The island steamed beneath a blood-orange dawn. Black sand hissed as the tide pulled back, revealing fragments of broken shields and driftwood charred by lightning.
Taranis Stormborne stood among the wreckage, cloak torn, hair slick with salt. Around him, the Black Shields gathered the fallen in silence.
No victory songs were sung only the slow rhythm of men. Who understood the cost of silence and the weight of patience.
“Bury them high,” Taranis said at last. “Let the wind speak their names.”
He turned his gaze inland, where the volcanic ridges rose like the spines of sleeping beasts. Smoke drifted from fissures in the rock, thick with the scent of iron and ash.
Beneath those ridges lay the forge a secret his men had built in defiance of empire.
As the storm’s light faded behind the clouds, a scout approached, breath ragged.
“Lupus… Rome has sent word north. They know a fleet was lost, but not how. They think it was a storm.”
Taranis’s mouth curved into a faint, weary smile.
“Then let the lie live. Storms are easier to fear than men.”
He knelt beside a shattered shield half-buried in sand. Its surface was scorched black, the emblem of the wolf barely visible beneath the soot. With slow care, he traced the mark with his thumb, leaving a streak of silver ash.
“This island is no longer exile,” he murmured. “It’s the forge of the next age. And when Rome’s thunder fades, ours will remain.”
Above him, a distant rumble rolled through the clouds not thunder, but the awakening of something older.
The march south had stripped the world of meaning. Days blurred into rain and dust, dawn into dusk, until even time seemed shackled beside him.
By the time they reached the Roman fort near Corinium, Taranis Storm no longer knew how many nights had passed.
Only the rhythm of iron and boots. The murmur of Latin commands, and the distant echo of thunder in his bones.
The fort loomed ahead stone and order built upon the bones of chaos. Walls cut sharp against the grey horizon, guarded by rows of pikes and men who moved like clockwork. To Taranis, it felt wrong. A place without wind, without life.
Every sound was contained, controlled, sterile. Even the air smelled of discipline oil, smoke, and iron.
The storm in him recoiled.
They dragged him through the gates in chains. Soldiers gathered, curious and cautious. Some spat, others stared. Whispers followed him like ghosts daemon, barbarus, filius tempestatis. Son of the storm.
He smiled faintly. They weren’t wrong.
The cell they threw him into was little more than a pit of stone and shadow. The walls sweated damp, the floor slick with moss.
Above, a slit of light cut through the dark too narrow to touch the ground. He sat in the half-dark, wrists raw and heavy with iron. The silence of Rome pressed close, cold and absolute.
He did not pray. He waited.
When the footsteps came, they came as they always did measured, deliberate, Roman. The door creaked open, spilling lamplight like a wound across the floor.
Three entered.
A centurion, broad and cold-eyed, his crimson cloak pristine even in the grime. A scribe, pale and thin, clutching a wax tablet as if it were a shield.
And a woman cloaked, silent, her gaze as sharp as a blade. Her presence was wrong for this place; too poised, too knowing.
“Taranis of the Stormborne,” the centurion began, voice clipped and ceremonial.
“You stand accused of rebellion against Rome. The murder of imperial soldiers, and the disruption of trade along the Salt Road. Do you understand these charges?”
Taranis raised his head. His hair hung in dark, tangled strands, but his eyes were steady the colour of gathering thunder.
“I understand,” he said. “You’re afraid.”
The scribe faltered mid-stroke. The centurion’s jaw tensed. Only the woman’s expression remained still.
“You will answer with respect,” the Roman said.
“I already have.”
The blow came fast a strike across the face that turned his head with the sound of split skin.
Taranis straightened slowly, blood sliding from the corner of his mouth. His stare did not break.
The silence that followed was heavier than the hit.
The woman stepped forward. When she spoke, her accent carried the soft inflection of the East Greek, or something older.
“You fought well,” she said. “Even Rome admits that. There are ways to survive this. Serve us. Lead men under our banner. Take Roman land, a Roman name. You need only kneel.”
Taranis smiled faintly, the expression more weary than cruel.
“Rome offers gold to every man it fears. But my kind do not kneel. We weather.”
She tilted her head slightly. “Weather breaks.”
He met her eyes. “Only if it stops moving.”
For the first time, something flickered in her expression curiosity, maybe even a trace of respect.
The centurion, however, had no such patience. “Enough. He will be moved south to Londinium in three days. If he refuses Rome’s mercy, he will die as a slave.”
The woman’s gaze lingered on him a moment longer before she turned away. “He won’t bend,” she said quietly. “Not yet.”
They left him in the dark once more. The door slammed shut. The iron bolts fell into place.
Taranis exhaled slowly. The air was thick with the scent of blood and damp stone.
He tasted iron on his tongue metal, blood, defiance.
The light from above had shifted again, sliding across the wall like the movement of time itself.
He whispered, barely a sound. Not to gods, nor ghosts, but to the storm that still lived within his chest. It was quiet now, resting waiting. But it would come again. It always did.
When the night settled deep, the sound of rain returned, gentle against the stones.
In that rhythm, he found memory of his brothers’ faces in the torchlight. Drax’s steady eyes, Rayne’s trembling defiance, Draven’s silence. He had told them he would return. He intended to keep that promise.
The fort around him slept in its illusion of control.
But beyond the walls, clouds were gathering over the hills slow, patient, inevitable.
The heavy wooden door slammed shut behind him, sealing Taranis in a narrow cell. That smelled of damp stone and old iron.
The sound echoed like a distant drum . For a long moment, silence claimed the space as if daring him to break it. No guards, no soldiers, no jeers. Just the cold walls, the narrow slit high in the stone, and the faint, rhythmic pulse of the world beyond.
Taranis lowered himself onto the floor, legs folded, wrists free of chains but shackled at the ankles. The red marks from yesterday’s lashes ached like embers under his skin, a constant reminder of Roman cruelty. Yet he welcomed the pain; it was familiar, honest. Fear, he knew, had no place here.
A sliver of morning light cut across the cell. Illuminating dust motes that danced lazily like sparks from a distant fire. He watched them drift, tracing patterns he alone can read. Shapes of storm clouds, of wolves circling, of the great oak at the cairn.
Memory and instinct intertwined. Here, in solitude, he listened. Not just to the camp, but to the wind, the earth. Even the faint murmur of the brook beyond the palisade.
The door rattled. A shadow fell across the stone floor.
“Eat,” the guard said, tossing a small bowl of gruel onto the floor. He lingered, eyes sharp, measuring Taranis with a caution that bordered on fear. For a moment, the barbarian’s gray eyes met his, unyielding and calm.
The guard shifted uneasily and left. Taranis did not touch the food. Instead, he pressed his palms to the stone. The feeling its cold strength, imagining it anchoring him to the earth while the world beyond spun on.
Hours dragged. The sun arced across the sky outside, shifting the thin line of light that fell into the cell.
Taranis lay back, listening to every sound. From the distant clatter of armor, the muted shouts of guards. The whisper of wind through the treetops past the camp. Even the faint murmur of water in the brook he remembered from home. Each sound became a pulse, a heartbeat he measured and wait upon.
Isolation tested patience. It forced the mind inward, to a place where anger is contained and sharpened into strategy.
He closed his eyes, recalling every strike he had delivered. Every arrow loosed, every lesson of wind and rain and earth. That had been hammered into him long before Roman chains. The storm inside did not weaken it grew.
Marcos appeared at the bars as dusk began to fall, shackles clinking with each step. His one good eye flicked across Taranis’ face, noting the lines of exhaustion and defiance alike.
“Rome believes it can break you with walls and emptiness,” Marcos said quietly. “They do not know the storms from which you come.”
Taranis allowed a faint smirk. “Walls mean nothing to a storm,” he whispered, almost to himself, letting the words settle in the damp air.
Marcos crouched, lowering his voice. “Patience. They will test you again. Always. But storms… storms wait for the right moment to strike.”
From outside the cell, a shout echoed, steel striking wood. The centurion’s voice barked orders to the camp. Taranis’ ears picked out every detail. The rhythm of the soldiers’ movements, the soft shuffle of feet on mud, the clink of armor.
Observation became weapon as much as axe or bow. He cataloged every detail, storing them in the back of his mind.
Night fell, but the world did not sleep. Moonlight cut across the cell in a pale line. He flexed his ankles against the shackles, testing the limits. Each movement was a meditation, a rehearsal of strikes, sidesteps, and throws.
He imagined the centurion in the ring. The Roman soldiers flanking him, and planned counterattacks not just for survival, but for leverage.
The boy from the earlier day appeared at the doorway, clutching a piece of bread. He offered it quietly, eyes wide with tentative trust. Taranis did not take it, but he pressed his fingers briefly against the boy’s in silent acknowledgment. Even in chains and isolation, small acts of loyalty and courage mattered.
Taranis pressed his palms to the cold stone once more, listening to the pulse of the world beneath the camp. Every sound was a warning, every shadow a lesson. Rome had tried to crush him with crucifixion, lash, and intimidation. It had failed.
And as the night deepened. A low rumble of distant thunder rolled across the horizon, almost imperceptible at first, then gathering in strength. He smiled faintly, feeling it in his chest. Rome had not yet learned this: storms do not serve. They return.
Taranis closed his eyes, letting the cold stone and the rising wind guide him. He did not know when they would return to test him, or what cruelty they would devise next.
But one thing was certain: the storm had only paused. The reckoning would come. When it did, Rome would feel the force of a tempest it had tried to chain.
StormborneLore 