A riotous feast was in progress when Blake descended into the great hall of his new palace.

Not a single soul had dared to grumble about him taking the Sun Palace for his own; his captains had been far too busy drowning in the three-quarters of the royal treasury he had allowed them to divide among themselves.

He had kept only a quarter for himself, a pittance for the man who had conjured the fleet from nothing, snapped the Khairo port-chains, broke the city’s garrison, and kicked in the palace doors.

Still, had any man been foolish enough to waste breath complaining, Blake would have used his axe to put more red on the floor. Instead, they used that breath to roar his name, praising his "unmatched generosity."

It was a fair trade; gold was fleeting, but the kind of glory that bought a man’s soul was the bedrock of Blake’s grander plans.

It wouldn’t hurt to be known as a generous man. Fear may bring men not to betray you, but generosity attracted me into your service.

Free-Men of the Isles packed every square inch of the hall. They sprawled across silk divans, drained flagons of vintage pomegranate wine, and feasted on delicacies that would have made the current Romelian Emeperor weep in terms of luxury, all while groping the female servants who scuttled through the chaos. The air was a thick soup of woodsmoke, roasted lamb, and some Azanians spice that were made to be burnt and inhaled along of course with the thunderous boasting of men who had spent the previous day wading through blood and wood and that were more than content in boasting about their kills.

Had Blake entered the contest of "who killed the most," the hall would have gone silent in shame. Instead, he let them have their games and made his way to the table of honor, a sprawling slab of polished marble where once the Sultan and his bloodline had dined. Now, it served as a resting place for the scarred arses of pirates.

"The Red Angel sweeps the seas with longships and galleons, making the waves weep with the weight of broken wood, while we are left to crawl over stone walls like mountain goats!Bugger me with a spear now if that isn’t a personal insult, I don’t know what is!"

Blake felt his mood soar as a familiar and booming voice cut through the din. A man as broad as a mast and twice as weathered rose from his seat, throwing a massive arm around Blake in a crushing embrace.

"Still, it was damn kind of you to wait for us before starting the real debauchery," the man laughed.

"It is no feast if Daring Kroll is not among them" Blake grinned, clapping his friend on the shoulder. "I take it you fared well with the castles of the coast?"

"Both Ashawan and Gogachere will no longer be sporting hostile lords," Kroll answered, sliding back into his chair with the satisfied air of a man who had finished a long day’s work.

"And what became of the illustrious lords of the Twin Cities?"

"Their heads are currently enjoying a panoramic view of the river from the top of two very tall pikes," Kroll replied, reaching for a turkey leg. "They’re overseeing the traffic now. Very diligent, they are. They haven’t blinked once."

Blake let out a bark of laughter. He was more than pleased; for two years, those Twin Cities had been a thorn in the side of the Free-Fleet, harassment from their river-forts slowing the flow of plunder. The pirates had attempted to besiege them half a dozen times and failed, a string of defeats that had begun to sour the men’s morale. There was no quicker way to kill a campaign than to let it get bogged down in a stalemate.

But Kroll had a way of turning stalemates into slaughters.

"Our holdings are finally secure, thanks to your stubbornness," Blake said, snatching a silver chalice from the table. He stood, raising the wine high so the torchlight turned the liquid to molten rubies. "A TOAST! To Daring Kroll! The Conqueror of the Twin Cities and the man who taught the river-lords how to keep their mouths shut!"

The hall roared and shook. A thousand boots slammed into the floor, and a thousand cups clashed in a cacophony of steel and silver.

The feast was a roaring tide of excess, and Blake’s satisfaction went deeper than the mere sound of his name echoing off the rafters.

The wine was silk on the tongue, the food a revelation of spice and fat, and the faces of his men were flushed with the raw, honest joy of plunder. Yet, as he watched them, Blake found himself caught between pride and a mounting, cold disdain. Many of the Isles’ traditions, once his own lifeblood, now felt like the antics of unruly children playing in the ruins of a civilization they didn’t understand.

Case in point: Tonitz and Old Luck Luke were strutting at the far end of the table draped in vibrant, heavy "cloaks" that looked suspiciously familiar. As Blake squinted through the haze of pipe smoke, he realized they weren’t wearing cloth at all; they had ripped the ancient, priceless tapestries from the palace walls, which Blake had left on to gaze on. They of them had fashioned them into capes. He sighed.

A king might weep for the art; and they just appreciated the warmth.

His gaze drifted across the other warlords, the pillars of his power, or perhaps the future cracks in his foundation.

Harrick Stormcaller was being fed like a hatchling by two women whose silk wraps left little to the imagination. Harrick was too busy roaring with laughter to notice he was dripping honey into his beard, though he was currently engaged in a surprisingly somber conversation with SaltBeard. The older man looked on with a face like curdled milk, unsmiling and serious as always, many whispered that SaltBeard’s legendary temper came from the fact that he was far too old to enjoy the "spoils" of the flesh anymore.

Though if you were dumb enough to speak of it in his presence, he would show you how young he still was with the axe.

And at last there was WaveWeaver.

The youngest of the fleet lords was currently a portrait of blonde, sun-kissed decadence. He had a quartet of servants attending to him: two were weaving their fingers through his golden mane, a third was idly plucking at the sea-shell collar around his neck, and the fourth... Blake’s jaw tightened as the fourth woman disappeared beneath the table.

Now he had no qualms with his men enjoying the fruits of conquest, but there was a line between victory and vulgarity, he was about to eat after all. He glanced around the table, relieved to see he wasn’t the only one disgusted. SaltBeard, acting as the unofficial conscience of the old guard, delivered a stinging slap to the back of the young man’s head.

"We don’t need to see your wormy cock, boy," SaltBeard growled. "Pull up your breeches and tell the girl to keep her mouth away from where we’re trying to eat."

WaveWeaver only threw his head back and laughed. "I’ve seen what she can do, so fret not old man! I can assure you, she’s more than capable of making it disappear entirely from your eyes!"

When the joke met a wall of stony silence, WaveWeaver gave a heavy sigh and muttered a few words in Azanian. The woman emerged, smoothed her hair, and joined the others in grooming his locks with combs.

Blake watched him with in a long gaze. This fickle, golden boy was the master of the Isles’ iron mines. He was responsible for arming half the fleet and armoring a quarter of it,especially important since it was hard for them to come across blacksmith from the mainland willing to sell their wares to pirates, a service that for now the boy provided most dutifully, though not out of kindness in his heart, but for the staggering mountain of coin Blake had poured into his lap.

Nearly a quarter of the Azanian Royal Vault had vanished into WaveWeaver’s pockets.

"Blake!" the blonde greedy bastard shouted, finally noticing Blake’s stare.’’ My apologies, Admiral, my attention was... momentarily diverted. What a magnificent victory you’ve brought us!"

"Aye," SaltBeard grunted, his voice unenthusiastic as a tiger performing in a circus. "We’ve taught the Wielders of the False Spear who truly commands the foam. But command is a heavy thing to hold when your hands are busy elsewhere."

WaveWeaver waved a hand dismissively. "The seas are ours, the gold is ours, and the sun is warm. Why so sour, SaltBeard? Is the wine too acidic for your aging gut?"

As the two began to bicker, Blake leaned back, his eyes moving from Kroll to Harrick, then to the preening WaveWeaver. He played a silent game of "Heads or Tails" in his mind.

For every warlord at this table, the coin was currently in mid-air. Kroll was loyal to the bone and he would follow him to the bottom of the sea and back, but Harrick followed the scent of blood, and WaveWeaver followed the shine of gold, SaltBeard instead...was just old and conservative.

Today they were his pillars; tomorrow, if the wind shifted or the gold ran thin, any one of them could become an enemy. They were a fleet of kings, and a man who sought to be an Emperor had to decide which kings to keep, and which to bury at sea.

"Enjoy the wine, WaveWeaver," Blake said, his voice cutting through the banter like a cold snap. "But remember: iron is only useful as long as the man holding it stays upright. Try not to let the Azanian sun soften your spine."

’’If you’d look under the table friend you would see something hard instead!’’

Blake decided to join in the laughter once more, for no other reason that it would do him good to keep the only force capable of mustering arms and armor for his force on his side.

He had to see how to keep him at his side, at all cost.