The ship bobbed gently, and as Rousse clambered up the stairs he blinked away the harsh glare of the sun. He took a deep inhale of the salty sea air, and allowed himself to smile. This year had been particularly successful for the Black Sails, and as he strode across the deck he looked across his fleet. Eight ships. Four had left Durendane with him on the day of his exile all those years ago. He’d picked up two more pirate vessels at Hangman’s Isle on the way south, killing their captains and absorbing their crews. By the time he passed beyond the horizon, he was already a great deal stronger. But that was near twenty years past now, and Rousse was getting old. He could see the first signs of age showing on his skin, and he knew that someday someone would get lucky and put down the old Black Knight. He’d promised his men, long ago, that he’d make them Kings one day. He’d made them wealthy, and he’d taken them across the world, but they had no lands to show for it. Rousse sat no throne. What was a King with no throne, no holdings? A liar.

  The crew chattered excitedly as he took his position behind the wheel. This was the farthest north Rousse had come since he was exiled, and he crew was awash with rumors. Zairos sat just over the horizon from them now, the city of pleasures and all of its secrets ripe for his plucking. Spices and animals and foods and slaves of all types. In Zairos, a man could find everything he needed to make an army. Gulls screeched overhead, flying towards the city as if guiding him towards it. For a moment, as the ship cut stark white lines in the waves, he allowed himself to think of his brother. He’d spent thousands of coins over the years on spies, watching the fall of the Kingdom in his absence. Rousse the Lesser, they had called him, after the death of his father. He grit his teeth even now, thinking back on it. But his brother had ruled over a peaceful land, and a content people. However, it had been months since his brother had been seen in person, at least as of his last stop at a port. Things could have changed, but last he heard his brother was mad with sickness, and still yet to produce a son. Of course, Apothecaries would be doing all they could to help him, but there was no way to reliably ensure sickness could not claim a man. As Rousse pondered this, he heard the clunking of his lightly armored companion on the stairs.

  Ser Jamen of Southway had been on the first four ships who left with him, among the 400 who would not see tradition balked and a younger son steal the throne. The Four Hundred, those loyal men who remembered that their oaths were not only to man, but The Triune,To the Nine, had followed him. Now, it seemed, the gods had punished Lucen’s treachery. Perhaps his brother would invite him back to court, if the sickly king heard rumors of what Rousse was looking for in Zairos. In all his years, he had not caught a single spy working for his brother. If this was because they were too good, or if they simply had not been hired, Rousse could not say. Ser Jamen, a man of forty and some years, was as skilled a fighter as any and a better sailor than most.

  “Tomorrow should be pay day. We’ll be in port by sunset if the winds keep like this.” Ser Jamen said, grinning widely. Despite his age, his hair was still the soft brown common in the south, and he did not bear any of the marks of stress that came with age. At a glance, one might assume Ser Jamen to be no older than thirty.

  “Eight black sails. If I’d told myself the fleet would only be eight hundred all those years ago…” Jamen laughed.

  “Would you have stayed behind?” Rousse asked, glancing at his friend.

  “No.” Jamen replied. “Honor exists regardless of advantage. You could’ve left on a longship, with four men rather than four hundred. I’d have been there.”

  “I must admit, I expected I’d have an army by now.” Rousse said. “At least a castle!” Both men shared another laugh. Rousse watched the ships fanning out behind him, the men scrambling up and down the rigging like spiders and across the decks of the ships. The two newest ships, Biremes he believed they were called, were the newest additions to the fleet. He had them leading the fleet,the ships of the Emerald Coast were far faster than those of Durendane, something that Rousse had learned from experience. They were each painted black, save the golden eyes painted at the fronts of each vessel.

  They were propelled by oar and sail alike, whereas Rousse’s carracks were far too big to be propelled by the forces of man. It was the divine whim of Verord that guided their vessels, and the wind god's desires had brought them to the gates of the City of Pleasure.

  But to what end? Rousse wondered, watching the Zairosi ships ahead. They were unlike Durendane in every way. Rousse’s own ship, The Mourning Maiden, was a massive and cumbersome thing, weighed down by his ballistas. It was grand and heavy, carved of Ironoak, making it stronger than other ships while maintaining its buoyancy. She could take a beating, but she could not flee. Luckily for them both, such things were not in Rousse’s nature. As for the Zairosi ships, they were low and sleek. In some ways, they reminded Rousse of sharks. They cut through the water with a devastating speed, and even now he could hear the war drums that coordinated the oarsmen. Their golden eyes gleamed in the sunlight, and though Rousse knew they were merely painted, he thought he could see a mischievous glare behind their painted pupils. He turned his head forward again.

  “Have the gulls returned?” Rousse asked.

  “Not yet.” Ser Jamen replied. “I’m beginning to think they may have been intercepted.”

  “No matter, I’ll tear the whole damned city down if I have to, I’m done chasing, five years is plenty long enough.” Rousse spat.

  “I’m glad age hasn’t tempered your passion.” Jamen replied.

  “That egg is mine, Jamen.” Rousse stated plainly, as if the egg were already aboard their vessel.

  “The whole world could be yours, my liege, if only you reached out and took it. Why stop at one egg, we ought to clear the market.”

  Rousse did not reply at first, his golden eyes swimming with schemes as he stared out and across the water.

  He’s right. Why ought I stop at the egg? Rousse thought. When I swing my hand, eight hundred blades follow.

  As the sun hid behind the waves in the distance, the purple sunset was painted with streaks of pink clouds. The great City of Pleasures was visible at this distance, its spires and towers rising like the jagged teeth of a broken jaw as the grand city sprawled across the coast. It was often said that history was written by the victors, and Rousse felt the quill was well within reach. The very ocean itself seemed to thrum with a sort of magic. There was something in the air. It was a time of change.

  A time for homecomings. Rousse thought as the fleet fell into a tighter formation. As they grew closer, he could hear the happy shouts of the men as some crews broke into shanty. Zairos was not only their objective, it was a port. Port meant pay, women, and wine. It’d been a little bit over a year since they last made landfall, in the Free City of Aplos in the Forbidden Sea. The men were eager to be on dry land again. Rousse felt pride swell in his chest. All of this, the men had done without complaint. Raid after raid they had followed him into the hot fire and the cold steel, and each time they had done so without balking. They were not only the Black Sails, they were his Black Sails. He had earned his new name. Rousse the Black. When one saw the Black Banners, they knew it meant a loss was in their future. Some cities in the south had begun to surrender at their mere sight on the horizon- and just as iron cannot be tempered without flame, warriors cannot be tempered without war- and so Rousse had brought them north, into waters where the Black Sails were more story than threat. Where the waters were not soaked red with the evidence of his prowess.

  By the next day they were now close enough that sounds and smells of the city reached them. A steady stream of smaller vessels made their way out of the docks and away from the coasts. Rousse found himself smiling, that all of these little vessels kept well away from him. It astounded him just how colorful the Free Cities of the Emerald Coast could be. Dyes reached from their jungles and across the vast deserts, in shades and hues that could not be imagined back in Durendane. Rousse’s stomach growled at the exotic scents of grilled meats and fish, and he found it turning as they were drenched in that all consuming scent of seaweed and salt, of brine and fish left out to dry in the southern sun. That was something he did miss about home. It was never as hot in the southernmost point of Durendane as it was in the northernmost parts of the Free Cities.

  It’s as if the gods hate this place. Rousse thought as he wiped sweat from his brow. He’d never managed to adjust to the heat as Ser Jamen had.

  “I never thought I could miss the smell of dried fish.” Ser Jamen sighed.

  “Or sleeping on a pile of hay.” Grunted one of the sailors as he hefted a crate, the decks springing to life with activity as the ships drew closer to port. Rousse found himself constantly distracted by the white marble structures with their grand pillars, by the distant shape of the massive temple. The Acropolis, he believed it was called. There was one in each Free City, no two were alike, and the temples therein dwarfed even the finest of Durendane’s cathedrals in scale. It must have taken hundreds of thousands over hundreds of years to raise this place out of the earth. To plant down roots here. Rousse could not imagine that Zairos had ever been a fishing village on the side of the sea, but the city had not always been so massive. Mankind was a force for such beauty, when it had a mind to be.

  Their fleet was allowed through the grand gates of Zairos, painted in the brilliant azure hues that the city was known for. Its banners flew everywhere, blue with white bars crossing in an X. They were weaved in such a way as to make it appear a blue diamond was laid over the white bars.

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  As the ships docked, the crew slowly bled into the crowds coming and going from port. They knew the time frame, and that Rousse stuck to it. Men who were not back to the ships in time would be left behind, and such would be their lot. Lord Rousse the Black did not have time to waste on sleeping in. There were, after all, only so many hours in the day. But not every man was leaving in search of the Pleasures the city was so named for. While some traveled to the fighting pits and the hookah bars, many of Rousse’s loyal men dispersed into Zairos in search of the egg. His egg. He had little idea of where to search. While he’d been in these seas before, he’d never set foot in the city of pleasures itself. The smells of the foods and spices, the various drugs, mixed with the sounds of distant music on familiar and strange instruments alike. It was intoxicating and almost overwhelming, and a part of Rousse could see himself simply staying here the rest of his days. He had enough gold to drink himself to death.

  But he did not intend to die as ‘Rousse the Drunk’. There was work yet to do.

  The Tyrant of Zairos was a man of corpulent size and pallid complexion, exorbitant and prodigious in his gluttony.

  “I’ve heard he can eat an entire hippo in a single sitting.” Rousse mused as he passed under an ancient looking arch that could’ve been as old as some countries.

  “So be careful what you say, he may eat you.” Markos said. Markos was a dark, angular man who wore the typical armor of a Zairosi. He’d been hired further south, hunting Sand Worms in the Great Burning Sea. He wore bronze armor made up of a chestplate engraven like musculature, two leg guards that traveled from just under his knees to just above his ankles, and two arm guards that were about the same length, covering his forearms. He wore a helm that covered his entire head, save a singular T shaped opening. It was also typical of the Zairosi. Where in Durendane many men could not afford helmets, Rousse had never seen a man’s head in a Zairosi Phalanx. The helms provided good cover from archers and alright vision, commanders' helms were often topped with plumage of horsehair. Markos had dyed his black when he entered Rousse’s service, earning him the name Markos Blackhelm among the crew. Behind Markos came a number other warriors from the Free Cities, of varying ages. Two or three were quite young, and it occurred to Rousse that some of these men may have been born in his service. He lead the Black Cloaks through the dense crowds of scantily clothed Zairosi. Through clouds of incense, past street performers, and deeper into the debaucherous den. But underneath the smoke and behind the veneer of performance, there were many beggars. Rousse lost nearly a week’s worth in wages to them and pickpockets alike on the way to the Acropolis, where it was said the Tyrant resided. While in Durendane such a title would be received negatively, in the Free Cities, titles like Tyrant, Despot, and Dictator were more common than one would think, and accepted more easily than assumed.

  The Tyrant of Zairos was a man named Elekailos of Zairos. Despite his size, the man had somehow managed to give birth to many children, who surged forward and back, up and around the crowd of newcomers like the tide, tugging at anything they deemed worthy of inspection. Some of the men passed off gifts to the children, signs of good faith, and the tidal wave surged back to argue amongst itself over the gifts and exchange in hasty grubby handed trades. The Acropolis of Zairos could look over the entire city, and seemed occupied wholly by people who held some form of relation to the Tyrant. By marriage or by blood, or the families of his generals. The same features appeared frequently among the people in the Acropolis. By the time they reached the grand palace of the tyrant, they’d had to walk so far through the city that Rousse’s knees throbbed like the war drums on the Biremes and the sun hung low in the sky. He’d been too long without walking.

  As they entered the castle, the solemn singing of women in the Zairosi tongue reached them.

  “A bad omen.” Markos remarked in Rousse’s native Duren. Rousse didn’t need to ask why. Their music was mournful, it sounded less like a greeting and more like a death dirge.

  “Keep your blades close.” Rousse whispered. Markos nodded so subtly he could scarcely tell it even happened. The Lyres and Pandouras heralded their arrival on the graceful words of some of the finest singers Rousse had ever heard, though he could not tell what they were saying. He was glad the music was so loud, Elekailos could not hear them yet.

  Perhaps my reputation precedes me, and he intends to slay Rousse the Black? Rousse smiled. Elekailos would be a fool to think he can stop me. He thought as they moved deeper into the structure. Rousse stopped himself from gawking like some kind of lowborn child at the architecture. The structure carried volume brilliantly, and was so large that several of its columns were nearly the height of a two story home. By the time they reached the marble throne of the Tyrant of Zairos, Rousse was able to see that the rumors had been more than rumors. The man was so large he less seemed to sit his throne as spill out of it. By now, Elekailos was more liquid than man. Rousse maintained his composure, but remained standing, even as Markos and these others knelt.

  Elekailos raised one of his bushy, caterpillar-like, eyebrows and waved a hand as he spoke. Markos translated.

  “He wishes to know why you do not kneel.” Markos uttered, not yet looking up.

  “Because I am Rousse the IInd Azalus, true King of Durendane and Kingsblood bows before no mortal.” Rousse replied. The hall seemed to gasp, even the singers. To their credit, they worked it into the music.

  Elekailos guffawed, a laugh that sounded slimy and seemed to flop into the air out of his gullet. He sloshed in the seat, like an overfilled waterskin, threatening to burst. The next question he sputtered, laughing as he spoke.

  “His majesty wishes to know how you intend to enforce such a claim.” Markos asked.

  “Such matters don’t concern him.” Rousse scoffed, and the Tyrant nearly choked on his laughter.

  “I have come to parlay. I wish to discuss the terms of an agreement that could benefit the both of us.” Rousse said, trying to stay diplomatic.

  Markos spoke up to translate again.

  “His majesty says you have no more place to negotiate than a beggar.”

  “Few beggars command the strength I do, the reputation. I have traveled to all four corners of the world, and found them wanting.” Rousse declared.

  The King laughed again, and raised his fist as he declared something else. Rousse glanced to Markos for clarification.

  “The Tyrant says he did not need to travel, he had the four corners of the world brought to him.”

  That is why none sing his name. Rousse thought. Perhaps once Elekailos could have been a blacksmith of men but Rousse could never see this man leading forces on the battlefield. His men did not serve him, they feared him. Rousse did not speak at first, carefully picking his next words. He needed the egg for the next part of his plan. If he had it, he could strongarm his brother into letting him come home.

  Let me in and the Wyrm is yours. Or alternatively, let me in or I’ll tear the whole damned harbor down.

  “Your Grace.” Rousse began. “I apologize if I have been brash. My men and I have been long at sea, give me a chance to explain-” But the Tyrant cut him off, the corpulent chieftain speaking quickly, angrily almost. The Tyrant began to laugh, and his court fell into a nervous chorus of laughter with their bovine lord.

  “He says he does not negotiate with Sellswords.” Markos stated. Rousse grit his teeth.

  Sellsword. That’s all that the name Rousse Azalus meant to Zairos. He’d show them why that was a fatal mistake.

  Rousse and the others had retired to a bar near the port known as ‘The Broken Ram’. The bar was as thickly choked with smoke as the streets, and a constant stream of drinkers and criminals flowed in and out of the structure like spawning fish. In a further corner of the bar, Rousse rallied his Blackcloaks. Markos sat to his left, Ser Jamen to his right, and a number of men from across his ships sat around them.

  “Elekailos has rejected us at his own peril.” Rousse said, sipping at the Zairosi wine in the wooden goblet ahead of him.

  “His army is vast, my lord. I advise caution.” Markos Blackhelm nodded, hand resting on the helmet he typically wore.

  Ser Jamen looked at Rousse, raising an eyebrow.

  “You don’t intend to fight him?” He asked.

  “We won’t have to.” Rousse replied, grinning. “Elekailos must have a firstborn son. A favorite. Or a beloved concubine. If it comes down to it, we’ll take his food hostage. But there will be a hostage.” Rousse said.

  “Surely you don’t mean…” Ser Jamen began, narrowing his eyes.

  “A kidnapping!” Rousse flashed a toothy smile.