“We know Rhone is in the southern regions with the betrayers. His hideaway is near a lake in the mountains of Broafin. We can teleport there and surprise him. There’s no way he will expect us to attack directly.
“Your orders are this: capture if you can, kill if necessary. They have given us no choice. They were killing civilians all around the world on the Day of Joy. We will at least be targeting soldiers. Curan and Bordash, are you ready?” A great answering cheer split the air. “Are you ready?!”
The cheers grew louder, swords were thrust into the air, fists pumped, and then I signaled to one of my magical techs to broadcast the image of where we would be teleporting to. All my soldiers linked arms and within ten seconds, we had disappeared from my Great Hall and were standing in a mountain meadow.
I squeezed Daphne’s hand and released it. She followed closely beside me, but there was a new fearlessness coming from her. As we traipsed quietly through the meadows toward some log cabins, I saw her slaying the tall grasses into slices with her telekinesis as we walked. She was practicing. How would she feel if she was ever forced to actually slice off someone’s limb? Or head? Or impale their heart? We had decided against giving her a weapon that she had never wielded; at least she wouldn’t be able to hurt herself as easily with the telekinesis as she would be able to do with a sharp sword.
A chilly wind swept down snow-capped mountains and the crystal-clear lake in the distance was crawling with fishermen and women, none of whom had noticed us yet. We startled rabbits and deer as we crossed the meadows, and were just at the cabins, when the sounding cry went up of some sentry having noticed our army. Smoke puffed from the chimneys and the clattering of dishes was heard inside as the soldiers pushed aside their dinner, likely to grab their weapons and wait for orders.
We all heard the orders, loud and clear and telepathic:
“Kill them all!”
It was Rhone’s resounding voice. Bordash soldiers came rushing out of the cabins and our swords clashed, deflected their laser bullets, we flung them aside, our telekinesis outweighing their higher tech.
A grenade came hurtling toward me as I swept my sword at an assailant who had snuck through the lines. Daphne swept her arms out and away, giving a huge burst of power to the grenade, sending it skyrocketing to rain fireworks upon the far lake. I nodded gratitude, a smile I had never worn before in battle pulling at my lips, and then I was clashing again with another Bordash who was trying to get close enough to tease me.
“Remember, I want the Earthling and the Beast King alive.”
I was listening to Rhone’s thoughts and I was sure he knew it, but he didn’t seem to care. How could he be so cocky? Why didn’t he care that I would know his plan? Why didn’t he have better mental blocks from prying mind eyes?
A Curan in Rhone’s uniform floated through the air, propelling himself, flinging electroshock pins toward Daphne. They were raining toward her, and her back was turned. I flicked them aside, one after the other, but they kept coming, as if from an automatic machine gun.
“Daphne!” I cried. She turned from where she was helping stop the bleeding of one of our own, hands drenched in blood from the acidly burning laser burn in the soldier’s stomach. She looked up, just as a single shocker slipped through my rapid deflections. She reached out and squeezed her fist tight on the air. The shocker crushed in on itself with a sharp wine, and fell from the air, crumpled into inutile pieces.
I was at war with myself. Honored and privileged, and so proud, to have my Queen fighting beside me, but it was clear the Bordash were honing in on her. They wanted to her. I wondered if Vania was still alive, or if Rhone had found her to not be his Destin and simply killed her. Perhaps he was thinking that there was something special about Daphne, which there was of course, without recognizing, or accepting, that she was sewn into my soul, and my soul alone.
With a furious blast, I knocked the oncoming Bordash away from my Queen as they ran toward her, brandishing their stun guns and leaping over the fray. They collapsed backward, one’s neck bending at an odd angle from which he would never recover.
“Daphne! Take the injured and teleport back to the Castle.”
“Not without Vania! Besides, I don’t know how to teleport by myself.”
“I will find her. Please…” I grabbed her elbow, looking deep into her brown eyes, hoping she could see all my emotions: the love, the concern, the pride, the joy, the hope… “You must stay safe. For us.”
I looked over the battlefield. Where could Daphne hide? At least twenty of my soldiers were injured, ten of them clearly dead. Sasrin and his elite army were slicing through Rhone’s without a single blemish. We were working our way across the meadow and closer to the cabins. I wondered where Rhone was. I had not seen him yet.
“Fine! Just stay close to me. You’re doing a really good job with the telekinetics. Just don’t let your anger or fear for Vania take hold, okay?”
Daphne nodded and turned back to bandaging the soldier, whose leg was surely lost. Some of the Bordash weaponry would eat through flesh like acid.
There, on the edge of the fighting, was Rhone. He was standing, alone, holding his sword out, pointed straight at me. As I took a
