It took most of the rest of the day to finish clearing up the last remnants of the Battle of the Forran’s Ridge. Some were already calling it the Battle of Fallen Crowns, but Matt was going to put his foot down. The Ridge had played an important part in things, and he wanted it remembered more than the rulers who had made the whole business necessary.

  Margrave Grufen had been nearly glowing with triumph when Matt had met him. The Orc had grown momentarily panicked when he saw the state of his ruler, but when Matt had waved aside his concerns, he’d gone back to gloating.

  “They ran like sheep before the wolves, sire. You should have seen it.” Grufen shook his head, seemingly dazed by the victory. “We were down that hill and into their ranks before any of them could get those pikes figured out. They didn’t even have swords to draw, just some knives! Their archers were almost as bad, and the cavalry…”

  Matt forced himself to grin. “They didn’t stand up to your War Reapers?”

  “Not even a little.” Grufen exchanged a look with Rethferd, who gave him a knowing grin. The two Hard Scythe Orcs were immeasurably smug about having routed the Alliance so thoroughly in defense of their homeland. “There was a ruler there, some kind of princess I think. Once she was down, though, they ran like all the rest.”

  He nodded. From the sounds of it, the royalty of the Alliance had suffered pretty badly in the battle. Both the King and Queen of the Court of Ravens had died; Tiridine had cut the King down while he was fighting another three lifeguards, and the Queen hadn’t survived her fight with Balred. Their Divine Right had apparently passed to their Heir back in the Court’s own territory, but Matt doubted their deaths would be ignored.

  The two Dwarves who’d tried to kill him had turned out to be the Twin Stones, the firstborn son and daughter of the Chiefs of the Onyx Clans. Their own small royal family was not large enough for that loss to be ignored, either.

  Not that size had spared the royal family of the Order of Lion’s Roar. Six different princes and princesses had been found dead on the road, including their King’s current Heir. Most of them had died in the Band of Heroes, some of them during the initial barrage of explosions. Matt wasn’t sure how many of the surviving royalty had sworn the Oath, but he was certain that the number had just been cut down substantially.

  He shook away those thoughts. “How many surrendered?”

  Grufen’s smile told him a lot. “Most of them, actually. A bunch tried to run for the woods, but the pits and ditches caught a lot of them. Some of the rest made it a good distance, and then came back when they realized they had no food or tents. There’s still plenty wandering around out there. I’m not sure if we’ll ever be able to find all of them.”

  The Margrave pulled out a parchment to consult. “I’d say we have about fifty-two banners of peasants under guard right now, along with about a banner of Pinions, three banners of Men-at-Arms, and a banner of Siegemakers. Most of the rest are already dead or still missing.”

  It was a staggering number of captives to deal with, nearly a quarter the population of Harvesthold itself. Even Redspire would struggle to manage the load of over five thousand prisoners of war with a normal population of thirty thousand. Feeding them would be enough of a struggle; how was he supposed to guard and contain them all?

  Normally he’d have the option of trying to ransom them all back to their nations, but the remaining royalty wasn’t going to cooperate with that plan. Parole might work, but these were peasants who would be going back to a land ruled by someone dominated by an Oath of Enmity. They’d be forced to either break their word or be slaughtered for refusing. Could he really send them back to that fate?

  Of course, there was another option. Putting them to work for him seemed like a decent solution—until he remembered he wasn’t actually half the bastard his enemies thought he was. It was too close to slavery, and would undermine all of the work he was trying to do with the freeholders.

  Not to say what sticking five thousand people in a labor camp would do to some of his most important prisoners’ perspective of him, after all.

  Matt grunted. The medicines the healers had given him had been effective at reducing his pain, but they seemed to be making his mind wander. Either that, or it was hard to focus when he had so many problems to deal with. How had he managed to win too much?

  He shook his head. The broken army of Knights and Dwarves could wait. Any solutions there weren’t going to come anytime soon, anyway. “What about the other prisoners?”

  Grufen blinked. His expression grew a bit more guarded. “Ah. The Heroes, as they were called.” The Orc shook his head. “I know they come from your world, sire, but they seem to believe that you are a monster they want to kill. Are you sure they should be kept apart from the others?”

  Matt nodded. “Yes. I need to know how they got here, and if there are more of them.” He felt a stab of agony through his head, something the medicines seemed to have no effect on. “They have to be the people who gave the Alliance those weapons, Grufen. We need to know what else they shared, and what else we might need to fight.”

  The Margrave’s expression grew solemn. “I see. You’re wise, my liege. Should I have them brought to you?”

  He looked down at himself. The healers had left him propped up in a bed, but at least they had given him his clothes. The bandages were barely even visible.

  Matt sighed. It wasn’t the most regal of audiences, but he couldn’t put it off. “Yes. Please send for Gorfeld and Tanya, too. They might be able to help with things.”

  Grufen nodded. He bowed low. Then, instead of turning away, he paused. “My liege, I must thank you. For defeating this foe, for saving my people… and for caring enough about us to even try in the first place.” The Orc smiled. “I’ve wondered, occasionally, how different things could have been, had I made a different choice that day in the throne room. Now I know I made the right one.”

  He smiled. “It was my honor, Grufen. I could not have done it without you.”

  The Margrave bowed again and left. Matt lay back on the pillows and closed his eyes for a moment. He’d need to take whatever rest he could grab over the next few days. It would be hard to come by later.

  Matt tried to sit up a bit straighter as the lifeguards led the Heroes in.

  They were still dressed in the clothes they had been wearing in the battle, though their armor and weapons had been confiscated. All of them looked tense, like they were expecting a trap to be waiting for them.

  What they actually found seemed to confuse them. Matt was still in the sickbed, and Tanya was sitting across the room. She was wearing a blue dress that she’d found from somewhere and was idly scratching something out on a parchment. The woman hadn’t said much to him since she’d arrived, aside from making pointed remarks about getting himself wounded, which he didn’t think was fair. It wasn’t like he was the one wandering into a battle without armor on.

  The lifeguards finished shepherding the prisoners into the room, and then stood back. Matt watched them for a moment, and then gestured to the chairs that had been set up for them. “Please, go ahead and sit down. We need to talk.”

  “You got that right, pendejo.” The larger of the two men, a well-built guy with brown skin, stepped forward. “Who are you, and what are we doing here?”

  Tanya snorted, and Matt gave her a look. “My name is Matthew Irons. You’re my prisoners.”

  The man took another step towards him, apparently not noticing the way the lifeguards tensed up. “The fuck we are! I’m not going to be told what to do by some gringo in a—”

  Matt channeled Haunted Dust. He didn’t do anything spectacular with it, just funneled a batch of dirt into an orb over his hand. As it gathered, the man’s eyes flicked to it, and he paused. When he looked back, Matt smiled.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t introduce myself completely, I guess. You’ll have to excuse me. It’s only been a few months.” He pivoted, putting his feet on the floor. Gorfeld stepped forward with a murmured protest, and Matt gave him a pointed look. The steward subsided backwards, and Matt channeled more dust along his back and his legs. It was an effort, but he’d always had power to spare.

  He slowly got to his feet, leaning on the dirt when he needed to. Then, gritting his teeth against his own weight, he slowly lifted himself into the air.

  The man stepped back as Matt gained some height, and the others backed away as well. Matt smiled. “My name is Matthew Irons, ruler of the Kingdom of Iron. You came with an army to kill my people and murder me. For that reason, you’re going to tell me exactly how big a hole you’ve dug yourselves, so I can decide whether to push you into it before I start filling things in. Do you understand?”

  Slowly, carefully, Matt let himself settle back to the ground. He turned and formed a hand out of dust to lift his mace and bring it to his real hand. He closed his fingers around it and turned to them. “I said, do you understand?”

  The prisoners jerked and nodded. Matt watched them a moment longer, and then he gestured with the mace to the chairs. “Sit.”

  They obeyed with gratifying speed. Matt risked a glance at Tanya. She seemed a bit impressed and amused, but at least she was staying quiet for now. He limped over to his own chair. A hint of Haunted Dust shifted it so that he could sit without having to adjust it himself. He sat down a bit more heavily than he intended, but at least it was only mildly agonizing.

  He studied the five prisoners for a moment longer. Then he sighed. “All right, let’s start. Who are you, and how did you get to this world?”

  They all looked at each other. The other man, the one with blond hair and brown eyes, spoke first. “My name’s Jordan Marshall. This bunch of wizards popped out of nowhere and grabbed me while I was walking home from class. I was here before I knew what was going on. After that, they told me I’d been chosen to help them fight someone called the Tyrant of Iron who was trying to take over the whole world.”

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  Matt blinked. He glanced at Tanya again. “Well, that’s a new one.”

  He turned to the woman sitting next to Jordan, a shorter woman with shoulder-length brown hair and blue eyes. She seemed to cringe under his gaze, but she still spoke in a quiet voice. “I’m Jessica Donaldson. The same thing happened to me, only I was at home when they grabbed me.”

  She looked away and fidgeted, and the woman with blond hair and blue eyes sitting next to her spoke up next. Matt instantly recognized her voice as the would-be samurai that had tried to kill him. “I’m Alicia Svenson. Same story. Are you really the Tyrant?”

  Matt blinked. He looked at Gorfeld, who shrugged. “I suppose so. I prefer being called King, though.”

  The big guy snorted. He seemed to have recovered a bit of his belligerence. “And how did you manage that?”

  He met the guy’s eyes. “I shot the last ruler to death back in Oregon. That’s how it usually works here, so if you want the job, take your best shot.” Matt glanced at the lifeguards, who had taken a sudden interest in the conversation. “They seem to want to keep me around, though, so keep that in mind before you try.”

  “Wait, Oregon? And your last name was Irons? Son of Arnold Irons?” Matt turned to look at the last woman, who had brown hair in a pixie cut and green eyes that looked far too excited.

  He nodded. “Yes, that’s me.”

  “Holy shit! I heard about you on a true crime podcast. Your family is not happy you disappeared, by the way. There’s a bounty and everything.” She paused for breath, and Alicia nudged her. The woman looked a little startled. “Oh, yeah. My name’s Riley Polanski. No relation. Oh, and uh, sorry for trying to stab you?”

  Matt tried to keep his face stern. “It’s okay. If it helps, you weren’t very good at it.” Riley looked extremely relieved, though Alicia seemed a little unhappy. He turned back to the big guy, who was looking around the room at the lifeguards. “And you are?”

  “Miguel Hernandez. They grabbed me while I was drunk. Thought the Elf was a cute chick and didn’t listen close enough when she was talking about another world.” The others gave him a mixture of looks ranging from disapproval to disgust. He shrugged. “What? It’s not like they actually gave us any choice, right?”

  The others slumped in their chairs, and Matt nodded slowly. At the very least, their stories seemed consistent, and it painted a clear picture of what the Alliance had been up to. “Is there anyone else who got ‘summoned’ to deal with me? Or just you five?”

  They exchanged looks. Even Riley looked dejected now. Jordan spoke up first. “There were a couple others. A guy named Barry tried punching his way out when they started whipping us during our training. The guards…”

  He looked down and shuffled his feet. Alicia spoke up next. “There was that Daniel guy. We don’t know where he went, but one day he was there, and the next he wasn’t.”

  “Same with Paula.” Jessica drew her legs up onto the chair with her, hugging them tight to her chest. “Lucy, too.”

  “Lucy didn’t disappear! She escaped!” Riley seemed so insistent that Matt almost believed her, but Jordan and the others just shook their heads. She clenched her fists and whispered to herself. “She did! I know she did.”

  “They had magic and guards, hija.” Miguel’s voice seemed impossibly gentle compared to what he had been like before. “She’s gone, just like Barry. They said so.”

  Riley shook her head, unshed tears in her eyes. “We didn’t see a body. You can’t be sure unless you see one.”

  They fell silent, each of them absorbed in their own thoughts. Jordan continued. “Yeah. So just the five of us that we know about. I guess…”

  Jordan looked back at Matt and trailed off. His expression went from grieving to shocked and afraid. Alicia looked at Matt and tensed; both Jessica and Riley drew back and went pale. Miguel’s face went blank, and his fists clenched in his lap.

  “Matthew.” Tanya’s voice was soft, but he turned his head to look at her. She met his eyes and set down her pen. “Rein it in, cowboy. Please.”

  Matt stared at her for a few moments. He slowly forced his fingers to loosen their grip on his mace. Breathing was hard, for some reason. They’d been whipped. Some of them had been murdered, and he hadn’t even known they were there.

  It took a few minutes until he felt like his voice was normal. He still spoke with a growl, and he avoided the prisoners’ eyes. “Sorry. This is Tanya Richardson. She’s also here because… of some mistakes.”

  Tanya pushed herself away from the table and stood. She performed an excellent impersonation of a curtsey. “Pleased to meet all of you. You can also call me the Maiden of Art if you want. Not as fun as the Tyrant of Iron, but we all have our own talents.”

  Miguel shifted his attention to her. “Why are you here?”

  “Mostly because the cowboy king here hasn’t figured out how to send me home. Not like I want to go, though. You know they have magic here, right?”

  Alicia nodded. “Sure, but nobody really taught us much about it. A few of them started, but then we had to join the army marching north.”

  Tanya grinned. “Well, I have someone I can’t wait to introduce you to. Melren should be able to help them learn, right?”

  She looked at him, and Matt tried to sound a bit more normal when he answered. “I think they’re probably more interested in going home, Tanya.”

  “No reason why they shouldn’t be able to do both.” Tanya folded her arms and glared at him. “It’s not like they have much else to do.”

  “I want to learn magic!” Riley had her hand up in the air and was practically bouncing in her seat. “How long does it take? Is it really complicated?”

  Tanya smiled. “It’s not that bad. Our King here managed to figure it out, after all.”

  Matt sighed and shook his head. “That may be an option for you, but I don’t want any of you to feel pressured to take it. You were brought into this against your will. I don’t want you to do anything you don’t want to.”

  Miguel gave him a curious look. “You really mean that?”

  He met the man’s gaze. “I do. I’m still working on a way to get you all home, and until I find it, you can stay at Redspire, my capital. You’ll be safe and provided for as long as I am King, or until I can send you back to Earth.”

  “Is that even possible?” Jessica’s voice was still soft, and she was staring at him with wide eyes. “The Alliance said they could do it, but if they were lying about you…”

  Matt grimaced. “The person who really knew how to reach Earth was a Wizard by the name of Alerios. Do any of you recognize the name?”

  Most of them looked blank, but Jordan abruptly perked up. “Yeah. Was he an older guy? Big eyes, seemed kinda friendly?”

  Matt nodded. “He was kidnapped and forced to work for the Alliance against his will. If I can get him back, he might be able to help us return you to your homes.” He glanced at Gorfeld as well. “I might also be able to keep the Alliance from ever doing something like this again.”

  Jordan nodded. “He didn’t say much. There were guards watching, and he’d just tripped on a part of the hallway. I helped him up, and he mentioned that he hoped there were as many nice young people in Greyhenge Castle. Then they took him away.”

  “Greyhenge?” Gorfeld looked from Jordan to Matt, his expression focused. “That’s the capital of the Greymarches. The Greymark Wizards rule there.”

  Matt nodded slowly. There was no reason for Alerios to have mentioned it unless he was trying to pass a message. “Did he know you were marching to fight me?”

  Jordan looked at the others and then nodded. “Yeah. I met him the day before we marched out, actually.”

  It was a possibility then. He pictured the old man desperate for a way to get a message out. Alerios couldn’t have been sure that Jordan would be captured, or even that he’d remember the meeting, but if it was the only chance he had…

  He nodded. “All right. Maybe we can find out if he’s at Greyhenge and get a rescue mission put together. Before we do that, though, I need to know how much technology the Alliance has from Earth.”

  The others winced. Alicia was the one who answered. “They had a lot of questions, but not a lot that we could talk about. Lucy was actually the one who told them about the trebuchets and stuff, since none of the rest of us knew anything about how guns were supposed to work. She was a history major, or at least she was before she went into law.”

  “So I’m not going to run into cannon pointing my way, right?” Matt tried to sound more humorous than bitter, but he didn’t feel like he succeeded very well. He let out a breath of relief as they shook their heads. “Was there anything else they might have learned from you? About farming or chemistry, or anything else?”

  Miguel gave a short huff of laughter. “No, nothing like that. They wanted weapons, not farm tools. They lost interest in anything I had to say once they figured out I worked in construction.”

  Matt went very still, and Tanya burst out laughing. When they looked at her, she was rolling her eyes. “Oh, you are going to love what he spends his time doing when he isn’t killing people. Construction.” She started laughing again, and Matt felt his face going red.

  They looked back at him, and he made a dismissive gesture. “I was trained as a civil engineer at one point. I’ve got some of the clean water and sewage systems set up at Redspire, but I’ve been working on other things.”

  “Oh really?” Miguel seemed intrigued. “What kind of materials?”

  Matt shrugged. “Brick and wood, mostly.” He sent a half-hearted glare at Tanya, who was still chuckling to herself. “Although someone decided to build her own art museum out of stone. It’s taking three times as long to get anything done for it.”

  Tanya sniffed. “It will be worth it when it is done.” She looked back at the others. “What about you guys? I was into art history, obviously, but I’m sure you all have something you can do while you wait for a ride back home.”

  Jessica nudged Jordan, and he sighed. “I was a business major. Not sure how that could help here.”

  Matt grinned. “You’d be surprised how much everything costs when you’re in charge.”

  Alicia shrugged. “I’m a nurse. I could take a look at those wounds if you wanted, but I’d bet the healers did fine with you.”

  This time, Jordan was nudging Jessica. She sighed. “I was studying political science.”

  “I was still undecided, actually, but I did like libraries.” Riley was practically vibrating in her seat. “Do you have anything like that in Redspire? I’m dying for a new book.”

  Matt held up a hand. “You can have access to my personal libraries, but right now, we are still building things. Or at least, we’re trying to. It’s a bit difficult with everyone trying to kill us.”

  Miguel snorted. “I’d imagine.” He scrubbed a hand across his chin. “So you’re taking us back to this Redspire, then?”

  “Yeah. As soon as I straighten some things out here, first. We’ll probably start tomorrow.” Matt turned to look back at the window, and his wounds twinged with pain through the medicinal haze. “Or maybe the next day. Still healing.”

  The big guy nodded, and Matt settled back into his seat with a grunt. His mind drifted slightly as he went over the list of problems he still needed to solve. He needed to get his forces reorganized; sending at least some of them to the south would be wise, if only to keep the crossing at Bridgeton secure. Others would need to be sent to search for the surviving remnants of the enemy army, unless he wanted to have a new wave of bandits all across the Sortenmoors.

  After that, he needed to figure out how to deal with the massive number of prisoners, arrange for the people who’d helped him win the victory got satisfying rewards, and then prepare to fight against the forces occupying the Copper Hills while also managing a rescue mission deep in the heart of enemy territory. Nothing big, of course. All in a day’s work, probably.

  He blinked and realized he’d drifted off away from the conversation. When he looked up, he heard Riley talking in her usual animated voice. “So you’re really building an art museum? How did that happen?”

  Tanya grinned from ear to ear. “Well, it turns out the Council likes to keep him happy, so if you’re sleeping with him, they’ll try to keep you happy, too. At least, that’s how it worked for me.”

  Matt suddenly wished he had more medication. He slowly lowered his forehead into the palm of his hand. “Tanya…”

  Alicia sounded indignant. “So wait, you’re actually—”

  “Oh, no. He’s been doing better lately, but he has a long way to go before he’s up to my standards.” Tanya sounded almost offended. “They all think it’s happening, though, so it still works out.”

  She paused and tapped a finger against her lips. “Wait, did the last few rulers have a lot of those Consorts, Gorfeld? Or did they just stick to one?”

  Gorfeld looked distinctly uncomfortable. He glanced at Matt, who was desperately trying to avoid anyone else’s eyes. “It… depended on the monarch, Lady Tanya. Some were known to have… several.”

  Tanya clapped her hands together. “Well, there we go! I mean, he’s never going to declare any of us Consorts because of whatever reasons he has, but as long as they suspect…”

  Riley was looking at Matt like he was a real monster now. Alicia seemed like she didn’t know who to get mad at, and Miguel seemed like he was about to burst out laughing. Jessica had just put both hands over her eyes, and what he could see of her face was beet red.

  Jordan, on the other hand, just cleared his throat. “I, uh, don’t think that would work out in my case.”

  “Oh, no, I guess you’re right.” Then she looked at Matt and her smile grew. “Unless…”

  Matt lowered his head back into his hands and tried to ignore the choking sounds coming from both Miguel and half the lifeguards in the room. He definitely needed more medication.