It seemed like a place that small wouldn’t need so many guards, but a rough count told me there were close to a hundred, and there were still a few stragglers. The guards in the kingdom were so high in number to keep the populace in line. I estimated the port city was about the size of Haven, which meant maybe two thousand people?

  That kind of guard to citizen ratio, one out of twenty, was more appropriate for a jail, than a community. Of course, penitentiaries in the U.S. had a higher ratio, between one out of five, and one out of ten usually, but it was still a valid comparison. Especially since all the guards here would have magic.

  Melinda said, “Alright, ground teams get ready, it looks like they’re going to try and deny us a landing.”

  She turned to me and asked, “What do you think about the flanking plan for this?”

  I nodded, “That will work.”

  She smiled grimly, “Make it happen.”

  I understood finally what bond I shared with Melinda, she hated the raping evil bastards as much as I did, if not more.

  The ground team was made up of close to sixty volunteers. The ship’s crew was close to twice that number. Everyone looked ready to go, and confident, but not thrilled after what had just happened. Which in my opinion, was a good thing. War was a sober pursuit. Even in my deep anger and determination, I’d felt regret at the loss of life.

  “You ready?” I asked our group.

  They all nodded, and Lia surrounded us with air, and we took off. I was glad the princess was back on the ship, that had taken some stubbornness to make happen. A battle was no place for our intended queen. It was bad enough I had to worry about Sharon, Lia, and Amara, all without letting them know I was worried.

  We didn’t head straight for the city, but towards the shore of the island about a half a mile away from the city. This was our plan if the defenders tried to prevent a landing by setting up their defenses close to the shore. It was in fact, an obvious and perfect fit for one of the scenarios we’d gone over.

  Simultaneously, the ship would move forward to engage those forces from the water, while the ground troops moved in from their flank. It completely addressed their landing denial approach, and enabled us to still use all our forces, including the ship’s crew. They’d have been better off using the strategy we had at sorceress haven, and just focused on addressing our landing forces.

  The problem was that they really couldn’t, their port city wasn’t built two hundred yards away from the shore like Haven was, it was built right at the shore. So I supposed they were doing the best they could.

  Sharon and Lia both squeezed my arm, and gave me a look that said everything as we closed in to our flanking position.

  We weren’t even being sneaky about it, there was no point. They had to have seen us flying over the water to their southern flank. There wasn’t much cover out at the edge of the island either.

  We stayed just out of range and waited, it wasn’t a long wait before we got the signal to go. A large ball of fire shot toward the shore, and the ship surged forward, which was the signal for us to move as well.

  A large stone wall grew before us, and a wall of fire appeared, ice formed from the sea next to us, rocks, and wind were sent at the enemy.

  They brought up a wall of their own on the flank, which I knocked down with my power as a diviner. Several other protections popped up on their side, and I used all my focus to bat down their efforts.

  Our side didn’t have that problem, and the part of the group that raised walls made of stone, air, or water consistently blocked us from the enemy’s attacks.

  Whereas every time I stole one of their magical defenses, and took it down, one or more of theirs died. After the first ten or so, they began to layer their defenses in a way that was quite effective, and I struggled to focus on several things at once.

  The battle lasted much longer than the sea battle had, but we steadily picked them off either one at a time or in small groups.

  We’d taken almost half of them, when a quick way to end the battle occurred to me.

  Like our defenders, their defenders had one person gripping the air and one to do the same to ground around them, to prevent an enemy from shaking the ground beneath them, or freezing the air around them so they couldn’t breathe. It would knock them out. Even kill them if it was held too long.

  I felt a little guilty for not thinking of it earlier, but I didn’t think I’d lose any sleep either.

  I ignored going after the defenses, and stole the magic holding their air inviolate from us. Then I channeled Lia’s power and held the air around them still. They couldn’t move, breathe, or speak.

  Their attacks, and defenses quickly waned. Our side seeing this held back from slaughter, and I released the air a few minutes later, when all had passed out from lack of oxygen.

  The battle for Aramore island was over, and I felt a twinge of guilt. Well, it was almost over. I glanced toward the center of the city where the keep stood, and according to intelligence, the jail was right there as well. There might still be some resistance before we take it, but not very much.

  “I should’ve done that sooner.”

  Lia shrugged, her face a bit hard, “Most of them will still die, after a trial.”

  True, the rapists would be hung, and while all the guards didn’t participate in that, most of them did. The rest would either be released with no more authority, or if guilty of other abuses, have their magic suppressed permanently, and possibly jailed depending on the infraction.

  Sharon cleared her throat, “Let’s get them subdued before they wake up.”

  We all moved forward. There had been more than an adequate amount of rescues over the years to have more than enough suppression bracelets to take care of the fifty-two living enemy guards. They were also put in leg chains that would make it impossible for them to run.

  We’d prepared for the contingency of surrender, although we hadn’t guessed it would be a forced surrender.

  I sighed, and looked at the surrounding wreckage and evidence of battle. The empty streets nearby were completely silent, as if the entire city held its breath. The battle had been the easy part, we were just getting started here at Aramore…

  Chapter Eight

  A large crate floated toward us over the water. I recognized it, it was the ward I’d prepared for use here once the island was taken. An earth sorceress was sending it over, the ward itself was on thousands of small ball bearings.

  It was deposited on shore without a sound.

  I cracked the lid, and activated the ward. Everything else had been prepared beforehand.

  The ball bearings rose up and started to move out in the water. They’d form a circling grid of wards that were two hundred yards apart. It would circle the entire island, and would be three rows deep in some places, with enough to be four deep near the actual port.

  Melinda had described it as impregnable, but I wasn’t sure if it was. It was close, if we paid attention. As with anything, if the humans in charge of keeping watch dropped the ball, the enemy could land and deploy forces.

  The ward itself was cast on each individual tiny metal ball. Each one was its own ward, but it would also monitor the nearby wards. If anyone tried to modify the ward, they could only do one at a time, and the surrounding wards would know what happened and report it to the wielders monitoring the wards. In short, I’d designed it to work even against a diviner.

  The ward could be subverted, but only one small part of it at a time. Making the effort worthless.

  The second thing the ward did was track water traffic, with three layers that meant it could track everything up to a thousand yards out from shore. Six hundred yards between the four grid layers, but also the two hundred yards on either side of the first and third layer. The first layer of course, would start two hundred yards from shore.

  The third thing the wards did wasn’t my idea at all, I’d stolen the idea from the ward at Pheles, if a neighboring ward was modified, the surrounding wards would fix it. That was actually a slight improvement, since a diviner wouldn’t be able to subvert all the wards surrounding the one subverted, and once the diviner left the range of the one he’d changed to get the next one, the last one would be repaired once out of his reach.

  I hadn’t been able to make the ward truly offensive, but why Melinda thought it impregnable, was because it did a fourth thing. Just like on a ship, it reserved all the water and air within its reach, which meant any invading ships would be virtually helpless while they were within that thousand-yard band around the island.

  They’d still have the air and other resources from aboard ship, within their own ship’s ward, but without the air and water outside any defenses would be inadequate. It would literally take one defending ship to take out an armada.

  Hell, a ground station on the shore could do it.

  The major weakness of course, was that I had to create a loophole for our ships. Right now the only key to the ward was around Melinda’s neck, which would work to allow access to the air and water within the ward for everyone on her ship. I planned to make one for every captain in Daphne’s royal navy personally.

  That ward key was also specially made for each specific holder. If that holder died, or the key was removed from the captain, it would stop working.

  Still, if another diviner got their hands on a live captain, and was able to study the ward key they could most likely reproduce it with study and time. It wasn’t that likely however, I couldn’t imagine Melinda allowing that to happen, she’d find a way to either remove the ward key and destroy it, or even end her life before that happened.

  It had taken me a while to develop it, but only because spell casting was so exacting and difficult. There wasn’t really anything all that ground breaking about it, I’d merely taken elements from disparate already known wards, and combined them. The only true breakthrough was using a grid instead of one solid ward.

  Even that idea I’d stolen, from sonar grid networks back home.

  Regardless, at least for now, it would be extremely unlikely that any kingdom force of any size could retake this island. Which was the whole point of my efforts.

  The last of the small enchanted metal balls zoomed out of the box and out to sea to take their place in the grid. I shut the lid, and knew I’d be doing it all again before we went to the next island. Of course, this time would be a lot easier and faster, now that I had all the steps down.

  “That should do it. Do we wait for these clowns to wake up?”

  Lia shook her head, “We shouldn’t give them any more time to prepare at the keep than we have to. We can leave five people behind to guard, and they’ll bring the prisoners to the jail when they wake up.”

  I smiled, “Sounds like a plan. Let’s go relieve a governor of his duties, and free any held sorceresses, shall we?”

  Lia assigned a guard team of five, and then the rest of us headed into the small city and straight for the keep and jail.

  There was no sign of any citizens, which was more than fine with me. We planned to address them tomorrow. Today was for battle, clean up, and preparations.

  The city itself was mostly made of stone, which made a lot of sense. An Earth wielder could build a whole city very quickly that way. At times it was still weird to adjust and think about everything in terms of magic.

  I said, “I’m detecting a number of wielders around us, but they aren’t moving.”

  Lia nodded, “Based on the numbers, there should have been around two hundred and fifty male wielders with a male population of a thousand. Most likely they’re just citizens, but everyone keep alert anyway.”

  That kind of made sense, I also felt a lot of empty echoes, no doubt a portion of the sorceress population with permanently suppressed magic.

  It made me wonder what the other three diviners were doing. Normally they’d be going on their island rounds to suppress the waiting young sorceresses. I had a feeling the king had them doing other things right now.

  At a guess, one or two were hunting me, while the other one or two were back on Pheles as a last line of defense, and probably busy knocking up as many women as they could in the hopes of breeding some more diviners. Whether the women consented or not.

  I tried not to think about that too hard, it pissed me off.

  We met with no resistance at all until we got to the keep, where there were fifteen guards on duty, and waiting in ambush.

  A billowing cloud of explosive fire headed our way as we got within magical range of the keep. I reached out to grab it, but I needn’t have bothered.

  Lia sent a hurricane speed wind ahead of us, which blew the fire backwards. I heard at least four separate screams.

  Sharon asked, “Can you freeze the air again?”

  I looked over, and she had about a hundred gallons of sea water floating above her head, several of the water wielders did.

  “I think so, just a sec.”

  There was no think about it, I stole the air surrounding them from their air wielder, and froze the molecules so they couldn’t move, breathe, or even talk. Most of the eleven remaining were too panicked at the loss of air to focus their magic, but three of them retained enough concentration even without air to send attacks our way.

  I was busy, so it was the others around me who blocked those attacks. A rising wall of stone blocked rocks, and a burst of air from Lia dissipated air attacks from above. Last but not least, the water wielders met fire with water.

  I could have ended it faster with a vacuum attack, but I wanted to take prisoners. Not only for my own conscience, but so the citizens could see justice done through a trial. There was also a chance not all of these men were evil, some could’ve just seen no way out of the perverse and evil society they found themselves a part of.

  I had a feeling though, that most men that felt that way weren’t guards.

  The women around me continued to block their futile attacks as they slowly faded and lost consciousness, as we closed the distance between us step by step. When they all fell, several of our people moved forward to subdue them in the bracelets, and more leg chains. They’d be able to walk, but not run.

  The keep walls weren’t that large, and didn’t have any spells on them.

  In this world, that pretty much meant they were ornamental.

  The keep itself looked pretty large, and at a wild guess I would say it would support somewhere around fifty rooms, depending on how big and luxurious it was. Off to the side, was another building that was clearly the jail.

  Most stayed outside and fanned out, since I only detected four magical signatures inside, and they all had the attendant bracelets.

  One of the earth wielders with us, possibly Marie, dragged the guards along behind us by their metal chains as we entered the jail. A part of me thought we probably should have gone after the governor first, but we wanted to free the ladies. We hadn’t even discussed it.

  The young ladies were shivering messes in the corner of the cell. They looked a little scared, until they caught sight of our prisoners.

  I felt a surge of magic from Jenna, but no visible fire. The cold damp room warmed up quickly. Another surge of magic from Maria, and the bracelets fell off the girls. I wanted to check and make sure they were alright, but I was six foot four and rather intimidating to those that didn’t know me. So I let common sense prevail, there were more than enough women in here with us to handle it.

  The last thing a rape victim needed was a towering man standing over them.

  Though just from a cursory inspection, I had the feeling we’d need to get a healer. There were none within my range at the moment.

  Jenna, who was usually irrepressible, touched my arm and gave me a sober look.

  “They’ll get taken care of, let’s go get the asshole that runs this place.”

  I nodded in agreement, my face grim.

  All except the ladies taking care of the four young women followed us back out, and we moved toward the keep. I turned my head toward the exit back toward the city, and saw a line of guards being escorted toward us, and the jail. Guess they’d woken up.

  I turned my head back front, and we entered the keep.

  There might have been others without magic, but all I sensed magically was three sorceresses that had been suppressed, and another who I assumed would be the governor. They were in the same location as well, or at least very close together. I reached out and crushed his magic, so he couldn’t attack us with it, or try to use it to escape. He was an air wielder, and I didn’t want him fleeing out of a window. I used his magic as a guide, and we moved through the keep in his general direction.

  It wasn’t that easy though, the damned place was a maze. It was clearly designed to confuse intruders. I could feel the direction he was in, but that didn’t mean the keep was set up to allow me to go straight to him.

  I snickered.

  Sharon looked at me questioningly.

  I said in a light tone, “The whole invasion, and a damned building is putting up the most resistance.”

  Lia snorted a laugh, “Hold on a second.”

  We all stopped, and I felt Lia reach out and grasp all the air in the building.

  Damn, wish I’d have thought of that. It basically gave her a working layout that was better than blueprints.

  She smirked at me, “This way Tony.”

  I shrugged, more than willing to yield the victory, and took the opportunity to ogle her tight sexy ass as it swayed before me.

  Sharon squeezed my arm and shot me a look of amusement.

  I shook off the byplay, and focused my mind back where it should be.

  We changed directions at least eight times as we moved up to the top level in the area where the governor’s quarters were. A lot of the time we seemed to be moving further away, but I trusted Lia’s judgement.