V2Ch71-A Breath of Fresh Air
In the morning, the group of six headed out, leaving the children in Uncle Edmund’s care.
The older man no longer had to worry about his plot of land nearly as much now that their undead servant was trained enough to perform a day’s labor - since it was also essentially tireless and could work through the night. That made it possible for a single creature to perform the work of two foxfolk.
Victoria couldn’t suppress a little smile as she saw her uncle and cousin throwing the young ones around and playing with them respectively. She had never thought they would experience such leisure in her lifetime. It would have been amazing just to think that Uncle Edmund and Hayden would reach old age and adulthood respectively without being killed.
And though the threat of violence from the Kingdom was not off the table, she felt a sense of security.
Her eyes drifted over to Tybalt for just a moment before she thought he started to notice, and she shifted to look at Kistana.
“You know, I think Kistana is well enough to come with us,” Victoria said as the catgirl stood up beside her.
“If you think so,” Tybalt said, looking the bodyguard over critically before turning to say something to the others.
The catgirl favored Victoria with a smile, then mouthed a silent “Thank you.”
Hopefully you don’t keel over during the meeting, Victoria thought. You won’t be thanking me then.
As the two of them stepped forward together, though, some of the foxgirl’s worry was alleviated. Kistana’s sickness had not totally dissipated, but she was made of such resilient stuff that she could at least walk alongside the others without looking too physically ill. Her gait was steady, and she looked confident. Maybe it was partly the way the catgirl stood taller than all of the other women - taller than everyone around them except Tybalt.
Kistana still looked tired, though. Victoria put a flower in Kistana’s hair beside her ear to make her friend more presentable, and then, as an afterthought, she plucked additional flowers for the others. They were bluebonnets, which grew wild at this elevation, and their beauty was so agreeable that even Dero, who was clearly not looking forward to this visit, took hers with a smile.
“Now we’re all matching,” Victoria said.
“You’re so thoughtful, Vicky,” Vidalia said, looking at her twin appreciatively - and then at Tybalt.
Victoria’s enjoyment of the compliment was only slightly marred by the fact that Vidalia was clearly still trying to sell Tybalt and Victoria on marrying each other.
At this point, I don’t think I’m unwilling, and I’d be amazed if he is. Even though my biggest objection to marriage, in truth, is that we do it so young, before we truly know our own minds. I’m not even twenty! I guess it makes sense, given how young our people have tended to die in recent generations. I’d be willing to do it soon, so that Vida can get what she wants. I think Tybalt will be patient with… everything. But Vida is so heavy-handed sometimes!
“Everyone hold hands!” Dero ordered. The group made a ring, like they were playing some sort of children’s game, and then the dark elf added, “Now sing!”
Victoria looked at Vidalia, who seemed amused. Tybalt, on Vidalia’s other side, rolled his eyes. Mariella, on Tybalt’s other side, quietly snickered. Kistana, to Victoria’s left, started humming as if hoping she would get the others to pick up the hymn she had in mind. Victoria turned to her and gave a brisk shake of her head, and the catgirl stopped.
“No takers?” Dero asked. “Fine, then we’ll just travel silently.”
Victoria’s vision seemed to flicker for a moment, and then she was looking at a different horizon, from a different mountainside.
“Your powers are amazing,” she said after a moment.
“Thank you,” the dark elf said, nodding in agreement with the foxgirl’s compliment.
“All right, I’m pretty sure it’s this way,” said Vidalia, and she stepped forward and began leading the group downhill.
Victoria just shook her head and followed.
After around ten minutes of walking, they came upon the first signs of the ibexfolk village: outlying huts with a path running through them. The ibexfolk had settled at a much lower elevation than the fox tribe had. The weather was hotter down here, closer to the climate of the Salt Waste and the beach that lay on the other side of the mountains.
I guess we are a bit closer to that here, Victoria thought.
As they passed little plots of land that reminded her of home, she couldn’t help but notice the women working the soil - and very few men doing the same. It stuck out to her every time. The first time Victoria had visited the ibex tribe, as a little girl, she had thought at first that they were like the harpies and didn’t have men at all.
But they were there. As the group drew closer to the heart of the settlement, the sound of laughter and the buzzing of flies mingled in the air.
This was where the ibexfolk men were: drinking, gambling, enjoying the amenities of the village they had built while their women worked the land.
To be sure, ibexfolk men performed labor, too, but only when a heavy task needed to be done, like moving a log or digging up a heavy stone in the middle of the field.
This was the order of things in their tribe, as Victoria had observed - and as Uncle Edmund had explained it. Though part of that might have been exaggeration, to discourage his nieces from entertaining any ibexman suitors, Victoria had never seen any indication that his description of the tribe was actually wrong.
“Lazy pieces of shit,” Dero muttered, just quietly enough that only the six of them could hear.
“Careful,” Victoria said. “Their customs- ”
“Are fucked,” Dero interrupted.
Yeah.
The group passed between the two rows of huts that lined the path into the village. At the end of those rows, gathered in an almost complete circle, sat their Council of Elders.
The sound of flies buzzing intensified as the group drew nearer. The old men of the ibex tribe’s Council were talking, laughing, drinking, eating fried meat and then throwing the bones on the ground - that was the focus that seemed to have drawn a large number of the flies to this area.
Victoria looked back and forth between Tybalt and Dero as the group approached, trying to gauge their respective reactions - including whether she needed to try and pull either of them away. In Dero’s case, she had already given indicators that she was annoyed by the ibexfolk’s general behaviors. In Tybalt’s, Victoria suspected he might be annoyed at the ibexfolk for seemingly already being in the midst of carousing when they were meant to be waiting to have a meeting with him.
But Dero just glared, which could be interpreted - by someone who didn’t know her - as an unpleasant resting face. And the necromancer just looked as if he’d set his jaw a bit more firmly than usual. She thought he was probably irritated, but taking it in stride.
“Hail to the High Priest!” shouted one of the Elders, pointing at Tybalt as they finally noticed him. The group was twenty feet away from the edge of the circle now.
A single ibexwoman, the same age as all the male elders, sat with the men, and she picked up a quill and parchment, then scribbled something on it.
“Welcome, necromancer!” called another Elder in a slightly intoxicated tone.
“I am pleased to see the ibex tribe’s Council of Elders again,” Tybalt said, twisting his lips into something that could be called a smile.
Right, he has met them before, with Vidalia. It was just very brief.
He stepped into the open space in the circle, and an ibexgirl came out of one of the nearby huts and brought a chair for him, of similar stature to the others. The rest of his entourage gathered behind him.
Victoria felt the eyes of the old man crawl over her, and it was almost as if a dozen of the perennially circulating flies had landed on her skin. She did have to use her hands and her tail to slap the flies off of her bare arms, legs, and neck, but she felt more disgusted by the unwanted attention. It had been the same thing the last time she was here, arranging this meeting.
These men all had wives, which made it just that little bit worse.
“Pardon me, could I please get chairs or cushions for my companions?” the necromancer asked the ibexgirl before she could step away. “They’ve had quite a walk.”
He must be worried about Kistana.
“Of course, Lord Necromancer, right away,” the ibexgirl said quietly, lowering her head.
“Nice that Tybalt still remembers we’re people,” Dero said under her breath. “Since the actual hosts seem to have forgotten…”
Victoria shot her a look, and Dero shut her mouth - her expression was slightly resentful, but she did stop talking.
“To what do we owe this pleasure?” asked the ibexman closest to the center of the group. “Your envoy gave us only basic details.” He made a dismissive gesture, as if to say, Who can really trust a woman with these things, anyway?
“Eldest Hiram, I’m glad to see you are still in good health,” said Tybalt.
“Please, skip the pleasantries,” interjected another Elder in a dry, bored tone. “We have other things to do, my lord.”
Eldest Hiram shot him a look but said nothing, simply turned his attention back to the necromancer.
“What the fuck else do you have to do?” Dero grumbled quietly.
“Dero, will you kindly shut the fuck up?!” Tybalt said in the quietest whisper Victoria had ever heard. She could barely understand it, and mostly got it from reading his lips, as the necromancer had turned his head back slightly to address the dark elf. “If I get them to make me king, I’ll change their shitty customs, but I can’t do that if you tell them to go fuck themselves. So please just shut the fuck up.”
That seemed to actually work. Dero bit her lip, looked thoughtful for a moment, and then gave the necromancer the slightest of nods.
“War is coming, and I require the authority to command each tribe’s troops,” Tybalt said, turning to face forward again as if nothing had passed. “I also think it’s time that the four tribes united under a Beastking once again. As a member of one of your tribes adopted into the house of a foxfolk Elder, and as the High Priest of Mudo, I am the most logical candidate. We will need unity- ”
“Ha!” cackled one of the Elders. “He skipped the pleasantries and went straight for the crown! Is that what you had in mind, Hasdrubal?”
The man who had requested skipping the pleasantries glared at the speaker and then turned a skeptical gaze to Tybalt.
“Lord Necromancer, what sort of joke is this? I know you were adopted into the fox tribe, but the Beastking role is not a job you can compete for. The sacred bloodlines are all gone, the Crown of the Beastkings is long lost, the- ”
“We have to be aggressive and unified now in order to defend ourselves properly, Elder Melqart,” Tybalt said, interrupting.
“And why does that require a new king?” asked the Eldest. “To some here, that proposition will seem like a naked power grab.” He formed his lips into a greasy smile, and Victoria could see, even from where she stood, the chunks of food stuck between his teeth. “Albeit, of course, a power grab by a most noteworthy and important citizen. You have a better claim than most, certainly.”
“Who else thinks they have a claim to the throne?” asked Tybalt.
Victoria winced. She knew it would undermine Tybalt for her to speak up or tell him what to say and not to say here, but it seemed like a bad move for him to ask a question like that without knowing the answer.
But then the necromancer continued, before anyone could answer him, “The ultimate right to any power in this world is the right of conquest, and I’d be happy to disabuse anyone else who thinks they have the right to rule of that foolish notion. No man in this desert can stand against my power.”
“Yeah. Fight! Fight! Fight!” Dero whispered, so quietly that only Tybalt and the others standing closest could hear her.
“Well, Melqart is of the line of kings,” said Hasdrubal in an amused voice. “If you wanted to humble someone- ”
“A bastard offshoot, my lord,” said Melqart, framing his lips in a shaky smile. Victoria sensed an undercurrent of genuine fear from the old ibexman. “I am no rival, and I make no claims on the throne- ”
“Because he hasn’t had enough to drink today!” crowed another Elder, this one with a thick gray mustache.
“Seriously, my lord, there are some of our shamans who have argued that our people are not meant to be ruled by kings any longer,” said the Eldest. “The Crown of the Beastking has been lost, vanished long ago. Along with the royal bloodlines dying out - bastard offshoots excepted, of course - these shamans have purported to see signs that we are meant to remain under self-rule, with each tribe governing its own affairs.”
“And how has that worked out for you?” Tybalt asked. “What happened to your smaller group of tribesmen who went to live down in the desert? What happens to you whenever the Kingdom happens to set its eyes upon you? How many people die, each season, because your four tribes have no unity beyond a brief flash of teamwork every so often when you run from one threat or fight another? Is it truly worth experiencing that, every year, generation after generation, just to maintain some illusions of independence?”
“Coming from a man who has undoubtedly butchered as many of our people as any other common soldier, that’s rich,” said an Elder who sounded like he was already drunk. “You’re the champion of killing us, so you think that qualifies you to be king? Sorry, brat, it doesn’t work that way! I’ve never met a man with so much of - so much of our people’s blood on his hands!”
Eldest Hiram paled and framed his lips into what was obviously going to be an apology of some sort.
“Lord Nec- ”
“That’s all right,” Tybalt said in a disturbingly calm voice. “I feel like Elder Adnah has more to say. I’d love to hear the rest of it.”
Dero looked like she was fighting a very difficult losing battle not to smile, fists clenched as if she was ready to throw down herself.
Even the drunken old man seemed to realize he’d stepped in something he should have as he continued the thread of the conversation.
“I, um…” He rambled on for a few minutes, during which the ibexgirl who was bringing out their chairs got all of Tybalt’s women seated on chairs or cushions.
The Elder used a lot of “nothing against you personally, of course,” and “meaning no offense,” in his wandering reply, and he visibly sweated as Tybalt stared him down, but gradually most of the attention shifted from the man being placed under his scrutiny toward the necromancer himself.
All the buzzing flies that had been polluting the air with their presence and noise until now had gathered in a cloud just in front of Tybalt, at around his waist height. Not just them, though. The mice and beetles that had been drawn by the discarded bits of bone and meat also assembled as if called - which, of course, they must have been. By magic.
They stood almost in a pile in front of the necromancer, so close he could have reached out and picked them up without taking a step.
Victoria had rarely seen as obvious a display of magical power as this one.
The necromancer did nothing else that she could see. Nothing but let out a single long exhale.
Then the mass of flies, mice, and other creatures disintegrated.
The flies went instantly, crumbling away to dust in an out-moving pattern away from Tybalt. The beetles and bugs lasted a second or so longer, turning hollow-looking before they shattered into nothingness. The mice were the worst. They withered and writhed, let out little cries, and shook as if in agony, before they too succumbed to whatever power Tybalt had unleashed and turned to bits of dust and bone.
Victoria might have found the display slightly funny, if it weren’t clearly intended to send a message.
None of them tried to run. They just stayed there and died. Painfully. Quickly… but painfully.
The eyes of the ibexfolk in attendance all widened at what they had just seen.
What could be done to those random, disparate animals so easily could surely be done to humans - or beastfolk - too.
“Those things were getting on my nerves,” Tybalt said. “Buzzing, chewing away at food, very unserious behavior, interrupting our serious meeting. Now we can all enjoy a breath of fresh air without worrying we’ll swallow a fly.” Victoria could tell from behind him that he was smiling, but she guessed the expression did not reach his eyes.
“Lord Necromancer- ” began the Eldest.
“Elder Adnah was correct about one thing,” Tybalt said. “I’ve killed more beastfolk than probably anyone you’ve ever met. My hands are red with blood. The same as every king throughout all of history. Then I was given the power, by your god, to do far more devastating damage. Wiping out the rest of our people, the beastfolk people, would have been trivially easy for me. Instead, I chose to kill more Nietian soldiers than anyone you’ve ever met. Then I slaughtered every member of the mining community who summoned those soldiers here.” The ibexfolk Elders started to speak, and the tone sounded like praise, but Tybalt spoke over them. “Don’t be too impressed. It was easy. The point is, I washed out blood with blood. I slaughtered hundreds of the people who made me, to protect thousands of my new people.” He rose to his feet.
“I respect your traditions, and I understand your desire for autonomy. But ultimately, the only reality in this world that demands respect is power. If your god wanted you to retain self-rule, he would have empowered one of you who believes in that. Instead, he sent me. And I require unity of command. I will give you time to reconsider your stance on the Beastking question. Three weeks should be sufficient. For now, you will appoint me as your war chief. Since it seems the tradition of your people is that the women work the land, you will send your able bodied men to me daily for training. We mobilize soon, to attack the nearest human settlements and keep the Army from using them as bases from which to strike.” He nodded to them and turned to walk away. “Again, it’s been a pleasure.”