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.
Chains clinked like faint echoes of the arena’s roars, and the scent of iron still clung to the air. Taranis Storm lay awake in the half-darkness, eyes open to the stone ceiling, counting the rhythm of the guards’ boots. Rome slept, but the storm within him did not.
He had won his life for another day, but victory came at a cost. He had shown them what he was. Not a beaten barbarian, but something far more dangerous a man who learned.
At dawn, Marcos appeared at his cell door, shadowed by two guards. “You’ve made them talk,” Marcos said quietly. “The governor himself wants to see you.”
Taranis said nothing. The chains around his wrists jingled as he stood.
They led him through the inner halls of the fortress, where Roman banners hung stiff and silent. Soldiers stared as he passed some curious, others wary. A man who defied lions and bears without breaking was not easily forgotten.
In the governor’s chamber, incense burned thick. Maps of Britannia sprawled across a marble table, marked with red ink and small figurines of silver legions.
The governor, Decimus Varro, was not a cruel man by Roman standards merely pragmatic. “You are a spectacle,” he said, voice calm. “A man who fights like the gods themselves favour him. Tell me, Briton what drives you?”
Taranis met his gaze. “The same thing that drives Rome. Freedom.”
Varro smiled faintly. “Freedom is an illusion. Order is what endures.” He leaned forward. “Serve Rome, and you’ll live well. Defy us again, and your death will be remembered only as noise in the sand.”
Silence stretched between them, thick as the smoke that coiled from the brazier. Then Taranis spoke, slow and deliberate.
“I have no wish to be remembered. Only to finish what began in the storm.”
Varro frowned not in anger, but thought. “Then we understand each other.” He gestured to Marcos. “Train him. Watch him. If he can be tamed, he’ll fight for Rome. If not…”
Taranis was taken to the training grounds. Men waited there gladiators, soldiers, slaves who had survived too long to be careless. The air rang with the sound of iron on iron. Marcos tossed him a blade, better balanced than the last.
“Your real trial starts now,” Marcos said. “In the arena, you fought to live. Out here, you’ll fight to learn what Rome fears most a man they can not own.”
For the first time since his capture, Taranis smiled. The storm had found a new horizon.
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 