I asked, “helped?”
The guard nodded and looked a bit embarrassed, “They rescued three of our groups that were ambushed last night by greater numbers. Apparently they were patrolling as concerned citizens last night, in groups of fifty. They really don’t have a good grasp of tactical fighting with magic, but they made up for it with numbers. Also, I’m sorry to report we lost two whole teams, and six others.”
I sighed, “So we took down two hundred seventy-eight, and lost twenty-six? It could be worse but let’s double the patrol sizes tomorrow night. What was the average size of the enemy groups?”
She replied, “Fifteen to twenty.”
I nodded, “That might go up tonight if they see us escalate, if it does I want you all to adjust and combine at your best judgement, don’t blindly follow my numbers, I won’t be out there. Oh. As long as those citizen patrols aren’t stringing people up, and actually turning them over to your patrols, let them do it. They probably know a lot of the guards by sight.”
She nodded, “I understand.”
Lia said, “Dismissed.”
The young woman left and we all glanced around at each other. The losses we took were ten to one, but if I could avoid losing another seventy something guards before this was over, all the better. I was also very proud at how well they’d done. I suppose it was no surprise, our guards trained their asses off to win a war and bring a better kingdom. The enemy guards were rapists, and bullies. Not incompetent exactly, just not nearly as dedicated to a cause or so highly trained.
Amara interjected, “Ashera found several deserters out east. They seem to be hiding from everyone, and they’re camped out in some woods by one of the wineries. There are only seventeen of them. She plans to lead a team back this afternoon, when she wakes up. She was out searching all night but only found the one group. She believes the rest of the guards are still in the city, and I believe her.”
“That’s good news. We should probably check again, every three or four days until we’re sure we got them all. More could still desert or some groups might even change tactics before it’s all over.”
They all nodded, and we finished breakfast in a mostly comfortable silence, the absence of Daphne put a small pall over it though, or maybe that was just me.
I was giving serious thoughts to invading the top floor when I felt her magic move, it looked like she was coming down.
“It’s speech time,” I said, and everyone ate the last few bites of their meal quickly before we stood up.
Chapter Nine
Daphne ignored all of us of course, when she came down, but neither did she send us away. She was in an elaborate flowing blue dress which accented her beauty perfectly, and my attraction which was now painfully obvious to me, didn’t help matters.
I tried to see it from her point of view, Amara had used a similar mask two years ago to hide her pain. I just hoped she could find some small amount of her normal humor and grace, because the grim faced person she’d been showing us, wasn’t exactly going to win over the population.
I needn’t have worried, she might have been upset at all of us, but she was just as passionate and dedicated about building a kingdom free of oppression and one of equality for sorceresses as she ever was. That slight humorous tilt she’d used in the past to win over her new subjects might not have been there, but her sincerity was more than enough to do the job.
She’d given the usual speech about the kingdom, and that any were welcome to come back tomorrow to swear fealty, and choose between guard and fleet to help make their new kingdom a reality, and that she would choose between them to find a new council.
As for me, I tried not to look at her at all, while I constantly scanned the crowd for trouble. I knew this was probably even more dangerous than her usual after battle speeches, and there were still over seven hundred potential assassins and resisters out there, any of which could be in the morning crowd.
I needn’t have worried about that either. Between the ward that protected the keep area, and the hundred or so guards in the courtyard and around the gate to hold the people back if necessary, it kept anyone from doing anything stupid. I didn’t even sense anyone out in the crowd even try to use their magic past the ward line.
I’d hoped to talk to her after the speech, but my duties once more got in the way. I’d almost forgotten, but the thousand or so empty echoes of magic reminded me there were still about six thousand sorceresses to take care of, no one else could do it.
I glanced one more time at the beautiful queen, who would be happy and mine already if I hadn’t been such an idiot, and then took my place on the dais to call the suppressed sorceresses forward as I sensed her magic retreat back to the keep behind me…
Five days passed, and not much changed. At least, not between Daphne and I, or the others.
That same afternoon, several ships arrived with the seventeen members of the grand council, soon to be eighteen when Polperro got one, which Daphne used ruthlessly to distance herself from us even more. The grand council had always annoyed me, but never more so than recently.
I was more convinced than ever, that she believed my explanation would be why we couldn’t be together, instead of what the truth really was. I thought that maybe she just couldn’t bear that thought, and was avoiding it. I couldn’t imagine that she was just done with me, and the others who’d always been close to her.
More arrogance perhaps, or wishful thinking, but the idea that she truly still loved me, and just couldn’t bear to hear what she thought I’d say, but being promised by magic made that scenario more likely than anything else.
Another thing that kept us apart of course, was all the interviews for those that came to swear fealty. As expected, the volunteers were about twenty-five hundred, and just over a thousand of those volunteered for fleet. Thankfully, she didn’t have to interview them all, that would have taken months, but she did interview all the ones that were receptive to the idea of serving on council.
That turned out to be a little less than a hundred. It took a few days, but in the end we had a council for Polperro.
That second night we caught another two hundred guards or so, and Ashera’s mission was successful for those other seventeen. We’d lost twelve, less than half of what we had the first night. After that though, things died down, they’d stopped attacking our guard patrols at night. Amara, Gorwin, and Ashera had no luck finding them outside the city either.
They were either planning to change strategies, or had simply given up, lost their guard uniforms, and were trying to blend in. Probably in the hope of escaping justice.
Or… the sorceresses on Polperro hid bodies better than the ones on the previous islands. I kind of doubted that one, but it actually brought a smile to my face once or twice. It’d only been a few days of silence after all.
Things with my other mates, Sharon, Lia, and Amara, couldn’t have been better. We were all upset by the thing with Daphne, and were hardly all smiles, but instead of pulling away from each other, or letting that get between us, we actually pulled closer together and took comfort from one another. Both in bed, and out.
It was really hard to believe that it had only been a week ago, when it all went to shit. It felt like longer. Ironically we still spent a lot of time together, for all the official kingdom crap, just without the usual private smiles involved, or shared skeptical looks when one of the grand council was being stupid.
It was only the meals, and after dinner where we’d truly been informal together, and she just avoided those directly, and took meals in her room while barring all visitors.
Worse than the guards look of concern, the grand council seemed almost delighted at her isolation. More than once I’d have liked to strangle a few of them, when they sent a knowing look my way. Either way, I was completely out of patience, but I also had no idea what to do. I also couldn’t abandon the mission, it’d been my idea, and I still believed in it.
I’d never forgotten that I worked
for the goddess, or what she had done for me that day when I laid on the ground bleeding out. Even two years later I had faith, and loved the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. Even if I couldn’t quite remember what she looked like, outside of her midnight blue starry eyes.
It was the next day, and another crisis, which finally brought things to a head.
Chapter Ten
It was late in the day, and we all sat around the table and ate dinner. The day was similar to the last, Daphne was still giving a crash course on laws and responsibilities to the new council, so we could start the judgements on the over two thousand prisoners. I was actually starting to doubt our new six-week schedule would work on Polperro, everything was larger, and would take longer.
Not to mention, five hundred missing guards would be a hell of an insurgency if they organized and used hit and run tactics. That wasn’t really a thing on this world, not yet anyway, but if anyone had a glimmer of intelligence on the other side they could do it. Honestly, I hoped they didn’t really care that much about the old kingdom and were just trying to hide.
I wasn’t excited about the possibility of them not getting punished for their crimes, but better that scenario than the others I’d run through. I also feared they were just waiting for us to move onto the next island, without me there, the dreaded diviner, they may feel they had a better chance. Between the wards, and our training, I didn’t believe they would, but they’d harm a lot of people before they failed.
That’s about when Melinda walked into the room. Her face was hard, and slightly strained.
“Come with me,” she ordered.
That wasn’t like her to be so high handed, or at least, not anymore, which set off all my alarm bells. The rest of us exchanged glances, and then got up and followed the admiral into a meeting room on the first floor, our dinner already forgotten.
Melinda said, “Lia, shield the room please.”
I felt her put up the wall of air which would muffle and disrupt sound wave transmission through air.
Then… Melinda sagged, and sat on a chair. Her eyes looked haunted.
Sharon moved over to her and asked in a concerned voice, “What happened?”
We all took seats, while the Admiral tried to get a hold of herself.
“New dispatch, from our spies on the kingdom isles. Everything has changed.”
I frowned, “What happened?”
Melinda looked up at me, “The king. I think he’s desperate. We’ve been taking one island after another, and nothing he does stops it. We’ve even been increasing our fleet each time. Now we have over a hundred ships. He came up with a new tactic to cut our legs out from under us. He sent orders to all thirty-two islands, to remove any possibility of our fleet getting larger.”
Lia’s eyes narrowed angrily, and I had an idea of what she was about to say too, but I couldn’t quite believe it.
Melinda continued, “He gave orders to kill every suppressed sorceress in the kingdom, to limit our resources to what we have now, as well as all the ones held awaiting a diviner.”
Amara gasped, “That’s insane.”
Sharon was stunned, “What do we do? Isn’t it too late?”
Melinda said, “It is insane, and evil. It was also stupid, the arrogant jackass started a civil war. Each of the thirty-two islands left in his hands are in open rebellion. Even the guards are split on the issue. Even some of the worst, who liked the power over women, and the fringe benefits of raping them, were horrified by the idea. Perhaps some just didn’t want to kill their entertainment, I don’t know. Regardless, the islands are coming apart at their seams.
“There are loyal guards, and the governors that will obey the king, but many of them turned along with the populations. The king went too far. Sorceresses have been killed of course, but a lot of them have gone into hiding, and many of the guards have been torn apart in riots. It’s ugly out there.”
I sat down, numb, as the unintended consequences of my ambitious plan, and perhaps naïve one, filtered through my mind. There was no way we could continue on with the original plan, we needed a new one, and a much faster one. I hated the idea, because the slowness of the plan is what made it solid, and is what would keep it from being corrupted too much by those that would try and seize power and influence.
But… the longer it took us, the more would die as the old kingdom tore itself apart.
Jenna said, “We should take Pheles, now. Before he makes it even worse. Daphne even has a claim on the Iziral throne when it comes to that.”
Melinda looked around the room with confusion on her face.
“Where is the queen, she needs to be here to help us plan.”
I sighed, “It’s a long story, they’ll fill you in while I get her.”
I felt determination as I stood up and walked out. I took the stairs up, and of course the first obstacle I had to get through was the guard that stopped me at the top of the stairs. I didn’t give her a chance to talk.
“There’s a crisis, and I need to see the queen now. Admiral Melinda is downstairs.”
And I walked right by her and her team. She looked a bit torn as to what her duty was. The queen had obviously ordered her not to let me by, but she’d also been taking orders from me for the last two years on protecting the queen, and she knew I wouldn’t make shit up to sneak past her. Regardless, whatever her decision ultimately would have been, she didn’t decide in time to stop me.
I didn’t bother knocking, she wouldn’t have let me in. I could feel where she was, and it was in her sitting room, alone and probably still eating dinner. I simply opened the door, and closed it behind me as I walked through the receiving room, straight to where she was.
She looked up at me in shock, and her face paled in anger.
I had a whole speech prepared, but it went out the window. I could tell she was about to yell for the guard and throw her weight around again.
My own actions surprised me, as I closed with her, bent down, and pulled her into a kiss quite firmly. I’d been wanting to do that for two years, even if I hadn’t let myself see the truth of that until last week.
She struggled for a moment, and then sighed and started to respond.
I was really glad I was right, about my theory that she still loved me, or things wouldn’t have worked out quite so well. After all, assaulting the queen was a capital offense.
Her lips were so soft, and she melted into me, and started to kiss me a bit hungrily. Her scent was a balm to my soul, as I showed her exactly how I felt with that kiss. I put all my love, respect, and the deep need of her in my life in that kiss. Then, I reluctantly broke it.
She looked into my eyes for a moment, and then blushed. She also looked confused.
I said before she could compose herself and speak.
“I love you, I’ve loved you for two years. When I first saw you I was taken by even your nascent beauty, which was a mere shadow of what it is now. I was in awe how well you took me snatching you from the mansion, and your strength. The look of intelligence, and fierceness in your gorgeous green eyes was mesmerizing.
“Over the next few months, I fell in love with your confidence, compassion, your presence, the way we grew as friends so quickly. Everything about you, enamored me. You are everything I could ever want, and I miss you, and I love you more than you know. That night last week was a misunderstanding, one born of societal taboos on my world that don’t exist here. I’d… fooled myself, but I’ve always loved you. The others miss you too, a very great deal.”
She studied me for a while, the way she used to, and I couldn’t help the smile that slipped out.
“What are you saying?”
I replied, “That I’m sorry for what happened, but it wasn’t meant how you took it, it was a horrible misunderstanding. I’m saying that I love you, and that I want you to be happy, as my mate, and alongside my other mates. I want to put a smile on your face, every single day for the rest of our lives. I need you Daphne, I always have, ever
since the day we met.”
She asked, “I see, so you think you can just barge in, kiss me without permission, and then take me to bed?”
Her tone was half serious, but also half teasing.
I shook my head in regret.
“I’d like nothing better than to make love to you all night, and start our life together this very moment. I want you to be mine, as much as I want to be yours.”
She blushed, and I continued, “But the truth is I’d been waiting until you were ready to hear these things, I was afraid to try and force it, and maybe push you away farther. Tonight’s… forcefulness in trying to clear up the misunderstanding was for a different reason, we need you back, and we’re stronger together.
“Melinda is downstairs, and she just told us that the last thirty-two islands are in civil war. The king did something very stupid, he ordered all sorceresses killed, both the suppressed ones, and the ones waiting in jail. The islands are in open revolt. We need a plan that won’t take four more years, and we need you there to help form it, and to approve it. I’m truly sorry for the pain I caused you, it hurt me as well.”
I couldn’t help but add that last bit. She seemed to have forgiven me, as soon as she realized I loved her in fact, but there was a part of me that worried anyway, like she’d snatch it back. I supposed that feeling probably wouldn’t go away completely until I’d made her mine and formed the bond. She was gorgeous, and I couldn’t wait to explore her sexy supple body, especially her extremely large breasts which set her apart from my other mates physically, but that was just a small part of the whole.
She replied, “I’m sorry too, I thought you didn’t want me, and I…” she shook her head, “I love you Tony, but we’ll have to finish this conversation, and other things, another time.”
For the first time in a week, the easy smile that came felt completely natural.
She changed the subject, “Let’s get downstairs, we obviously need to change our plan, though the goddess knows to what.”
Tony and the Queen of Iziral Page 6