Chapter 166 - Indecent Proposal

An hour later, my people were all long gone. Kara, Clay, and Alfred led them out through the underground tunnel. I wished them well as they took off, striding down the dark and not particularly well-built passage into the east. I was glad we had the tunnel, but I did wish we could have spent a bit more time on it. Thankfully, I didn’t hear about any collapses, so I was confident they’d made it to the far side. They’d be in the basement of the mall, where Lyonius had his daytime lair. It wasn’t the prettiest place to hang out, but I doubted they’d be there long.

Another hour passed, and then a third, after which I started questioning my judgement about how long Peter was going to take coming for me. Maybe he wanted to ensure he had a better grip on his current vassals before coming to pick up the last one?

That’s who I was: the final piece for his collection. All the other Domains in the alliance had fallen to him, and he had the orcs on top of that. Once he had me, Peter would have full control over the entire region.

Part of me just wanted to let him have it. Maybe there was a way I could remove the control stone and give it to him? If I could unbind it from myself, then just hand the thing to him, I could leave. Go somewhere else, anywhere else. I recalled the conversation I’d had with Kara about visiting my parents. That sounded awfully good about then.

But that didn’t account for the people I’d be letting down. Even if I brought all my people from the Farm with me somehow, what about the others? Gideon Carver and the folks out at his fortress. The people of Runway City, stuck under Turner’s thumb. Or even the people down at KingsHaven, who had to deal with Peter. I’d seen how he treated his people; the ones who had something he wanted were given privileges, and the others? Not so much.

At long last, I spotted the dragon flying this way. They came toward me low on the horizon, flying just a hundred feet or so above the trees and houses. I felt sure the orc horde wouldn’t be far behind. He’d want to have his stick handy to ensure I complied. That said, I didn’t want either force to get too good a look at my walls this early on.

We’d dressed up dozens of the zombies so they looked more like living beings, but it wouldn’t hold up under close scrutiny. If Peter were able to swoop in low over my walls and courtyard he’d realize very quickly that there was nobody alive down there except me. That would lead to him wondering just where all my living troops had gone, and I didn’t want him asking that question until it was far too late and they were long since gone from the area.

If I wanted to keep him away, that meant meeting him out there, before he got too close. I shot skyward, using my Flight to soar through the air toward his dragon. Peter stopped her once he saw my approach, hovering in place while he waited.

“Selena! You left so quickly, I never had a chance to make you my offer,” Peter called out, once I got close.

I rolled my eyes as I came up alongside his mount. “I don’t think you’re going to like the answer, but go ahead. Pitch me.”

“I’d rather do this on the ground…”

“In the air is just fine,” I snapped.

He shrugged, flashing me that winning smile of his. Good thing I was wholly immune at this point. “Very well, my lady. It shall be as you wish.”

Then the god-damned asshole actually stood up on the back of his dragon, and took a knee. He literally went down on one knee and fished something out of his pocket—a small, black jewelry box.

Was he for real?

He cracked the box, and even a dozen feet away I could see the rock sitting inside it. The box contained a ring made from some silvery metal. Maybe platinum, maybe white gold. I couldn’t tell. The diamond set in the center was huge, though. I might have seen a bigger diamond on some movie once, but I doubted it.

“Lady Selena, I have won all the nearby lands. Every Domain lives as my vassal now. I, King Peter Eddings, have won all the lands you can see, as far as you can see in any direction, and more beyond that,” Peter said. “I ask that you join me, rule at my side as my queen. Together we will hold all these lands, and conquer more besides. We’ll bring life and peace back to this part of the world! You’re the best, bravest, most brilliant woman I’ve ever met. Your strength is above any other person I’ve seen since the Event. Join me, and together we’ll be unstoppable!”

As pitches went, it wasn’t bad. There was no way I was falling for it, obviously. But I could see some of my old classmates swooning over it. He’d flattered me, promised to give me cool stuff, and a proposal on dragon-back was admittedly out of the ordinary. Yeah, I could totally see some of my old classmates jumping at the ’opportunity.’

Movement down below caught my eye before I could give him a reply. I glanced down. I hadn’t seen them from my walls because there were buildings and trees in the way, but from this angle it was impossible to miss the orc army tromping steadily closer to the Farm.

“Why the escort, Peter?” I asked, pointing down.

“I thought a show of force might look impressive,” he replied. “I don’t want to fight, Selena. Let’s not, hey?”

“No,” I replied, shaking my head. “Let’s.”

Then I let my altitude dip a bit and called lightning down from the sky.

Before, I’d only fired Lightning Bolts from my hands, using the spell. But the Lightning spell could also draw strikes directly from the sky. I hadn’t tried it yet. There hadn’t been call for it, so far. But now? Yeah, with Peter’s dragon being the highest target in the sky, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to test that feature out.

The bolt which drove down from the clouds was easily twice the size of the biggest Lightning Bolt I’d been able to cast so far. Clearly, using Mother Nature to help power the spell added some juice! It streaked down from the sky faster than my eye could track, so bright that it briefly blinded me, even though I’d been ready for it.

The bolt slammed into the dragon. Part of the blast hit Peter as well. The smell of burned chicken was everywhere all of a sudden, and then they just dropped from the sky. This wasn’t a controlled descent; they were headed for a crash, and at this height that was going to be fatal.

For a moment I thought I’d finished the fight with one blow, but I wasn’t that lucky. The dragon recovered fast, catching herself and then climbing back skyward again, clawing her way toward me. This time, Peter kept her at a lower altitude than I was flying at. He’d figured that out awfully fast. Unfortunate. I would have enjoyed trying that a second time.

“Damn it, that hurt!” Peter roared at me. His face was bright red, and I wasn’t sure how much of it was anger and how much was burns from the shock. His right hand was clenched tight around something. It took me a moment to realize he held what was left of the ring and its burned, shattered box. The metal had melted and run everywhere, some of it scorching his hand. The stone was gone.

“It was supposed to,” I shot back. “You need a lesson in why it’s not nice to take things that aren’t yours.”

“In this world, if you can take and hold it, it is yours,” Peter snapped. “Last chance, Selena. You destroyed the ring, but the offer still stands. Join me. Whether you do or not, I’m taking your Domain.”

“This isn’t an offer of marriage, you ass. You came to my door with an army at your back, ready to force me into marrying you. What sort of medieval bullshit is that?” I shouted. “The answer is no. It will always be no. We do not bend the knee to tyrants, ever.”

“Then I’ll just take what I want,” Peter replied.

He didn’t say anything else. He didn’t have to. I saw the dragon turning its head, veering that deadly mouth toward me. I darted back just in time to avoid the blast of fire she sent my way.

“Not that easily, you won’t,” I replied.

“You can’t stop us, Selena. You really want all your people to die? My orcs will kill everyone under your care if they have to.”

“Your orcs will try,” I said. Then I flew back toward my walls again, leaving him behind.

Peter didn’t chase me, instead keeping pace with his troops. He remained very close to the ground, which was perfect. The worst thing he could do right now would be to fly over the Farm and scout our positions. I couldn’t let him do that, or he’d realize my friends were elsewhere and hunt them down. But he didn’t want to fly too high, for some reason…guess the little run-in with my Lightning Bolt had scared him some! That was the point, so I was glad it worked out well.

The orcs would be hard enough to slow down without worrying about the dragon, too. If Peter tried to fly over the Farm, I’d just smack him with another bolt to discourage the idea. In the meantime, I soared back to my walls to check on all the defensive preparations I’d made. I still had four hundred zombies there, and they’d been very busy for the past three hours. There was a limit to how much they could accomplish even in the extra time we’d had, but I’d pushed them to do as much defensive preparations as possible.

The orcs didn’t realize it, but they were about to march their way into the middle of the best kill box I could assemble. There were way too many for me to hope at stopping them all, but I swore that whatever else happened, his army was going to leave this place so torn up they’d be useless for anything else afterward.