Tony and the Queen of Iziral

by Rosier, D. R.

  I blew out a breath, “No, the less time we give them to prepare or plan the better. If it starts to get too late, we can find a place in the city to stop for the night.”

  Lia asked, “What could they do?”

  I shrugged, “I have no idea, which is what bothers me. If the governor decides it’s a lost cause, he could gather his troops and head for the hills. They could also disappear into the populace and fight us for weeks from the shadows. Ambushes, assassination attempts, terrorize the population, or… something else altogether I haven’t thought of. I’d rather fight them right now, as they’re still on a normal defensive posture and in the open. If we move fast, we can just roll them up.”

  Lia nodded, “When put like that, I’d have to agree. Standard flank?”

  When I nodded, she moved off to pass the word to the fleet, and then we got ready to move. As usual, we’d fly to shore, this time on the eastern flank, and then attack in unison with the fleet. Although with me working to subdue them all, the fleet attack would be more of a distraction, and to draw some of the enemy fire.

  Chapter Six

  The enemy was concentrated on the shoreline for defense, which actually made it easier for us. When we landed on their southern flank and moved up, I channeled Lia’s magic while enhancing it. She was still the most powerful air wielder I’d ever met, which meant it was easy to take down whole swaths of the enemy at once, as we slowly walked up the flank.

  There were over a thousand guards with me, though we only needed about twenty to defend while I took them down. Coming in on their flank meant I’d only be adding another few people at a time to magical range as I walked forward, since they were lined up along the shore.

  It didn’t take long to roll up almost a thousand guards, and get them into the jail, while we let out any sorceress in there. Just a little over an hour all told. That was probably a third of their force if their normal twenty to one ratio held true, there’d be three thousand guards or so in total on Polperro. We expected to meet as many on the Northern shore as we’d taken here, and another thousand or so throughout the city in smaller pockets.

  It would be the latter, that would truly take the most time.

  A hundred of the guards would stay behind in the port, and we’d be dropping more groups as we went, replacing their guards with ours as we went. The guards that followed could also start to take the groups of soldiers detained in the city, that we got in bracelets, back to the jail in the south port as we went. Which was the reason we had so many with us, despite me doing most of the work.

  Not that I minded, it was better than wallowing in self-pity and self-castigation. Or at least, it was a rather large distraction from it.

  The worst part of the whole situation with Daphne was it still felt a little wrong. Even at eighteen, I was eight years older and twenty-six. Set up by the goddess herself or not, that felt like a big difference to me. In a few years the eight-year gap wouldn’t feel so wrong, but right now, when she was just eighteen it seemed wrong.

  Of course, that was my old society talking.

  I did have faith that if we were promised by magic, then we were more than compatible despite the age difference. I also thought the young queen was more mature than I was in certain ways, she’d never had much of a childhood. There was no comparison between her, and a young woman going to college for the first time back on my own world. Just the idea of that was laughable.

  Enough of that, I just wished that I could fix it then. If we hadn’t had an invasion to finish, and she’d actually consent to talk to me, I would have. But, it would have to wait.

  I looked away from the shore, and into the city. Honestly it was rather intimidating. If there were a thousand troops with magic in there somewhere, there were also about twelve times that in just citizens with magic. To cover it, we’d have to walk up and down every block, which meant crisscrossing three miles… at least ten to twelve times per mile. Which would be over thirty times to go from shore to shore.

  Which was ninety miles.

  We couldn’t walk ninety miles in one afternoon.

  First things first, now that I was on the island, I could activate our networked island ward. So I channeled Marie to grab the crates off the deck of our ship, and then pulled them over. After popping the lids, I activated the ward, and all the metal balls ran out. If my math had been right, there should be enough for four full layers, going out a thousand yards around the entire island.

  I already had the one for the keep in my pack.

  I frowned in thought, that still didn’t solve our problem. Well, if we couldn’t walk…

  “Lia, you want to fly us around? I just realized if we want to put eyes on every street, we have about ninety miles of streets to cover.”

  I’d do it myself, but I’ll be busy enough suppressing our enemy’s magic, and freezing the air. If I had to fly us too, it would limit the number of enemies I could hold at once by a few. That could be a critical difference.

  Lia nodded, “I’d accuse you of being lazy, but I don’t want to walk ninety miles either.”

  Jenna snickered, “What if they’re hiding in buildings?”

  I shrugged, “There should be over twelve thousand magical citizens in this city, with no way to distinguish the guards except by eyeball. It will no doubt mean we’ll miss some. Our guard patrols will have to watch for them, all we can do is get as many as we can in this first sweep. When we find some, you can light a fire above them, so our guards will know where to collect them from. I assume we’re only taking the strike group with us.”

  Marie asked, “Won’t that attract enemy guards as well, the fire I mean.”

  I smiled jokingly, but didn’t really feel it, “We can hope.”

  Sharon giggled, “Well at least we won’t have to look for them very hard.”

  Lia smirked and shook her head, “Alright, let’s get this done already, I want to sleep in a nice comfy bed tonight, not on the street.”

  Normally even that innocent statement would have had my libido jumping, even after two years the beauty and draw my mates had on me was irresistible. Except, I wasn’t in the mood at all right now. Which… was probably a first.

  I was still too angry at myself in that moment, but it was probably more the need to punish myself that had killed my libido.

  I felt her power wrap around our group of thirty-three. It was Sharon, Lia, Marie, Jenna, Amara, Gorwin, Ashera, and I, plus the twenty-five guards who would help the ladies with defending while I knocked people out.

  I smiled despite myself as we rose about thirty yards into the air, I still loved to fly. One of these days I’d have to make a spell capable of it so I didn’t require another air wielder. Not that taking Lia along was a hardship.

  There weren’t any buildings higher than two levels, with the possible exception of the keep, so we were between three and four times higher than any building around us.

  We had a lot to cover, and everyone was looking outward in all directions as we zigzagged up the streets. It wasn’t exactly square either, like a city on my old world was. The streets twisted and turned, and looked even more disorganized from up in the air.

  The first quarter mile north or so, as we zigzagged back and forth across three miles, we caught several groups, knocked them out, got them in bracelets, and Jenna set a fire which caused some of our guards which paced our movements north, to come running to collect the bastards.

  Word travelled ahead of us however, and we stopped sighting guards. Either they’d ducked into buildings, or got out of their uniforms. It was then when I realized our usual plans were going to be worthless in this city.

  Lia frowned, “What should we do?”

  I shook my head, “Let’s skip the city, and get the guards at the northern port before word reaches them and they disappear as well. We can talk about what to do to find the last third of the guards after we free the jailed sorceresses, and get those thousand put away along with the governor, after we take the keep
.”

  Sharon sighed, “I don’t like it, but we really don’t have a choice.”

  So far we kicked ass, I didn’t think any of our own had died, but this was turning into a cluster fuck that would bite us in the ass for weeks.

  Lia turned to one of the guards with us that could wield air, “Go back and report what we’re doing. For now hold the port, and don’t push into the city.”

  She nodded, and used her own air to fly back and report.

  Then Lia turned us toward the northern port, and moved us extremely fast. Once I’d explained aerodynamics to her, she was at least as good a flyer as I was, if not better. I could have been wrong, but it felt like we went at least eighty miles an hour. We got to the port in a little under three minutes…

  Jenna shot off fireballs right before we reached the port, which triggered our ships to move into range.

  Lia moved us in from the southwest, so we would be flanking them and not have to face so many at once.

  The enemy being out in the open really was so much easier.

  I reached out and stole the air away from the enemy’s magic, and then froze it, catching just over a hundred of them in my first try. Most of them panicked, but some few attacked us back as best they could. My ladies and our guards defended from those attacks, which quickly waned, while a guard with earth magic, along with Marie, started to cuff them all even before they went unconscious.

  The soldiers next to them tried for a rescue and ran in range and started to send magic our way. I just stole the air around them, and expanded the area of locked air. I had my limits, but the other eight hundred plus guards were distracted by the fleet, which were pretty much just playing with them until I could get around to moving forward.

  It took us a half an hour to clean up that thousand, and another half an hour later, we’d taken the jail and keep. The last thing I did, was activate the keep ward. There were still several hours of sunlight left, but there were also still close to a thousand guards in the sprawling twelve square mile city.

  Unless they outed themselves, or were turned in by a citizen, I’d no idea how to chase them down. Even if we went door to door, which sounded more than a little oppressive to me, they could just remove their uniforms, and dress like everyone else in the city. There’s a chance their deception might show up in their magic for me to feel, but people in general were deceptive at times, so it was by no means a sure thing to measure by.

  We’d been at the keep less than an hour, Daphne hadn’t even arrived yet, when one of our guards came in the room where we waited.

  She reported without preamble.

  “There are several hundred women at the gate, who have heard rumors about getting their magic back. The crowd is still growing.”

  I nodded slowly. That wasn’t a big surprise, it’d happened before. Word of what we were about had spread ahead of us.

  “I’ll be out in a minute.”

  The guard nodded and filed out.

  “You ladies coming?”

  They all looked at me like I was nuts.

  I smiled, and for the first time since I’d done the stupidest thing in my life, I meant it.

  “I love you too, let’s go.”

  Amara claimed my arm as we walked out. In my mood, her scent was alluring, sexy, and somehow off putting at the same time. It also comforted me, as did her touch. Even if I was a world class asshole, Amara, Sharon, and Lia seemed to not only be in my corner, but had taken on some of the responsibility.

  Not that I wanted them to do that latter one, but it wasn’t up to me.

  Most of the guards stayed put, there were over fifty spread around the keep and inside of it. Add to that the ward and even with the unruly city, we were relatively safe here.

  As long as we stayed alert that is, assassins knew how to use knives after all. Control of magic wasn’t everything.

  Knowing in my head, that there were seventy-five hundred sorceresses suppressed on this island really didn’t mean much, until I actually saw over a thousand women waiting for me to release their magic. I realized what a powder keg that could be, with a thousand enemy guards still out there, so I decided to say a few words, despite my dislike of speeches.

  I channeled a little bit of Lia’s magic, to amplify the sound of my voice.

  “Hello, I’m Tony, and we’ve taken this island for the new kingdom, and to put an end to the practice of sorceresses being suppressed, as well as the evil depredations that occurred here by those in authority. We control the ports, jails, sea, and the keep. We captured over two thousand guards who will receive a trial.

  “Unfortunately, we believe there are many guards out there in the city who have yet to be captured. To those I would say, turn yourselves in, and you will be treated fairly. To you ladies, who are about to get your magic back, the new kingdom is a kingdom of rule and law. If any citizens come forward to help us identify the guards in hiding, that would be appreciated.

  “Self-defense, of your life, and of others is allowed, but if you take the law into your own hands, and hunt these men yourselves out of revenge, you will be taken to task for it. On the first island we liberated, two women ignored that warning, and hung for murder. Since then, on every island, there are always some who ignore my warning. I ask that you be the first who do not.

  “Defend yourselves, turn them in, and we will be grateful. Murder them, and there will be a reckoning for that action. Tomorrow, the queen will address any who come to hear on what’s to happen here, to fill in any gaps the rumors might have missed or twisted.”

  There were a few snickers at that.

  “Enough of my babbling, let’s get to why you’re all here. Please, don’t throw away your lives just as you gain hope and freedom of a better life. Heed my warning, this will be a kingdom of freedom and equality, but restricted by the rule of law.”

  It was the best I could do, I could only hope they’d listen. Every island so far had between two to ten women hung, because they couldn’t resist the thirst for revenge, and put it above justice. A part of me really couldn’t blame them for their actions given what they’d gone through, but anarchy and ignoring the rule of law couldn’t be allowed. This wasn’t a game, or a comic book, and people who took the law into their own hands needed to be stopped.

  It went quickly, the magic wanted to be freed. It took maybe two seconds for each, and I did five at a time. With about fifteen hundred suppressed sorceresses here, that was just about ten minutes for all of them. If the other six thousand showed up in the morning, that would take me about forty minutes, if I didn’t stop for any breaks.

  They all seemed grateful, and despite them showing up bravely right after a battle, most had been shocked that the stories were true, when they felt their magic again.

  I stayed a little longer, and took care of some stragglers, but it wasn’t long before it was a very slow trickle.

  I told the guards to inform any others to come back tomorrow, and we moved back inside the keep.

  Chapter Seven

  She was beautiful, regal, and so very cold.

  When Daphne finally arrived, as usual, her honey blonde hair attracted my eye, as did her piercing green eyes. Her bearing was royal, and she was so graceful as she glided across the room.

  But there was no light in her eyes, she was cold, and her normal humor, which was only ever apparent in her eyes, was gone. I felt like there was a dagger in my chest, what had I done with my stupidity? It was also the first moment that I considered that my lack of perception had put more than just my and her happiness on the line, this could easily affect how she ruled.

  That might have sounded arrogant, and would have been back on my old earth, but being promised by magic, and avoiding it, could only lead to misery. She wouldn’t ever move on, or find another that would attract her, or that she could love. It was me and my family, or an empty bond with some other if she had the stomach to go through with such a sham.

  She completely ignored all of us, as if we w
eren’t even there, and turned to her guard.

  “Bring my dinner up to my room, and then I wish to be disturbed by no one until tomorrow morning’s speech, understood?”

  The guard nodded, but her eyes shot me a nervous look. That wasn’t good, add fucking up general morale to the list of my crimes. Or at least, Daphne was sinking morale because of what I’d done to her. Unintendedly of course, but did that matter?

  “Can we speak your majesty?”

  She didn’t even look at me when she answered.

  “No, and next time wait until we give you leave to speak.”

  Oh shit. I just got the royal we thrown in my face.

  I also believed that was a very polite way of saying shut the fuck up and don’t speak unless spoken to. Her voice had been… icy to say the least. I was so screwed. Worse than that, she should have at least asked to be briefed on the status of our invasion, I doubted she’d asked anyone else.

  The city wasn’t safe.

  I watched her leave the room, partly sick with guilt and in pain at her pain, and partly frightened at what the future would bring to all of us, if I couldn’t fix it. But how could I, if she wouldn’t even listen? I kind of got the impression she didn’t even know I loved her, or how much she meant to me. How could she? I just had to hope my other mates could fix it, or at least through their efforts, buy me an opportunity to do it myself. Of course, she wasn’t talking to them yet either.

  Fuck.

  I gasped in a deep breath as I felt a stabbing pain in my chest. I hadn’t realized, but I’d stopped breathing at some point. What the hell was that?

  I wasn’t really hungry either, but I looked at my team, my three mates, two more elves, and two sorceresses who were always near me.

  “Want to get some dinner, and discuss what to do about the guards left in the city?”

  They all nodded, but none of them looked very hungry either.

  Well, at least when I fuck up, I go all out with it…

  Lia frowned, “I know you won’t like this, but we don’t really have a choice. We need to split the guards into shifts, and have them patrol in groups of ten.”