"Lord Marcus, Watchfort is as good as ours!" a purple-robed officer from the Crownless Princes said with open smugness.
Yes—Watchfort. The massive Lysene fortress built with blood and treasure, staring straight across the river at Swordbreak Fort. It was about to fall.
The outer works—watchtowers, outposts, signal keeps—were already smoking ruins. The Fourth Legion, the Iron Totem, had turned the entire perimeter into one giant construction site. Engineers and auxiliaries swarmed like ants, digging trenches, throwing up camps, short walls, and supply roads. Volantene Tiger Cloak banners snapped proudly in the wind.
"But the fight isn't over yet, is it?" Marcus tossed a handful of roasted soybeans into his mouth, eyes dark.
He watched soldiers of the Fourth Legion strain to push a siege tower into position while others shoveled dirt, laid planks, and packed straw to flatten the approach.
"Besides, we still don't know when the enemy at Three-Tax Gate might show up. I don't trust those noble-born levies who only joined for the loot. If things go south and we suddenly have two guests at one table, how the hell do we fight then?"
He lifted his gaze to the highest tower inside the inner city.
A blood-red triangular banner hung limp from the flagpole.
"They've raised the crimson triangle. Those bastards won't surrender. Not ever."
The crimson triangle meant one thing: the unit that flew it would fight to the last man.
It was an old Volantene imperial tradition, carried over from the days when the empire had crushed Lys and Myr.
"Tell the men—no assault today," Marcus ordered the sergeant beside him. "But mark my words—one more push tomorrow and that tower will fly our banner. They're finished."
He gripped his spyglass, chest swelling with pride and ambition.
"Maybe—maybe we really can make the Three Daughters cough up the entire Rhaesh region."
---
Years later, Mohahta would recall:
"They tied my wrists with coarse hemp rope, threw the other end over a roof beam, and left me hanging. They gave me the illusion of mercy—a low stool under my toes. I had to stretch, strain, balance on the very tips just to touch it. It wasn't relief. It was torture. Every tremor, every twitch, and the knots bit deeper, carving purple furrows into my flesh. Struggling only made it worse. The more you fought, the tighter it cinched, until your hands swelled like balloons and the pain became unbearable."
"Outside the room where they let me 'sleep,' they hung dozens of little bells. Every breeze set them ringing—not loud, but the sound drilled straight into your skull. You couldn't sleep. You couldn't even think."
"The level of drowsiness I felt… no one else can imagine it."
"Once I was drinking hot water. Before the cup reached my lips I was already out. Next thing I knew—clack—my eyes snapped open. The water was still warm, steam rising."
"Later they took me down from the beam—probably afraid I'd actually die—but then they started checking on me every two hours. They'd talk to me, wake me if I'd drifted off. Never an exception. For information they ran the wheel on me nonstop. Sometimes I'd pass out mid-sentence…"
"Did he break?" Jules asked as Tiberius stepped out of the room.
He still didn't understand why his nephew had suddenly insisted on handling Mohahta's interrogation personally.
"Everything. He sang like a bird," Tiberius shrugged. "Now he's begging for five minutes of sleep. Uncle, maybe get him some liver tonic. I'm pretty sure his is wrecked."
Only now did Tiberius understand how Mohahta's force had appeared so suddenly at Stone Crow Town.
Back in the delta, Volantis held total dominance. Most of the islands and the rich eastern bank belonged to them; Lys was squeezed onto the narrow western shore with a handful of ports, forts, and dikes—mostly commercial towns with almost no defenses.
After Marcus shattered the Three Daughters' field army and while they were still short on mobile troops, the Volantenes—especially the noble levies and mercenaries who'd fought in the delta—swept across the western bank, sacked every settlement in hours, loaded wagons with grain and loot, then raced straight for Three-Tax Gate.
So yes—Three-Tax Gate was now surrounded three layers deep.
According to Mohahta, that was exactly Marcus's plan: take Watchfort first, while the troops at Three-Tax Gate simply had to keep the Lysene garrison pinned and unable to march to the rescue. Once Watchfort fell, they could digest Three-Tax Gate at leisure.
And if both strongholds fell, the entire Rhaesh region would collapse. The Flank Corridor would be left alone, facing a victorious Volantene army high on momentum.
"Fuck me, what kind of war is this?" Vito spat. "We were supposed to be pushing into enemy territory. Now we're fighting a homeland counter-offensive on our own soil."
Even the smugglers' bay where they'd first landed was barely a city—just a trading hub with low walls and laughably few guards. The irony? It was the only deep-water port in the entire delta that could hold a real fleet, yet the tax-farmer who owned it had refused entry to the Lysene navy.
Decades ago, before Rhaesh even existed, when Lys first planted outposts in the delta, they'd eyed that perfect hidden anchorage—surrounded by mangroves, reefs, and islands. But the Three Daughters were locked in a savage naval war with Volantis, the treasury bled dry. So they did what they always did: farmed out the development rights.
A great merchant prince took the contract. In exchange for funding the port, he and his descendants received hereditary tax-farming rights and near-total autonomy—including the ironclad clause: No Lysene warship or non-merchant vessel may enter or anchor without the explicit permission of the tax-farmer. This right is perpetual, to preserve the port's neutrality and commercial freedom.
Lys had thought it clever—keep the golden goose happy and turn the place into a "neutral" harbor that could even lure Volantene merchants and hurt their rival economically.
Obviously, none of that stopped the Volantenes from landing there, squeezing the tax-farmer's family dry, and sailing away laughing.
"It's bad," Jules muttered, staring at the map. "Look—Lys has been building forts all along the Flank Corridor, but the real backbone is only three positions."
He placed a knight piece on Twinbridge Town.
"First: right here—Twinbridge. The first solid line of the entire corridor defense. Every land route from Rhaesh into the heart of the Disputed Lands runs through this town."
"Right now we've already lost half the corridor's outposts. If we give up any more ground, we'll have zero strategic depth and zero room to maneuver. The Volantene engineers and their endless auxiliaries will bury us alive with dirt and timber."
"After that it's over. They can take their time—siege towers, trenches, slow hammer blows—until we're smashed to pieces."
"Second." Jules jabbed his baton at the city downstream. "Peninsula Port. Half a day's ride from here. Both rivers that flow through Twinbridge empty into it. We've got both land and river links—perfect for moving supplies and men."
"It's also the only deep-water harbor on the entire corridor. As long as we hold it, reinforcements and materiel can flow safely upriver instead of crawling over land where those Volantene light cavalry will butcher every convoy. You all know how gentle they are—about as nice as Dothraki."
"And as long as Peninsula Port stays ours, Volantis's naval reach gets chopped in half. Their last real ports are New Volantis and the Tax-Farmer's Isle in the delta, not here."
"Uncle, what does that actually mean?" Tiberius asked—he knew nothing about navies.
"Simple, Tiberius." Lysandro stepped in to explain. "It's about who holds the initiative. From Lys proper to Peninsula Port is half a day's sail for our spice fleets. From Peninsula Port to the delta mouth is another half day. That's a dagger at their throat—and right now we're holding the hilt."
"From their delta ports, Volantene warships can barely cover the river mouth and not much farther. Their navy is already split between the Three Daughters and Slaver's Bay. But if they take Peninsula Port…"
Lysandro's face turned grim.
"…everything changes. You get an unbroken chain: deep-water harbor at Volantis proper, the Orange Coast islands, New Volantis in the delta, and now Peninsula Port. Their supply ships and warships can hop from friendly base to friendly base, always under shore protection. Their operational radius and endurance explode."
"We lose the ability to protect our sea lanes to the western Disputed Lands. Supplying the corridor or whatever's left of Rhaesh becomes a high-risk gamble that might need the entire fleet just to escort one convoy."
"And when Myr and Tyrosh finally send their fleets to help, their forward base becomes Peninsula Port. Lose it and the closest friendly harbor to Rhaesh and the delta is…"
Lysandro gave a bitter laugh.
"…Lys itself."
Tiberius's eyes narrowed.
The front-line friendly port would instantly leap back to the home island—an almost fatal blow for the combined navies of the Three Daughters.
"And Tiberius—have you noticed?" Lysandro traced a triangle on the map connecting Peninsula Port, Lys proper, and the Lysene ports deep in the Disputed Lands.
"This triangle keeps our fleet legs short and easy to defend, while putting a constant fist right under the Volantenes' chin. They have to watch the sea every single second. Holding Peninsula Port is how we keep the right to throw that knockout punch."
Jules's finger finally came down hard on the westernmost point of the map—a fortress guarding the narrowest passage between mountains and sea.
"Third…" His voice was hoarse. "…Bloodline Pass."
"We're not falling back there, right, Uncle?" Tiberius asked, a faint plea in his tone. "Can Tyrosh and Myr still send more men?"
Jules didn't answer directly. His eyes swept the room, sharp and merciless.
"If it ever comes to that," he slammed the map so hard the other pieces jumped, "it means Rhaesh has already fallen, Twinbridge is ashes, and Peninsula Port is lost. Every sacrifice we've made becomes meaningless."
He turned, staring straight at Tiberius and every man present, eyes burning.
"This is the end of the line. Either we hold here, buy the rear time to regroup and the allied fleets time to counter-attack… or we die here, and our corpses become the last foundation stones of this pass."
"I understand, Uncle." Tiberius slowly drew his sword. Cold steel reflected the iron in his eyes. "No more strategy. No more retreat. Only blood. The name of this pass is our answer."
Jules looked at his nephew. For the first time that day, a grim, almost cruel smile of pride broke through.
"That's right, Tiberius. This is the Bloodline. Either we dye every inch of ground in front of the pass with Volantene blood… or we let our own blood run dry right here."
After the others left, Jules suddenly grabbed Tiberius by the collar and pulled him into the corner. The heroic, resolute mask vanished in an instant, replaced by world-weary cynicism and bone-deep exhaustion.