monarchos’ arrival. Marcus felt the magic that powered their weapons resonate in his teeth, but he had his hands full with the Monarchos.
Fortunately, he didn’t need to act. Likewise concealed by light barriers, stone, and shadows of their own, fighters, Ulta suits, and giants in bodies built for war appeared. Marcus had known how likely this was to be an ambush and ensured that he had backup ready, just in case. Fighters, flanked by the Ulta suits and giants, swarmed over the Monarchos’ arks like a cloud of flies around a battlefield. Lances spat their deadly payloads, Ulta suits cleaved through metal with their blades of blue light, and giants tore weapons directly off their hardpoints. The frigate covering Marcus, more heavily armed than any one of the other frigates, didn’t hesitate to let loose with her weapons, too, even as her light shields took impacts from the other arks trying to shoot her down.
The fight was as brutal as it was short. Marcus was pressed hard, unable to gain any advantage over the Monarchos, let alone a decisive one, but at the same time preventing the other man from gaining any of his own. The same couldn’t be said for their respective forces, however, with the Monarchos’ quickly suffering high casualties.
And then Lancefire from beyond the terminus line began. The Monarchos’ arks were struck down, each one of them, even as lights in the sky indicated a battle had already begun in the Void. As the Monarchos’ people fell around him, he swept his hand forth, putting all of his power into knocking Marcus back enough for him to dart away. Marcus nearly followed, but before he’d managed to right himself, the Monarchos had disappeared. Only three members of his retinue managed to do the same, while the arks he’d used to ambush Marcus had become metal corpses darkening the valley floor.
“We need to get up there,” Marcus growled as his retainers recovered their formation. He noted angrily that several were killed, and that Leon the Red had lost both an arm and an eye.
“We might need to wait,” Anda said, his anger matching Marcus’. When Marcus looked at his retainer, the man pointed his sword at their escort frigate. Though her shields had held off quite a bit of damage, a few shots had gotten through, damaging her thrusters. Now, she was heavily listing in danger of crashing into the side of a mountain across the valley from the pavilion.
Far above, the sky still glittered with explosions and blasts of magic. Marcus projected his magic senses, noting that a fleet twice the size of his own had arrived and was pressing hard against the hundred arks he’d brought. He noted rather bitterly that, aside from the carriers and dreadnoughts, the enemy arks matched his in tonnage, even if they lacked slightly in firepower. With his people outnumbered two to one, it would be extremely difficult to win.
It would be, at least, if Marcus hadn’t also planned for this. As he pulled out his comm slate and began coordinating as best he could from the ground, more arks began appearing from jump portals, painted deep black to be nearly invisible to the naked eye when out in the Void, and began opening up on the Monarchos’ arks. Fire bloomed within many hulls, and the tide shifted in Marcus’ favor. His arks, however, took losses. It was impossible not to when so outnumbered, even if his arks were generally of higher quality.
He didn’t relax until the last enemy ark had either been destroyed, disabled, or fled. This wasn’t the extent of the Monarchos’ forces, at least if Leon the Red’s information was anything to go by. No, he had quite the fleet at his disposal.
But it wasn’t going to save him. Marcus rarely felt hate, but for this ambush that saw several of his retainers and nearly three dozen of his arks either destroyed or crippled, he was going to gut the Monarchos like a pig. That, he silently swore to his Ancestors. And when he was done, the ‘Jewels of Rhea’, as the Monarchos had called this planar cluster, would belong to his King.
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