Paladin of the Dead God

[“Thank you, Isaac… but you didn’t expect me to join your side, did you?”]

Even though Isaac had restored Horace’s clarity, it didn’t mean he had won.

Now that Horace was undead, Dead December could exert his influence on him at any time. If Horace chose not to oppose Isaac here, he could be branded as an “apostate,” a fate that would strip him of his will and enslave him until forgiveness was granted.

No faith was ever kind to those who renounced it.

And, more importantly, Horace himself had no intention of turning away.

[“One betrayal in life is more than enough. By joining the Immortal Order, I’ve already broken my vow to the Salt Council. There will be no second time.”]

No longer a member of the Salt Council, he wasn’t bound to uphold any vow or truth compulsions. His willingness to lie easily when first meeting Isaac had proven that.

Yet Horace still seemed uninterested in apostasy.

After all, as an undead, renouncing the Immortal Order was hardly possible.

[Then what are you asking?]

“I’m asking for you to lose, with honor. Acknowledge your shortcomings, feel the weight of the years and the neglect of your god, but surrender with dignity, as if it doesn’t faze you.”

Horace looked at him as if to say, *How is that any different from renouncing?* But soon he grasped the difference.

After a moment, he looked at Isaac, speechless, before finally speaking.

[“You want me to give up the ship?”]

“Victory comes with spoils. Elil himself considers it a sacred right.”

Horace gazed silently at the stormy horizon.

If he scuttled this ship rather than handing it over, Isaac would have no way to reach Miarma through the storm. He would be forced to turn back or reach his destination battered and barely alive like the Seventh Dawn Army.

Could he truly survive the Salt Desert in that state?

Horace remembered that the spirit and sense of duty of the Seventh Dawn Army were no less than Isaac’s. Even if Isaac didn’t falter, those around him might.

But Horace did not wish for that outcome.

He laughed to himself, letting go of the helm and drawing his cutlass.

[“Trying to take my ship, are you? Kill me first, for a captain never leaves his ship!”]

Isaac couldn’t help but laugh too.

He was utterly drained, but at this moment, he couldn’t let Horace’s spirit go unchallenged. For the captain of the Salt Council, surrendering his ship without a fight was simply not an option.

***

As Horace’s ghost ship came to a halt, Aidan and Yenkos’s vessels gradually approached. They had anticipated the outcome, yet the eerie silence on Horace’s ship unsettled them. Tuhalin, defying his squat stature, leapt aboard the ghost ship.

“Isaac!”

The ship lay as silent as a graveyard.

A chill ran through Tuhalin. He felt an impulse to smash the ship with his hammer immediately, yet he knew this would unleash the surrounding storm upon them.

“Where’s the Holy Grail Knight? And Captain Horace?”

Aidan and Yenkos joined him, climbing aboard to search for Isaac. Just as they were about to enter the ship, bubbles began to froth around the vessel.

One by one, ghost ships emerged from the turbulent waters, their shattered forms restored to a semblance of their original shapes, even the ones wrecked or sunk in the whirlpool.

Tuhalin growled and raised his hammer, ready to destroy the ghost ships. At that moment, the cabin door creaked open, and Isaac appeared, holding a skull wrapped in the Colors from Beyond.

He looked bewildered at the gathered captains and Tuhalin.

“What’s everyone doing?”

“Isaac! We thought you were trapped… What were you doing in there?”

“Oh, I was just explaining the change in admiralty to the Orca Fleet and completing the recognition process. The ghosts aboard the ships are rather docile and obedient. It seems they lack any self-will, as if they’ve been ‘enslaved’.”

Noticing Tuhalin’s raised hammer and the fleet of ghost ships, Isaac added,

“Don’t worry. There are no undead aboard.”

Isaac had cast all the ship’s undead overboard. Though their will had eroded and their purpose faded, he didn’t know what awaited them in the deep sea. Perhaps they would find their way back to their homeland, somehow. But he couldn’t care for the souls bound to the Immortal Order’s control.

Their lives had ended in Miarma 180 years ago.

Aidan’s jaw dropped in astonishment at Isaac’s words.

“Did you… did you actually subdue Captain Horace’s Orca Fleet and the Seventh Dawn Army?”

“Technically, only the ships.”

Though the feat and spoils were monumental, Isaac spoke calmly.

These ghost ships would serve no purpose once they crossed the sea. If brought into the Codex of Light’s territory, they would be incinerated immediately, and Holy Land Lua lay far inland, beyond the reach of these ships.

He couldn’t take any undead with a shred of consciousness, nor even those enslaved; they belonged to the Immortal Emperor.

But the ghost ships themselves, akin to sacred artifacts, would move in accord with the captain’s will. And the key was the skull infused with the soul of the previous captain.

“It’s Captain Horace. He agreed to surrender his ship to me after his defeat.”

Aidan’s eyes widened at the skull in Isaac’s hand.

“Is that… Captain Horace’s skull?”

“Yes. It’s devoid of consciousness now.”

The act of relinquishing the fleet was not an act of apostasy but one of defeat, and Horace had room to justify it as such.

Yet, a punishment awaited him nonetheless. His soul was now bound to a small skull, stripped of self-awareness.

No longer a captain, he had become little more than a relic used to guide the Orca Fleet.

Isaac spoke of it as if it were nothing, but Aidan and Yenkos, members of the Salt Council, saw it differently. They stared at Captain Horace’s skull as if they might lick it and claim ownership.

Before they could start muttering nonsense about “finders keepers,” Isaac subtly hid Horace’s skull behind his back.

Tuhalin looked at the skull with a conflicted expression, momentarily torn over whether using the remains of the dead to command spirits was the act of a lich and therefore heretical. However, he quickly cast his doubts aside, assessing it as a “useful tool” in the pragmatic spirit of a World’s Forge artisan.

“So, what’s next?”

“What else?”

Isaac lifted Horace’s skull. Immediately, the entire Orca Fleet turned north, setting course toward the waiting Issacrea Fleet.

“We bring our allies and, this time, reclaim the Holy Land.”