“The trick is, if some of them are earth wielders, we’ll have to be seven hundred feet down or so to avoid their seeing us. So, we get the best of both worlds, take out the diviners separately, and we get to avoid destroying our future fleet, or even engage them at all.”
Mark frowned, but then nodded, “I like that plan, but then I’m an earth wielder myself.”
Marie snickered.
Lia nodded, “I like that idea as well.”
“Alright, if there’s no objections that’s how we’ll attack.”
Daphne objected, “What if the other diviner sees what happened, and decides not to risk facing you alone? He could decide to flee, and I think the admiral would obey him. The bastard could take the whole fleet with him. We could claim both kingdoms, only to have to face a nascent third.”
She was so damned sexy when she was clever, and she was always clever.
“That’s a risk, is it a larger one than facing both at once? We could just trip the trap, and go with the original plan.”
I felt like we’d just gone in a circle.
“What do you think Mark, will he run?”
Mark pondered that for a moment, and then nodded reluctantly.
“The diviners are loyal to the king, but only to a point. I know their shit scared of you, since you already killed three of them. The bastard will run and write off the kingdom if you kill another.”
I pondered that for a moment, and then Mark came up with another plan. One I never would have thought of, because it increased the risk of losses.
“What if we tunnel in, and spring the trap, but then don’t kill the diviner right away. It would be dangerous, but if you could drag it out five or ten minutes, then the diviner in fleet would be off the ship and in the city. He wouldn’t have a reason to flee if his partner was still alive. The trick would be to time the first diviner’s death as close to the second’s arrival as possible. Not easy, but a chance to not face them both at the same time, and it would prevent the other from so easily fleeing.”
I frowned, how many lives on our side would it take to buy that time? Then again, how many would die if I had to take on both of them at once? My voice was reluctant as I agreed.
“That seems the best of our options, but let’s come up a little way from the city, not far enough away to make them suspicious, but far enough to add a minute or two before we can close into magic range. We also need to put a couple of air users high in the air and out of magic range, to watch the city streets past the wall. They can signal when they see the other diviner and his guards getting close. That will take some of the guesswork out of it.”
Marie replied, “That should be doable.”
Lia asked, “What if he runs anyway, even if he’s close?”
“We’ll chase him,” I said, “Once the first diviner is dead, I can channel from ten or so air wielders and freeze all the guards at once. We’ll chase the diviner if we have to, while the others bracelet whoever lives and then they can move to take control of the city.”
Daphne shook her head, “Any guards left that serve my father are guilty of the largest massacre ever known, just kill them, it will be faster. We don’t want to give the diviner a minute head start, and it will take at least that long for them to pass out, if not longer.”
I looked at her a little shocked for a moment, but nodded. Apparently I wasn’t the only one hiding my deep anger at what happened here. She was right though, if waiting for a judgement that we already knew the results of, would let the diviner escape us, it wouldn’t be worth it. The war could be won or lost by catching that bastard before he made off with two hundred ships.
I was also hungry from all that planning.
“So how do you all get food and stuff?”
Mark shrugged, “We just hunt wild game in the forest for meat, and sometimes we stake out the road, and buy whole wagonloads of vegetables and fruit from farmers. They don’t mind not making the full trip to the city and dealing with the gate guards, so it works out. They haven’t betrayed us to the guard yet, at any rate. Breakfast?”
I smiled, “Thought you’d never ask.”
The day saw a lot of training. We also put up fifteen more buildings, each to hold a hundred of our guards, as well as a smaller building for my four mates and myself. A queen’s prerogative I supposed, and being her mate had its advantages.
Of course, there were no comfortable beds, but at least it was shelter. It was also private which allowed us to share intimacy as we did most every night. It was quite late, before we actually fell asleep.
The next day went quickly, as we continued to both train the new sorceresses in defensive measures, and to make sure everyone knew what they were supposed to be doing during each portion of the plan.
One of the key things we taught was multi-tasking, especially for this fight. A diviner would be ripping our defenses down to make his guards’ attacks more effective. So if a group both covered their own group and the groups to their left and right, and each person actually created three separate defenses, instead of one large one, then a diviner would be forced to do three times the work just to counter one person.
That could make a huge difference in keeping our people safe.
There would still be so much to do after this battle and gaining control of the fleet. We’d finish visiting thirty-two islands over the next four years, but tomorrow would be the decisive and key battle. If we won here, there would be little doubt the remaining islands would be taken as we controlled the sea, and could invade at will. Even the wards would belong to us, and would welcome us in once I copied Iziral’s key for our hundred ships.
Chances were I’d never have to fight again, our fleet of five hundred ships would sweep the thirty-two islands in a couple of months, and do what they could to improve things under martial law until we could come and free the sorceresses’ power and build councils.
It would be a ton of work, but it would also be relatively safe work, and very low risk if we kept alert for betrayal or attack. I was sure I’d still have to defend against assassinations and such, but no more full scale battles. And once those four years were over, I could spend time with my mates, raise a very large family, and improve magic in ways that wouldn’t harm the world or lead to atrocities.
Literally everything, our whole lives, and the lives of this world’s people, hinged on the key battle tomorrow, and putting Daphne on her father’s throne. Specifically, taking out the last two great threats to our campaign to see a better government rise up.
If we lost, and died, it could be a long time before there was another opportunity for freedom, and everything I’d helped to do the last two years would slowly be undone by the evil machinations of the king.
The stakes were too high, both personally, and islands wide, which honestly had me as nervous as a virgin in a whorehouse.
Not that the rest would be guaranteed, nothing was. If I got sloppy, or wasn’t vigilant enough an assassin could slip by. Or, I could slip and break my neck in the tub for that matter. Still, even without me, once we removed those two diviners the world wouldn’t need me at all anymore, not to bring a better kingdom, equality, and justice.
Still, I’d just as soon I was around to see it, and enjoy my mates until I died at a very old age…
Chapter Eighteen
Turns out tunneling was somewhat of a misnomer, at least it wasn’t the way I’d imagined it would be, and I was glad I didn’t suffer from claustrophobia. Let’s just say I tried not to think too much about the seven hundred feet of dirt and rock above my head. The so called tunnel was more like a big room, that both grew in front of us while we walked, and shrunk behind us, as it was filled in.
I was also extremely aware that what magic could accomplish here, was beyond what was possible back home. Tunnels at seven hundred feet down would be extremely difficult.
I could feel several other people around us, through the rock. We were split into twenty groups of a hundred, since the earth wi
elders could only control so much dirt and rock at once. All the earth wielders would feel the other groups around them in range of magic. Or rather, they’d be able to feel the earth moving as the other groups’ rooms trundled forward, and keep the same distance from each other as we moved deep underground, which would keep us in formation.
The question of course, with the surface being out of reach, how would they know when to stop? Well, they were depending on me for that. I’d be able to feel the magic of the ward on the city’s walls, which should reach down six hundred feet or so below the city. Then we’d back up about a thousand yards, and rise up together at Marie’s signal, which would be shaking the ground.
Shaking the ground while underground, in an enclosed room, didn’t sound all that wise to me, but with magic it should be okay. It helped that I trusted Marie with my life, but it was still a bit nerve wracking truth be told.
It was relatively quiet as we walked for just short of five hours under the ground, and I’d suppressed several urges over that time to tell me mates that I loved them. It would sound too much like saying goodbye. I was afraid one of us might be killed, but I was reluctant to give in to that feeling.
Besides, I’d made love to all of them last night, and told them each how much I loved them then, more than once. Doing it now would be… morbid, and they all knew how I felt, I’d told them and showed them every day.
Also, we were all in the same group, so if they got through our defenses, chances are we’d all die together anyway. Except for Amara, who had to be outside of everyone to weave the ward with the other two elves.
Honestly, I thought we had an excellent chance at victory, it was just the pressure of the high stakes involved. The king had become a monster just to lure us here, to give him this chance before it was too late for him to rebuild his kingdom. Well, we’d give that chance to him, and bury the fucker.
Anger helped drive away the worry.
“We’re here,” I said a few minutes later, when I felt the edges of the ward.
We all turned, and walked back for a couple of minutes, and then prepared ourselves for what lay ahead. I needed to be focused. Then I felt Marie’s magic surge, the ground shook, and we shot for the surface quickly. The stone beneath us like an elevator floor, and the ground and stone above us moving quickly out of the way.
We came up about four hundred yards from the city, two hundred yards outside of magical range. It was a bit closer than planned, but not bad. We also heard the cries of alarm as the dirt rose and was thrown up into the air from our showy entrance. It didn’t last long though, aided by the magic of the earth wielders the dust cloud settled preternaturally fast.
I felt the elven ward come up that would protect us all from having our magic directly suppressed, and we moved forward at a deliberate and menacing pace, all designed of course, to minimize the time between the start of the battle, and when I could kill the diviner.
Problem was of course, it wouldn’t exactly be easy to kill him at will at the chosen time. I wasn’t even sure if I could beat him at all, much less on schedule. It was the riskiest part of the plan, if I failed the other diviners would succeed at joining forces.
We reached magical range all too soon, and then all hell broke loose. It was impossible to track it all, so many walls of air, earth, and ice rose up before all our groups to defend us, and at the same time earth, air, fire, and water were thrown at the walls and defending guards.
I can only assume my enemy tried to suppress me and failed. I also wondered how he’d react when he couldn’t snuff anyone else’s magic on our side either. He could still target the defenses, but not our people. Elven magic worked on life, to protect life, not the elements.
It was only moments later, when he started to tear down some of our defenses, and even turn them back on us. Yet, he couldn’t keep up with our numbers, or the amount of protections we were raising.
Of course, neither could I. For every defense I tore down, ten more sprung up. The first time we were here, and at the beginning of the campaign, the guards didn’t know how to effectively fight a diviner. Apparently they’d fixed that gap in their training over the last two years. The enemy was evil, not stupid.
This went on for about two minutes, pure elemental chaos covered the fields between us.
The enemy diviner changed tactics first, since we were obviously at a stalemate. Then I froze as the enemy diviner stole the air around us, and froze it, a more direct attack.
Without being suppressed, I easily stole it right back, and then returned the favor, which he countered.
I grimaced as he stole the earth below us, and it started to rumble. I had a mental picture of the earth swallowing us, and stole it back, as I once again froze his air. We went back and forth this way, a direct fight which I’d wanted to avoid, as we attacked each other directly instead of through our guards by stealing each other’s elements.
Both of us ignored the chaos and fight around us. I had to keep us all alive from the diviner’s attacks, and had to trust everyone else to defend us all from the rest of our enemies, and they were outnumbered three to two.
Luckily, magic meant those odds didn’t mean nearly as much on this world, as it did on my old. Relative strength of magic, and experience meant far more. Our guards were very well trained.
Still, people were dying, on both sides, but I really couldn’t keep track of it all. I felt one whole group wink out, fifty brave women just gone. That was war, and war sucked.
I continued to play keep away with the elements with the other diviner, and continued to threaten his life as he threatened mine. Except, I didn’t try the deadliest thing I knew, because I had to wait. In what was probably just thirty seconds, but already felt like a half an hour, I waited for the signal, and we went back and forth.
He captured the air again, and simultaneously stole the water from some water wielders in the group, and then froze and exploded it into sharp shards of ice.
I went after that first, and stole the shards of ice back before they could impale anyone, and then took our air back, all while duplicating his attack on his end. It was overwhelming, and required complete focus. If I failed to keep focus, everyone would die, and the new kingdom would fail before it got started.
No pressure. But then, I didn’t even have the time to worry either.
I knew two years ago, I’d have been dead already, as I’d improved greatly since then. Even now though, without the elves, I’d have been dead. I had to trust the goddess, she’d given me what I needed to do this, by simply blessing me with the mates she provided.
“Lia, when I say now, sound dampen everyone.”
Lia didn’t reply, but I know she heard me, she was busy too.
We went back and forth for a while more, and then the signal finally came, the other diviner was coming.
My plan was to vacuum his ass, the first thing I ever did. That might not work though, if he grabs the air fast enough, so I planned to stack the deck. I needed a distraction first.
“Now!”
I created one of the sonic weapons above us, and at the same time reached for the wards on the walls, which would defend against that, and twisted and suppressed them.
Just because he got a say too, I also stole our air back, and the ground under our feet again, as I felt Lia protect all the groups from sound.
Then it happened, for a split second his attacks faltered. Before he could put up a defense against the sound, I channeled from Lia, and six other air users, and created a vacuum along the southern wall. I couldn’t get it all, but I made sure the diviner was included in the attack.
I dropped the sonic attack, there was no point to use it further, sound wouldn’t travel in vacuum. The enemy diviner was disoriented from the sound, and now the inability to breathe as the air was sucked from his lungs. It was enough discomfort and pain between the two that he didn’t retaliate, or try to retrieve the thickened air bubble holding back the atmosphere.
Three sec
ond later I released it myself, and there was a loud crack in the air as the vacuum was filled with a shockwave of air. More than half their guards, and the diviner were either outright dead, or completely stunned.
Our people attacked. Flames, shards of ice, weapons of earth and of air all came down on the suddenly defenseless guard like judgement from above. I felt their magic wink out with their lives, and took a deep breath. We weren’t done yet.
There were still over a thousand enemy guards, on the flanks, we’d taken out the center.
The watchers in the air signaled that the second diviner was rabbiting as we suspected would happen, so I had no choice but to leave the last thousand for our troops, and our group of fifty, including my mates, ran for the gates.
I felt the elves angle in to join us, they’d be needed for the next confrontation, and the groups out here wouldn’t be any safer if they stayed. They had no problems getting in position just around our group at a dead run before we reached the gate, elves ran much faster than humans could.
Our group of fifty protected us from a few attacks from the flanks of the surviving guards, but most of the enemy faced the rest of our forces, and ignored our passing. They didn’t really have a choice, as our guards were keeping them on the defensive.
That was their last mistake, they should have tried harder.
At the wall, the circumference of my range encompassed all of them, I didn’t even have to stop the all-out run for the second diviner in order to create vacuums around the two surviving groups of five hundred, for just a split second while in range, and then I let it go. The concussion similarly stunned or killed them, and our forces finished off what was left as we ran into the city.
I focused on the diviner and watched for traps, that was my only concern, but I knew our troops would be following us into the city to start securing it. There was nothing left to stop them from doing so, except the one man fleeing from my group at this moment.
I was tempted to fly as we chased, but closing faster wouldn’t help if he stole our air and we fell to the ground at that kind of speed. I was a bit surprised he didn’t take to the air, but then maybe his thoughts were running similarly to mine. I hoped he didn’t jog every morning like I did, we absolutely needed to catch his ass before he got within magical range of the fleet.
Tony and the Queen of Iziral Page 11