Isle of Wysteria: The Reluctant Queen (12 page)

“No, it doesn’t,” Athel confirmed as she held Alder against her shoulder.

“Well then, what does?”

“That’s it!” Dr. Griffin shouted, snapping his fingers. “The effects aren’t chemical, they're magical!”

“What do you mean?” Mina inquired.

“Don’t you see? It’s like that sleeping spell I wove into the lager we fed to the Umor Guild. I’m sure of it, I bet Ryin’s virginity on it.”

“Hey!” Ryin protested.

“...that must be what this whole mirror array and the altar is for. Some kind of summoning table that gives ruper spice its potent properties.”

“Summoning table?” Athel asked as she raised her head. “To summon what?”

It was then that something grabbed Athel’s ankles. She tried to take a step back, but fell backwards onto the mirrored floor.

* * *

Aden could feel another Treesinger collapse from exhaustion nearby as Buckeye bent over again. Another wave of Navy ships was almost on top of them now, their hulls casting dark shadows over the forest.

“For every one we take down, five take its place,” Aden complained as she held up her staff, her arms trembling with exertion. Cannon balls thudded into Buckeye’s trunk and branches as another pine cone grew to size. Long drops of amber sap dripped out of her wounds in a dozen places. Despite her injuries, Buckeye reached out with some of her branches and shielded Aden from a volley of cannon fire as it tore up the forest floor around them.

The song of the forest was weakening. Pockets of panic and confusion sprang up faster than the Queen could calm them. The harmony of the forest was being overtaken by the crack of cannon fire and the snapping of wood.

In the middle of it all was Captain Tallia. When the Treesinger next to her fell from a rifle shot to the stomach, she planted her staff in the ground and prepared her tree for the next volley in addition to her own.

How many did this make? Aden had stopped counting at 83.

“Fire!” Captain Tallia shouted, her voice hoarse but strong.

Aden released Buckeye, her projectile slammed into a ship directly above her. The Navy ship buckled under the strain of the impact, then collapsed in half, sending dozens of screaming sailors falling in all directions.

Aden weakly lifted her staff to detonate the cone, but nothing happened. Her reserves were completely depleted. The pine cone fell back down to the ground and buried itself in the ground with an inert thud.

A mortar shell hit the ground and exploded near Aden. So loud that it overpowered her hearing, the world became silent as she felt herself thrown back against a shredded tree trunk. Aden fought to right herself, but her broken body refused to comply. She sat almost detachedly, the world spinning around her as trails of amber-colored blood ran down her face.

As her vision cleared, she saw a new kind of ship above her. Crimson red with a bronze prow shaped like a dragon, the enormous metallic mouth slowly cranked open, revealing row upon row of Iberian Fire-Breeders inside, readying their spells for release.

Oh no.

A magical bolt of green energy struck Buckeye. With a moan, she collapsed to the ground, her leaves withering from the curse. For a moment, the two lay there motionless, bits of dirt and ash landing around them. Carefully, Aden reached out and took one of Buckeye’s branches in her hand. She squeezed her dying tree and Buckeye squeezed back. Above them, fifty Fire-Breeders combined their strength and released an enormous river of flame. The heat could be felt for miles in all directions. As the conflagration descended down upon them, Aden closed her eyes and squeezed her hand tight. In her last moment, her greatest regret flashed before her.

I’m sorry, Privet.

* * *

Athel kicked her feet and slid away as something rose up out of the mirror where she had been standing. It was an exact copy of her.

“Oh, this isn’t good,” Dr. Griffin said as copies of each of them rose up from the mirrors.

“Take them out,” Evere commanded, drawing his cutlass.

“Oh, I've been waiting for a chance to do this,” Privet said with a grin. Stepping inside the defenses of Athel’s duplicate, he blocked her blow easily, then slashed straight through her neck, decapitating her. His smile quickly vanished when he realized that his sword simply passed through the copy without having any kind of effect at all.

“Dung beetles,” Privet swore, jumping back as the copy stabbed at him, tearing a hole in his jacket.

“What do you mean, you've been waiting for this?” Athel hissed, ducking under a quick thrust from Evere’s copy.

“We don’t have time to fight all these...whatever they are.” Evere slashed his cutlass at Ryin’s copy, their blades clanging together.

“We need a plan to get out of here,” Athel concluded as she lept forward into a sommersault, barely escaping a backhand slash from Evere’s copy. “Something that involves tactics, discipline, and above all, no loss of life.”

Margaret covered her head and cowered, but Privet stepped in front of her, blocking an attack from his own copy. “Well, that sounds like a good...”

“Privet, take one for the team,” Athel yelled, rolling to her feet. “Hold them off while we escape.”

“Hey, that’s a suicide mission!” Privet protested, blocking a slash from the front, the quickly spinning to block another from behind. “I thought you said no loss of life.”

“I meant my life, now go!” Athel said, slicing through the legs of Evere’s copy without affecting it.

Privet scoffed and leapt sideways to avoid attacks from Margaret’s copy. “My apologies, princess, I seem to have given you the impression that your orders matter to me. I shall not make the same mistake again.”

* * *

The song of the forest was falling apart. Panic and grief threatened to completely overtake the forest. All over the southern penninsula, families and soldiers clogged the roads as they attempted to flee towards the capital. Fire ships were releasing rivers of flame, setting huge sections of the forest ablaze. The remaining Treesingers fought to reposition and replant as many trees as they could further inland, but those trees too old or too stubborn to move themselves were set ablaze, their screams rising up above the noises of cannon fire and lighting. Many of these trees were the oldest and wisest of their kind, the caretakers of history that had lived on the island since its creation. Now, they were burning, their beautiful voices never to be heard again, their stories lost forever.

* * *

Up on the bridge of the Indomitable, Nicole fought the urge to cover her ears. The screams of the dying trees was truly horrible to hear. Although the noise itself was a deep moan, it felt like the cries of a newborn to her. The destruction of something innocent, something pure.

To the north, she could see a Lightning galleon, white-hot flashes of magic raining down from the metal protrusions of its bow which looked vaguely like an insect’s mouth. Below, the lighting inflected horrible damage, trees bursting apart into splinters, or set ablaze, left to thrash about as they burned to death. One of the trees, burning and bleeding long streams of sap, defiantly tore a boulder out of the ground and threw it at the galleon, smashing its bow and sending it careening off to crash into the forest below.

To the east, the sky grew momentarily dark as a Tirrakian Bireme gathered together the sunlight around it and released it as a tight beam, slicing straight through the trunk of one of the taller trees. Its severed top section fell into the burning forest below. Under the influence of several Treesingers, one tree grew up tall and straight, piercing through the center of the Bireme like a lance, tossing the ship’s rowers in all directions before slowly plummeting into the forest below.

To the west, a Paxillus Plague-Ship released clouds of death into the forest below it. Purple streams of toxin that caused everything it touched to shrivel and wither.

“Admiral, their defenses are shattered. Should I signal their leaders and demand their surrender?” Nicole asked hopefully.

Admiral Roapes laughed, an unusual reaction for him. “Nikki, do you really think the Stone Council would allow me to get away with simply giving these rebels a bloody nose? No, an example must be made. We must make sure that any time another island even thinks of defying the Stone Council, they will think on this day and be so filled with terror they are cowed into abandoning the idea completely.”

“Were those their exact words?” Nicole asked, terrified.

“Almost,” Roapes said, taking a long swig of wine. “They mentioned that to rule by fear is to rule completely.”

Nicole couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She had joined the Navy to help people, to save lives. As she looked out on the pillars of smoke and embers rising up from the dying forest, she couldn’t help but feel responsible for being part of such a cruelty.

“And what if they signal their surrender?” she asked.

Admiral Roapes leaned back and received a chocolate placed in his mouth by Jessica’s long slender fingers. “The Stone Council commands us to ignore any such communication.”

Nicole could only turn away. She felt like throwing up.

With the entire southern forest ablaze, the Navy ships now turned north. Before them was the impressive sight of Cliffrose, the Wysterian capital. The Royal Tree towered above everything else, more than two miles high, its branches opened up like a canopy above the capital, as if it were a mother protecting her children.

“Incoming message from Stretis, Miguelito,” Rachael announced, filing her nails.

Admiral Roapes looked overwhelmingly pleased with himself as the image of Erin Strelan magically flickered to life before him on the bridge.

“I trust the battle is going well?” Erin asked, nonchalantly taking the tip of her braid and flicking it back and forth against her nose.

“It could not be otherwise. I have fought with all the skill and strength I posses,” Admiral Roapes boasted, as if he had done everything himself. “The bark-lickers’ capital is within our sights. The battle will be over in a number of hours.”

“Excellent,” Erin said. “I will inform the Stone Council of our success. You have permission to proceed to Phase two.”

The image of the Dutchess faded before them.

“Nikki, signal all ships to assume attack formation mesai on the capital.”

“Um...Aye, sir,” Nicole responded weakly, trying to shut out the horror around her.

“Admiral, someone has climbed to the top of the largest tree,” the ship’s bosun called out as he looked through his telescope.

Nicole pulled out her own spyglass and looked at well. Dressed in pure white, a woman stood at the highest point, her cape of flowers fluttering in the breeze. “It’s Queen Forsythia,” Nicole confirmed.

The viewport became filled with light, forcing everyone to shield their eyes with their hands.

“Pilot, turn us away from the sun,” Admiral Roapes ordered.

“The sun is to our portside,” the pilot confirmed.

“Then what is that?”

Slowly, the light concentrated itself into the visage of a woman. As tall as the Royal Tree itself, she hung floating in the air. Her skin and clothes glowed with divine radiance, brighter than the sun.

“What is that?” Rachael asked, slowly uncovering her eyes.

“It isn’t the Queen. It’s Milia, their goddess,” Nicole realized aloud.

Milia closed her eyes and sidestepped, becoming one with The Royal Tree. Both overlapped each other, existing at the same time. When the visage of Milia raised her arms, the tree raised its mighty branches.

Admiral Roapes stood up, his eyes alight with ambition. “Nikki,” signal all ships ahead full.” A twisted and sadistic smile crossed his face. “Today, my friends, we go down in the history books. Today, we are going to kill a goddess.”

* * *

Alder backed up slowly as his copy circled in towards him. He scurried round a bronze cauldron, placing it between them. His copy grinned evilly and drew out a rusted blade.

“Bad form, I must protest,” Alder said, pointing his finger. “I don’t even have a sword, so why would my copy have one?”

Alder’s copy stabbed at him, but Athel interjected herself, blocking the attack with the flat of her blade.

Mina’s copy flanked Athel and sliced at her midsection with her claws. Athel twisted to avoid it, but it still grazed her back, sliding along the armor plating of her combat gown.

This is bad. If I wasn’t wearing armor she'd have sliced me open.

“Great Mother, your claws are sharp, Mina,” Athel swore, ducking under another swipe.

“Sorry about that,” the real Mina apologized, sidestepping an attack.

Another set of copies rose up from the mirrors, then another. Between the copies and all the reflections, the room seemed endlessly filled with opponents, slowly circling in.

“This is too many, we need to make a break for it,” Evere cautioned, blocking a blow from the side. The corridor they had entered from faded away, replaced by more mirrors, through which more copies stepped through.

“Oh, this is just great!” Athel complained as she caught a blade in a hilt lock. “First I got hit by lightning by that dog guy.”

“Murphi,” Alder corrected, placing himself behind Athel.

“Then I had to fight that shapeshifter twig,” Athel huffed, wrenching her hilt to one side, freeing her weapon just in time to block a slice from the side.

“I believe Mandi was her name.”

Athel turned around, fire in her eyes. “I don’t care what their names are!”

A copy of Mina kicked Athel in the back, knocking her and Alder to the mirrored floor. Athel looked up just in time to see copies of Privet and Evere stabbing their weapons straight down at them. Athel grabbed Alder and rolled, barely avoiding being skewered as the tips hit the floor.

* * *

Milia had become one with the royal tree. With her massive hand, she reached out and grabbed a trio of Navy Interceptors as if they were nothing more than toys and flipped them over, their crews slowly falling down to the forest below, before crushing the ships into dust and splinters with the palms of her hands.