The enemy army was delayed and approached the city three days later than we expected. To our surprise, the foot formation of their soldiers looked as if they were not going to take the city with a fierce assault, but to calmly walk inside, as if in a parade. Imagine their surprise when, at the top of one of the towers at the gate, they saw Princess Ilifreeta sitting in a chair and Furgur standing next to her, dressed in his usual leather adventurer attire. He defiantly held the royal banner in his hands, showing the uninvited guests that they were late.
We watched what was happening from a drone and at any moment could bring down artillery fire on the enemies, but the princess herself, or rather now the queen, asked us not to interfere. She believes that she can figure everything out on her own. I don’t know whether she will succeed or not, but just in case, we prepared for a fight if something doesn’t go according to plan.
Silently, with tedious anticipation, we continued to look at the screen and watch the unfolding performance until the general gave the general order:
“General Zeonid Kudrinash is speaking, I order all soldiers to be in full combat readiness in case an assault on the city begins, we will support government forces. Is the order clear?”
"Yes, sir."
I answered along with other unit commanders.
Hearing our words, the general sat down on the sofa and drank some tea from a thermos, and we, still twitching our legs, chasing the shadow from corner to corner and biting our nails, waited for the moment when everything would go wrong.
I hope... this won't happen...
The drone was quite far away, but the camera clearly recorded how the old man in rather massive armor barely got off his horse and, coming closer to the gate, looked up in shock at the princess. Count Laroy, already familiar to us, appeared behind him, also dressed in armor and, gritting his teeth, angrily fixed his gaze on Ilifreeta. Clearly sensing something was wrong, the Duke waved his hand, after which the rebel army began to scurry around, and a wall of shields was lined up in front of the Duke, from which only his head could be seen.
A little later, making sure that he was safe, the old duke spoke:
"And how do we understand this? Why does a snotty whore meet us at the gates to the capital? What is happening?"
Hearing such rude treatment, Ilifreeta frowned, and Furgur spoke instead:
"Pitiful skeleton, how dare you address your queen like that?"
"What?!"
The Duke exclaimed in surprise, looking first at Ilifreeta and then at the mercenary.
"To the queen? Her?"
The Duke threw his head up for a second and laughed loudly. To him, these words seemed too absurd to be true. The old man’s laughter could be heard throughout the entire area, causing several soldiers behind him to also laugh, clearly indulging their overlord. The Duke did not laugh for long, he rubbed his face, and then continued:
"A mediocre whore has become a queen? Has the honorable king Monrid married his own sister? Apparently this will not last long and most likely he will find himself a worthy betrothed, and will abandon this hag and sell it to slave traders. So tell Monrid: if she is put up for auction, I am ready to give her away for She’s whole krayan and this bitch will bask on my bed every day, and I’ll... please her.”
Furgur's face was seething with rage, heating up to a red color. The guards on the walls gritted their teeth, but did not dare point a spear at the noble man until the order came. I, in turn, just shook my head, knowing what kind of grave this stupid old man was digging for himself.
At this time, the Duke stopped laughing, and Count Laroy suddenly inserted his word, whose face all this time remained even more evil than Furgur’s, as if he saw before him all the problems of his life that could be cut off with one surgical stroke of the blade.
"What does this mean?! Why are you here?! H-how?!"
"What is it, Laroy?"
The Duke became interested when he heard the words of his companion.
"She must be... must..."
Laroy did not finish speaking, either he was too shocked by such a sudden meeting or did not want to reveal to the others the whole truth about what he did to her.
The Count was clearly afraid of the undesirable consequences of his action, and when it seemed that no answer would be forthcoming from him, Ilifreeta herself added fuel to the fire by calmly answering the following:
"I mourn the death of your daughter, Count Laroy."
There was indeed sadness in her gaze. I don’t know exactly how well Ilifreeta and Diana knew each other, but I think the queen really knew her, or maybe she just felt sorry for all those who ever died in this war. She was one of the few who knew what happened in Itsqueen and chose not to reveal the whole truth to those around her, because she risked getting us into trouble, and this could affect our current relations with the natives, with whom we were about to begin trading activities.
Count Laroy literally turned red with anger at these words. He clenched his fingers into fists and did not expect that Ilifreeta knew about the death of Laroy’s daughter, because we told her about it. And she vowed not to tell anyone the truth about what happened. Laroy, meanwhile, exclaimed in surprise and questioningly:
"How do you know?!"
Ilifreeta, having heard the question, played it in her own way, much more cunningly than anyone could imagine. Still with sorrow on her face, she asked Laroy a counter question:
"Do you want me to tell everyone what really happened at Itsqueen?"
Laroy suddenly became petrified at these words. He knew that he would fall in the eyes of others if everyone found out that he kept Princess Ilifreeta, a member of the royal family, in his dungeon. The eyes of the rest of the nobles in the Duke's retinue harbored curiosity at the queen's words, one might even say some suspicions.
And although the Duke was clearly not interested in revealing the secrets between these two, even he was a little surprised by the reaction of Count Laroy and preferred to personally demand an answer from him:
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"Laroy, what is she talking about?"
"I-I’m..."
The Count could not find words, it was as if he was trapped, surrounded on all sides by enemies.
His gaze darted from side to side and after a few moments he tried to change the topic of conversation to something more pressing.
"I don't know what she's talking about! Now it's important to find out where King Monrid is! He should be here! Where is he?!"
"He disappeared."
Ilifreeta answered and took more air into her chest and continued loudly.
"From now on, I am the queen of the kingdom of Lakuus. Draun Rudrin fell in battle, from now on the crown passes to me as the true heir to the throne."
"Absurd!"
The old duke shouted.
“A woman cannot be a monarch! This is the right of men! You are nothing more than a whore who you only want to sell like a whore and die like a whore! You are no queen! You cannot be one!”
"Draun Rudrin bowed his knee before me and promised me the throne. The people are my witness."
“Draun Rudrin is a traitor! He is a vile usurper, and everyone around him is a pack of callous traitors! He did not have the right to become king! He broke the law! Which means you cannot be queen!”
"Royal blood flows in my veins. I am the daughter of the late King Leff, I claim the throne. My brothers are dead, and the youngest heir Leff is too young to rule."
“You are breaking the law! The law was written by your ancestors, the men who founded the kingdom of Lakuus! The law is hard as stone and changing its foundations is a crime in itself!”
There was little else Ilifreeta could do to convince the Duke that she was right, this was clearly noticeable by how many words she was choosing for an answer, but then Furgur leaned over to her and whispered something, after which the queen said with a proud look:
“Are you talking about the law, Duke of Athen? Is it really written in the law that women cannot rule instead of their husbands? I will tell you what is written in the law. It does not state that only men can rule. Inheritance is passed on by seniority to the eldest to the heir, regardless of whether the heir is a young man or a maiden. Your words, Duke of Athen, are empty and meaningless and themselves contradict the law about which you so zealously care. Ilifreeta, queen of the kingdom of Lakuus and will remain so until Sod takes me to his garden."
From the queen's words, unrest began in the duke's retinue. They hurled curses and addressed their warriors, preparing to rearrange the order of the army for the assault on the city. The stunned Duke kept his hand on the hilt of his sword, but before finally deciding to fight, he asked one last thing:
"Tch! Little girl. Why does the damned princess claim the right to the throne? Answer me, Ilifreeta. And how will you protect the people? How will you fight? How will you walk and how will these people look at it? You can’t even stand you can! How can you rule?
The rebels laughed in support of the Duke’s words, adding weight to his words, as if the very situation that a girl could be a monarch was simply nonsense, a fable, someone’s cruel joke, which was difficult to take seriously. However, Ilifreeta, even without the help of Furgur or Krezhd, already knew the answer, her face did not change, and she calmly answered and spoke so that everyone could hear her and everyone could hear her:
"I am pure in my soul. I did not succumb to the temptations of lust, like brother Slackersh. I did not taste human flesh, like brother Monrid. I did not bathe in power and wealth like mother Bentia. And I will not crave to remain in the world of the living for more than my due time, like my father Leff. But what I do have is a desire, a desire to help my subjects, to guide them on the right path, to calm their troubled lives on their short journey in the world. Mortals all have desires, but my desire is to rule for the people, not for myself."
The old duke, as the queen said, shook his head and chuckled:
"Beautiful words come from your lips, but this is still not enough to call yourself a queen. Everyone dreams of something, but not everyone achieves their goal. So why did you suddenly decide that you are a queen? Even if Monrid and Slackersh died , the crown is still promised first to a man, that is, Prince Fgorman."
Furgur answered this question instead of Ilifreeta:
"Since she inherited the Punishing Hand."
The rebellious aristocrats instantly fell silent upon hearing the words master of the bow. A stern grimace appeared on their faces, as if they were in a death trap. The Duke looked at the Queen silently for a while, and then said with a chuckle:
"Impossible."
Another nobleman shouted behind the Duke:
"Prove that you have inherited the Punishing Hand!"
Following this, several more nobles shouted out similar demands, wanting to see the truth. Ilifreeta smiled when she saw the reaction of the rebels. Everything went as she planned. If she shows the rebels her “punishing hand,” they will see her as a true queen, and then she will forgive them for their rebellion. The Duke will swear allegiance to Queen Ilifreeta, apologize for the words spoken, and then the rebel army will return back to the west and be disbanded.
This plan sounded good in name only, but there were still enough variables in her to ruin her card structure. However, this was expected, and soon this scenario of events suddenly began to be interrupted by one of the rebels, with a ringing sound, removing his sword from its sheath.
A young dark-haired, blue-eyed man looked at the queen with fury and almost spitting shouted:
"Liar! She's blatantly lying to all of us! She's just a Draunian whore! Don't listen to her! You need to kill her!"
And his voice resonated:
"Yes! Death to the lousy bitch!"
"Kill her!"
"Let's cut off her head!"
"Prepare for battle!"
The situation was getting out of control, and fear lurked on Ilifreeta’s face. None of us clearly expected such a reaction from the rebels; the queen could hardly say anything in response to such pressure. The guards on the walls looked angrily at the rebels and pulled arrows onto their bowstrings, ready to release them at any moment.
A fierce battle was about to break out, followed by considerable casualties. Victory would have been guaranteed to be ours, but it is unlikely that Ilifreeta would have accepted such an outcome. Sigrun, standing next to me with her arms crossed, added:
“We both heard people fighting outside. She was so scared. She clung to me and twitched from every rustle, reminiscent of the ringing of a sword and the cutting of flesh. She won’t stand it again.”
The black woman’s face was sad, but she understood that there was nothing she could do to help her now. And we continued to watch the last moments of the opportunity to establish peace, and then suddenly the queen, taking a deep breath, loudly answered them all:
"I'll prove it!"
A few moments later, all the rebels fell silent when they saw dozens of swords rise into the air behind the princess. Levitating and smoothly bending in the air, they pointed their tips towards the rebels and were ready to pierce right through the strongest shields that they had.
The Duke, seeing with his own eyes that very “punishing hand,” fell to his knees with his mouth open, and that aristocrat with black hair darted his eyes from side to side, but then soon he himself gave up, falling to his knees.
The moment we have been waiting for has finally arrived.
She did it.
The soldiers lowered their shields and began to bow their heads, as did the nobles, knights, spearmen, all bowed before the queen, whose destructive, punishing hand hung over them. From now on, they recognized her as the mistress of these lands, but whether they were loyal enough to her is another question.
"I Ilifreeta, daughter of Leff, now claim to be queen of the kingdom of Lakuus, by right of the ancient power bestowed upon me by the blood of my family."
"Long life to the queen!"
The guards on the walls shouted and then these words were repeated by the rebels.
"Long life to the queen!"
Sitting inside the castle, we breathed a sigh of relief, and the general, with a smile on his face, connected to the air and gave the order:
“Canceling full combat readiness. Everything went smoothly.
"Y-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-s-s-s-s~!"
Will was almost dancing and rejoiced.
"Yoohoo~! Victory! Without a single shot!"
"Keep it up!"
"Victory!"
"She did it!"
We rejoiced as if a great event had happened, however, it was not surprising. Finally, we managed to defeat the enemy without shedding a drop of blood. We can say that we have achieved the perfection of the art of war, as Sun Tzu wrote long ago:
"The height of the art of war is to defeat the enemy without fighting."
And that was just the beginning.
However, it was still difficult to imagine what the future would hold. Moreover, the army of Duke Fellrick still remains and no negotiations can be held with him, and therefore the general, rising from the sofa, gave a new order:
"«Archon», commence Operation «Golden eagle». Burn them out."
"This is «Archon» speaking, we are commencing the operation, taking off. Should I activate Flight of the Valkyries?"
"At your discretion."
As soon as the general answered this, the famous ancient music of Richard Wagner began to play on the main channel, and from the side of the forest one shuttle took off slowly. A little more and the war in this country will come to an end.