The Kinnard fishery sat twenty miles outside of Stormspring, on a tiny island created by the flow of two rivers as they rushed to the ocean. The only way to get to it were bridges on either side or to paddle up from the ocean itself. Great for the daily workers who didn't want to go for a swim. 

A nightmare for someone trying to approach it, quietly, with fifty armed soldiers intent on keeping those inside unaware before the moment they kicked in the front door. 

"We're almost there, Major General Coffee." A light and dulcet voice whispered next to Clayton. Primrose Gest, one of Clay's pantheon and a colonel, like all gods in the army. "We should be able to see it in a few moments."

He knew she was right. Her Domain gave her accuracy, to the dot, in navigation. During their time at the officer's academy, she was the saving grace of many overly-inebriated students lost in downtown Stormspring. 

"Thank you, Colonel Gest, for your report." Neither could help but smile at the formality every time it came up. A hard thing to maintain between long-time friends. Clay dropped his cigarette, crushed it with his heel, and smiled to himself, as he absent-mindedly made sure his equipment was where it should be.

On one hip, he wore the traditional pair of a short and long blade, with a heavy revolver on the other. Above the revolver on his hip, strapped underneath his arm with it's matching Tombwillow grip visible, was another. Tightly holstered and sheathed to keep their Godcraft from shining into the night and giving the whole operation away.  

It was supposed to be an easy night, after all. Home in time for dinner, or so his father stated. "Kick in the front door, arrest everyone who throws down their arms, and make sure whatever they're peddling doesn't make it inland."  Right. A statement like that basically guaranteed that something annoying was going to happen. A favor for the king is a favor for the king, however. 

As Primrose had said, Clay broke through the treeline soon after, alongside her and the line of soldiers making an ever-tightening noose around the fishery. After the dark of the woods, the moonlight shining down from the clear night sky seemed almost blinding for a moment. 

Clay's own domain let him know, in the back of his head, that all of his men were present. No one lost or held up by unexpected events, and just now breaking through the treeline on the opposite side of the fishery. If only it could be this clear all the time.

The fishery itself was a large building. Two floors with two large docks lancing out of the oceanside wall. Heavy machinery dotted the structure and caught the silver moonlight. Windows lined both floors, tightly closed against the late night chill. 

"How many do you think there are?" Clay quietly asked, looking at Primrose out of the corner of his eye, but making sure to keep the fishery in focus. 

"Why Major General, you look positively starry eyed!" Clay rolled his eyes up into his head.

"Ha ha, you may just be the funniest woman I have ever met, Prim. You think that joke will last another hundred tellings? I'd hate for it to lose it's luster."

"I think it can go for some distance more," She smirked as she continued. "the reports suggest a dozen and a half, and then some, smugglers.  Two crews meeting for the handoff." She whispered back.

"Oh come now, Prim, you know the reports never cover everything, no matter how Jackson tries. Remember the 'small' group of chain gang escapees that crossed the border up north? I'm an Old One if that group was small. They had two gods in their ranks, for the Star's sake." Clay thought he saw lamplight move past a shuttered window, and he made sure to keep his voice low. 

"A fair point." She rocked her head side to side before answering. "In that case, I'm going to guess that we're evenly matched. If not outnumbered. Probably outnumbered." They reached the bridge on their side and the line of men quietly condensed together to cross. 

"I think you may be ri-" They had only made it halfway across when the unmistakable crack of musket fire sounded from the far side of the building. A moment later, one of the window shutters facing them swung open. Clays men shouldered their weapons and attempted to peer into the dark. He couldn't see, but Clay had a feeling.

"Prim, don't move." 

In the moment before the flash of gunfire illuminated the window frame, Clay turned and wrapped his arms around Primrose, his back to the fishery. As he turned he saw several other shutters swing open, followed by more shots in rapid succession. 

Clay could feel three hits slam into his upper shoulders and lower back, the lead slugs shattering across his skin. He had just gotten a new uniform jacket too. Mother was going to be cross with him if she had to do more needlework. He stepped back and looked Primrose in the eyes, and spoke with faux charm.

"Well Miss, it might be forward of me, but do you come here oft-" A gunshot right next to his ear caused him to flinch away and clutch at it. His ears naturally diminished the noise to a non-damaging level, but it still caught him off guard. "By the Desolate, Primrose!" 

"Oh I'm sorry, Major General, did I interrupt?" Prim said with mock-sincerity before firing her service revolver twice more towards the fishery with practiced ease. "Please, continue."

Clay grinned and shook his head.

"Nothing, colonel. Nothing at all."  He turned back towards the fishery. He could hear his men return fire on all sides and saw clouds of dust and splinters appear around the open windows. A few shouts could be heard, of pain and otherwise. Occasionally, he could see a gun barrel in the moonlight and see the figures of assailant in the flashes of light when they pulled the trigger.

His men had not stopped approaching the fishery, firing as they went, and he jogged to catch up to them. As they stepped off of the bridge, one of them clutched at his side and tumbled to the ground. Clay reached down to help but stumbled away when another shot slammed into his temple. 

He wasn't hurt, but he was growing annoyed. When he stood up a medic was already helping the man, guarded by a large grenadier, confident that his steel-skin Gift would protect him. 

Clay strode forward and drew his long blade as he stepped in front of the formation his men had fallen into. It didn't require any motion on Clay's part, his men knew what he wanted in a general sense due to his Domain, and in such a straightforward situation it rang like a clarion call. 

"Fix bayonets!" Came the shout from the sergeant, followed by the sounds of metal on leather. The formation worked itself to a jog as the metallic clinking indicated they had slotted ring bayonets onto the barrels of their muskets. 

There were thirty yards to the fisheries door. Then twenty. Clay heard two more soldiers cry out in pain, a moment's breadth between them. The musket fire from the windows grew frantic. Erratic. Fifteen yards and Clay broke into a dead sprint for the door. Ten Yards. Five. At the last moment, Clay planted his foot and threw his shoulder forward. 

With the force of a god behind it, the door exploded off its hinges.

Time almost seemed to slow to a crawl as Clay burst through the door like a man-sized cannonball. Splinters hung in the air all around him, shrapnel to anyone standing too close. The walkway they were standing on followed the wall all the way around the building, leaving empty air in the middle of the room above where a water lock sat; currently filled and occupied by three ships Clay could only assume belonged to the smuggler crews.

To his right and left, the smugglers. Their weapons and clothing a hodgepodge of cultures and styles. A few drew blades or gripped their weapons like clubs. A few turned and ran in any direction, as long as it was away from the god now in their midst. One vaulted the railing and splashed into the water lock below.

Clay could see a few figures on the decks of the ships as he caught a rifle swinging towards his head with one hand and ran the holder through with the blade in his other hand. There seemed to be some further scuffle going on top their respective decks. His men must have come in through the other side of the building, though the melee threw off his battle senses.

Clay's men flooded in behind him, muskets cracking. A stream of dark gray uniforms crashing into the disorganized smugglers. Looking around, it's clear that Primrose was right. His men were outnumbered, as Prim had guessed, but the training of his men was keeping it even. At the end of the walkway, more smugglers were spilling down the stairs, creating a congested mass of untrained goons, with no one able or willing to take charge. He could still hear footsteps thumping across the floor above, however, enough that the disorganization wouldn't matter if they didn't finish things definitively.

"Captains must be on the ships still." Primrose said, stepping next to Clay as the men pressed down on the smugglers, driving them closer and closer together. "We may just have caught them mid dealings." 

"Yeah, it looks like my father was right. I would have put money down on the oppo-" Before Clay could finish the sentence, a great weight slammed into his back and drove him to the ground.

"You have got to be yanking my chain." He thought to himself as his chin smashed into the wood floor. 

It felt like a whole steam engine had been thrown at him. It kept bearing down, flowing over him. Cold and wet like some sort of great waterfall had appeared from nowhere.  

Even pinned as he was, Clay shook his head. Though it could have been a solely mental shake, it was hard to tell at this point. 

"Of course, a sailing crew would keep a god or two of a water Domain on the payroll."

Clay started to force himself up, muscles straining against what felt like the whole ocean. Something was going to give out in his arms, maybe his back, but he managed to leverage his arms underneath himself.

It was the wood beneath his hand gave out and the floor swallowed his arm. His face slammed back down, eliciting a muffled grunt. He was sure that he'd be tasting blood if the water wasn't washing it instantly away. Now his chest was heaving, trying to draw in breath, but there wasn't enough space for it to expand. If he didn't manage to break the pin soon, there were going to be some real issues. 

Clay tried to push himself up again, the edges of his vision going dark, from the strain or lack of oxygen, he couldn't tell.  He couldn't shove himself or roll sideways to try and clear it, that much was clear. 

"Where in the Stars light are you Prim?" Clay thought as he sent a moment's concentration inward and felt a warm sensation spread out from his heart in response. "Let's hope you're not too close, sweetheart."

It's never hard for a God to pull on their Domains. It wouldn't be very helpful if it was, after all. For Clay, he had only known of his third domain for a short time as far as gods are concerned, a decade at most. Even so, the iridescent word imprinted on the skin of his upper back was one that came easily to him.

In Clay's mind, the next moment slowed. Stretching itself. A white mote of light appeared in the space in front of his head. Then another, and another. Even as the water rushed past them, he could see the tell-tale roiling and bubbling that said it was boiling. 

The motes danced around each other, leaving trails of steam trapped in bubbles that were quickly swept away. Another appeared. They traveled faster and faster as Clay concentrated on them, growing little tails of light as they moved. Two more apparated in flashes of light, and started in on the same dance, weaving around Clay. 

Another stretched moment and their pace quickened and the strength of their light grew, now the individual trails lasted longer, like when a child writes in the air with a sparkler. At a thought, all six motes of light zipped back in front of him, rotating in a circle for half a second before shooting up the column of water, trailing light the whole way. 

Clay couldn't see the lights, pinned as he was, but he knew that they where far enough away from him now. Closing his eyes, he willed them to release their built up energy.

Even through his eyelids, a rivers worth of water, and the fact the detonation was behind him, the light was blinding.

Private Prendergast stood at the back of the Laidrian line, pushing down on the shabby mass of smugglers. Most of them had been throwing down their weapons and surrendering until a minute ago, dropping to their knees with their hands in the air. 

Now they were picking them back up, reinvigorated by...something. Something behind her. 

Prendergast turned and saw the column of water crushing her commander. Above it, a wave stood frozen mid-crest out of the water lock with a figure wearing clothing that rang smuggler standing on its top, the figure's hands held out towards the column of water. 

"Captain!" She yelled towards an imposing figure pointing and roaring a few men down the line, who turned. "We've got a problem!" 

The sergeant looked where she was pointing, then redoubled his own shouting, grabbing half a dozen gray-uniformed figures and directing them towards the god. He reached into his cartridge case and pulled a minni ball sheathed in shimmering amber light.

"Prendergast, catch!" he shouted and tossed it underhand. She caught it in one hand, almost fumbled it, but ran over to the soldiers the sergeant had directed towards the god as she started loading the Godcrafted lead slug. She made it a few steps before she partially slipped on the now wet walkway, falling to one knee and causing her to accidentally squeeze the trigger of her musket.

The recoil nearly yanked the rifle from her hand, and the bullet went wild, luckily only embedding itself in the ceiling. Even mid-battle, Prendergast could feel the gaze of her drill sergeant boring in on the back of her neck, despite him being a hundred miles away. 

"At- At least that simplifies loading!" She said more to herself than anyone around her. 

Prendergast first pulled a paper cartridge from the box at her side, and bit the end that contained a mundane bullet off. While she spit it out, the soldiers around her fired at the god at the top of the wave, a dozen chest thudding shots in rapid succession. Part of the wave he was standing on rose up into a wall, without the god even looking towards them, catching half the shots while the other half missed or scored glancing blows that might as well have missed. 

Pouring the black powder down the barrel, Prendergast started ramming the sergeant's amber bullet down the barrel. Out of the corner of her eye, she could still see that column of water pressing down on Major General Coffee. Each metallic clack of the ramrod against the bullet increased Prendergast's anxiety. At least the god was occupied.

Tick. Tick. Tick.  Some of the soldiers finished reloading faster than her and sporadically fired at the god with no more effect than the first time. What else were they to do?

Finally, the bullet was loaded. Prendergast shouldered her musket and pulled the hammer back in a well-trained motion before sighting towards the god. 

"Just one shot. You got this girl,  just like the drill sergeant said. Or yelled. Breath in. Breath out, slowly. At the end of the breath-" Her finger tightened. "-slowly squeeze the trigger." 

Before Prendergast could finish the motion, the pillar of water flashed high above the Major General. 

Her impromptu squad looked towards the pillar of water, the god momentarily forgotten.

"You guys see that too?"  A soldier with a cap pulled way too far down on his head asked. 

"I thought so..." Another soldier, tall and broad of shoulder, responded while looking back towards the melee behind them. "Maybe someone back there overly polished their sword?"

That same white-cold light flashed again, brighter. Bright as daylight, so quickly that Prenderghast didn't have time to shield her eyes, leaving a large purple mass burned in her vision. 

She tried to angle her eyes to see around its edges but just settled to try and rub the splotch away. 

"What's happening?" She implored, elbowing the soldier next to her. 

"I don't know I can't see!" 

There was a crack, like the time Prenderghast saw a demonstration of explosive cannon shells, though noticeably different. Closer, for one, and mixed with the sound of a burst pipe a hundred times over. She kept furiously trying to work the spot away while a strange heated breeze passed over her, leaving droplets of warmth on her skin and her clothing feeling damp. 

Finally, the splotch started to clear and Prenderghast and the men looked to where the column had been standing. The water itself was gone, replaced by an expanding cloud of steam that flowed around their boots. In the middle of the swirling moisture, a waterlogged Major General Coffee quickly hoisted himself off the ground and rolled his shoulders. 

The water god called up more undulating tendrils and sent them towards the Major General. He drew his revolver, with a speed Prenderghast had seen from a duelist at a festival show when she was a little, and fired from the hip.

With each shot, motes of lights streaked from the revolver barrel, and a rumbling detonation followed each hit. One, two, three. Each shot causing the head of a tendril to explode into another cloud of steam and the rest to fall away into the water lock. 

Prenderghast could see that with each falling tendril the docked ships rocked higher and harder, bumping into each other and their moorings. She was no sailor, but if this kept up she was certain they were going to break apart against each other. 

Four. Two more tendrils went down, so close together they got caught in the same blast, their backwash finally sending two of the smuggler ships careening into each other. The sound of splintering hulls filled the fishery as the Major General sighted on the god himself and pulled the hammer of his revolver back once more. 

"Hey, Mears?" Prenderghast said to a soldier with broad shoulders. 

"Yeah?" 

"You remember a month back when you told me about the stories of something about the Major General drawing people in?" 

"I do. It's part of one of his Domains if what the guys say is true." 

"I didn't believe you at the time, kinda thought you were full of it-" 

"Hey-!"

"-But I see it now. It's hard to take my eyes off of him..."  

Prenderghast and her whole squad looked at Coffee like his gunplay was a well-performed act of the Bronze-Crowned King. So captivating they almost didn't notice the charcoal-clad female figure leaping from the second-floor walkway, directly towards the god of water. 

Even the Major General seemed taken aback by Colonel Gest tumbling through the air, short blade in hand, before tackling the figure at the top of the wave. The two gods struggled while Coffee tried to draw a bead, but he gave up after a moment and holstered his revolver with a huff and a frown. He didn't look concerned though, mostly perturbed that someone was blocking his shot. 

Even amongst the din of battle, Prenderghast heard the god let out a grunt as the wave shivered beneath the dueling pair before collapsing, bringing both he and Colonel Gest with it into the churning waters of the lock. 

The squad ran to the railing, trying to catch the colonel, though she had already vanished from sight. Coffee didn't seem concerned, as he was looking around for something. 

"Can any of us swim?" A soldier by the name of Liggit asked as the squad looked at each other. 

"I can!" A woman whose name Prenderghast couldn't remember said, and handed her rifle to another so she could undo the silver buttons of her uniform coat.

"Woah now. A battlefield is no place to strip, little lady." A dulcet voice said before she got her coat all the way off. Prenderghast whipped around to find Colonel Gest leaning coolly against the railing, not even damp. Prenderghast was only able to get a sound out.

"Wha-?" 

"Excellent work Prim, impressive leap. I suppose you get another one to add to your tally?" Major General Coffee asked, still looking around but smiling.

"Unfortunately no, my blade missed the mark. They're bleeding, but they managed to swim off. Regular guppy, that one. With my blade as well." Gest said. Coffee chuffed.

"I have the gut feeling we'll get another shot at him." Finally, he found what he was looking for, stepped over, and kneeled. "What's the score, Prim?" 

"Looks like seeing their ace in the hole go down has taken the fight out of most of them." Colonel Gest said after looking around for a moment. Coffee moved a body that had been thrown around by the god's water and retrieved a wide-brimmed hat, shook excess water from it before planting it on his head. Against all odds, held its shape.

"Send a squad or two to check those ships for survivors and cargo." 

"Yes sir." The colonel responded and started walking towards the closest group of unoccupied gray uniforms. 

"You seven." The Major General said, looking at the squad with an authoritative gaze, though there was a warmth to it. 

"Sir?" Prenderghast returned, the only one able to summon a voice for some reason. 

"Excellent work." 

"But we didn't do anything..."

"Yet you intended to, only to be interrupted. I can see it in your eyes. All of you." He pulled a surprisingly dry-looking cigarette from the inside of his coat and struck a match on his boot to light it. "It takes courage to shoot at a god, even with a godsbane loaded. You deserve recognition for that alone. Not to mention you were about to leap into treacherous waters to save a fellow soldier." He said specifically to the woman, who still had not done her uniform back up. 

"Thank you, sir!" She said with a smile, a bit of color coming to her face.  

Coffee took a drag off the cigarette and surveyed the fishery. All around, smugglers were being restrained and crates of contraband cracked open. 

Stepping to the railing, he leaned on it with one hand, his star filled eyes looking into the water-lock. 

"Hey, soldier?" he asked without looking directly at Prenderghast. The ruby colored smoke he exhaled curled around his head. 

"Sir?" 

"There were three ships here before, weren't there?"