V2Ch86-Preparing for the First Town
“We have to do better at the first town,” Tybalt said emphatically. “We were lucky that was just a shitty village. If it was a town with proper defenders, that whole situation would have turned into a bloodbath.”
“Better how?” asked Igor, an ibexman.
The necromancer was reviewing what had gone right and wrong with the men who had been in the village with him. The burning houses that now stood off to the North were a continuous reminder that the mission had, overall, been a success. But there were always things to improve, especially with green troops.
“A quicker reaction to someone shooting arrows at the man next to you would be good, but more importantly not abandoning instructions as soon as something happened,” Tybalt said. “Because this was a little village, there was never going to be any need for slaughter. Even if I died, I explicitly didn’t want any unnecessary bloodshed. So, yelling, ‘Kill that son of a bitch,’ while a nice sentiment in response to me getting shot, was counterproductive.”
“My apologies, Lord Necromancer,” said Igor.
“It’s fine, so long as you know to act a little differently next time,” Tybalt said. “You and everyone are learning from experience, because we didn’t have enough time to fully train the group. I appreciate that you at least reacted more quickly than most of the others, even if I would want your reaction in that specific situation to be a little different. In a town setting, it would be another story. Bloodshed might be a much more reasonable response with a larger population to scare into submission. Send the next man over.”
“Yes, sir.” The ibexman saluted and went to grab Oscar.
“Things seem to be going well,” said a familiar voice.
Tybalt looked back and down. Dero had appeared at his side.
“Where did you come from?”
“My mother, originally.”
“Right. Well, I’m glad you think things are going well.”
“There are a few people grumbling about you letting that girl become a priestess. They think she caught your eye, and you’re just preparing to claim another bedmate. They don’t like humans becoming clergy to lecture them about what their god believes.”
Tybalt groaned. “Morons. Don’t they remember when I let anyone who wanted to become a priest? I took every single volunteer. How do they think we get humans to convert? We’ll need human priests.”
“A prospective priestess of Astara was perhaps not the best candidate, though.”
Tybalt scoffed. “I doubt she would ever have made a full priestess for Astara. She’s lucky the Temple never came for her. Their initiation rites would give her nightmares. They’d chew her up and spit her out. She’d crawl home broken… in more ways than one. There are many such cases.”
“I see. And did the girl catch your eye? I know you’re a collector, and she is rather cute.”
“I hadn’t noticed. I’m busy working on survival things, not trying to get laid.”
“You know you got hard just from thinking about her?”
Tybalt resisted the impulse to look down. He knew he wasn’t aroused. He wasn’t spending time thinking about some random girl.
“Nice try,” he said. “I was a professional soldier, and now I’m trying to be a king. No damsel distracts me.”
The dark elf snickered. “All right, if you say so. Mariella would like an hour or two of your time later, though.”
He swallowed as his mind conjured an image of the fire mage’s naked form posed invitingly. “Well… Ella is going to be my wife, so obviously I’ll make time for her tonight. She can’t be quiet to save her life, though.”
“You could give her something to bite down on,” Dero suggested.
Tybalt grimaced at her, then shook his head.
“Or I could teleport the two of you a couple of miles away from the others for a few hours.”
“Yes, please. Assuming that we’re not inside the walls of a town where we have privacy.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Thank you,” the necromancer said.
“What would you do without me?”
“I’d have to walk a lot more.”
The group traveled for another few hours before Tybalt called the halt. The sun was beginning to draw low in the sky.
The beastfolk gathered around him as he began to explain their next move.
“There’s our next target,” the necromancer began. He pointed off into the distance, where the shape of distant walls looked like a child’s plaything. “The town is small but walled. Virtually every town in the Salt Waste has a defense like this, because bandits are a recurring problem for these people. It’s almost sunset now, though. We arrived at a perfect moment. Dusk is an ideal time to catch people beginning to lower their guards. Watchmen will be preparing to change shifts with the night men, and the ordinary townsfolk will be getting ready for bed. This time, we’re going to test my strategy for getting around a walled town’s defenses quickly. It boils down to using deception.
“We send in a handful of undead who can pretend to be alive convincingly, and they act as if they’re only wounded rather than dead. Then the rest of us attack the outer walls like a bunch of marauders. The undead scorpion monsters will climb the walls. Those of you who have ranged weapons will use them. Same with the dozen or so of you who have makeshift grappling hooks. When the alarm goes up, and the defenders go to their posts, the undead infiltrators will come from behind and slaughter their way to the gate. They throw open the doors, and we stream in. From there, we fight until the guardsmen and the town surrender.”
In the back of the body of fighters, a beastman cheered.
“Finally! Some blood!”
“Yeah!” A bunch of men joined that cheer.
“You’re going to see people you know die,” Tybalt said, his voice almost a growl, silencing the others. “But yes, we’ll get to spill some of their blood too. Remember what we’re here for, though. We want the town’s resources and for its people to join us. We don’t just want to kill everything in sight. I’ll let you know when we want to kill everything we can. But we’re not at Fort Hadrian yet. We’re trying to recruit as much as we can until then.”
There were some looks of skepticism, but most people nodded along. They seemed to understand the assignment, or at least to be telling themselves that they did. Only time would tell.
“Everyone prepare for the attack,” Tybalt said. “Dismissed.”
He sent a telepathic message to a handful of his key undead.
“To me, now.”
They stepped up to receive their instructions: Baldwin, Hieron, Laurent, Sidon, Brunn, and Deron.
“So, ahead of us is the smallest actual town in the Salt Waste,” the necromancer said. “It’s called Grain. They trade with the miners, so we’re going to play into the fact that most of you were miners before now…”
The necromancer gave them brief instructions on how to behave, ensured they all had concealed knives or daggers, then inflicted some serious-looking wounds on all of them except Baldwin, Hieron, and Brunn. Since those three could talk, he allowed them to be the ‘survivors’ of the gruesome attack that had left the other three members of the group near death.
“Good luck,” Tybalt said. “I hope you feel ready for this.”
“Are you kidding?” Baldwin asked. “This feels like the first time I’ve gotten to do something interesting in months!”
“Thank you for this opportunity, master,” Hieron said, his eyes wild. The fext had grown noticeably since Tybalt last spent time with him. He was several inches taller than he had been, and his hair grew long and shaggy. It didn’t make him less believable as a human or a miner, but it was obviously a supernaturally accelerated growth rate.
Tybalt would have to make note of these results in his necromancy book.
For now, he just watched as the undead set out, Baldwin carrying the supposedly wounded Laurent in his arms while Brunn and Hieron dragged the bodies of Sidon and Deron.
The people of Grain will have to believe them, right?
“I request a moment of your time, my lord.” A slightly familiar male voice pulled Tybalt’s attention back to his immediate surroundings.
He turned and saw the archer who had shot at him earlier, flanked by a foxman and an ibexman who both looked at the human suspiciously.
“Interesting,” the necromancer said. “I would have thought you’d be happily and quietly enjoying being alive after shooting at one of our war chiefs. What brings you over here now?”
“I’d like to serve in your army,” the man said. “My name is Tim. I’m good with a bow, as you, um, will have observed before.”
The balls on this guy! The necromancer almost wanted to laugh.
“Why do you suddenly wish to serve instead of shooting at us?” Tybalt asked.
“I, um, I want you to make use of me, and let Dot go. Don’t make her do… whatever it is she offered to do for you.”
“Dot?” Tybalt asked.
“That’s, um, that’s my sister,” Tim asked, sounding like he was trying not to get angry. “The one who volunteered to go and follow you in exchange for protecting our family?”
“Oh, of course,” Tybalt said. “I should have asked her name. But have you actually spoken to your sister?”
Because I’m not making her do anything.
“Per your orders, Lord Necromancer, we’re keeping the people we took from the village separate from each other, socializing with them and attempting to convey our point of view,” said the ibexman from Tim’s left.
The archer nodded in agreement.
“Right. Well, let this man talk to his sister for a short time, so he knows she’s not being abused in any way.”
The beastmen grabbed Tim by the arms and moved to take him away.
“I still want to serve!” he exclaimed. “Um, I would still like to assist your forces.”
“Why?” Tybalt asked bluntly.
“It can’t be because I’m convinced it’s the right thing- ”
“No. I’m fucking busy. So if you’re going to lie, please go and waste someone else’s time.”
“Fine. Then… it’s because I want better treatment for me and my family. The beastfolk are talking about how you’re going to invade the Kingdom and seize land, try to have a revolution there or something along those lines. I wouldn’t have believed it was possible, except for your undead soldiers. With those, if the stories are true, you can always grow your numbers. Would you believe me if I said I want to help my family, and I want to be on the winning side?”
The necromancer smiled.
“Give this man his bow back.” The two beastmen let out muttered curses, but stopped when Tybalt began to speak again. The necromancer looked at Tim and added, “But if you ever betray us, your whole family will suffer the consequences. Terrible consequences. Even if you killed me, there are a lot of beastfolk and undead who would immediately want to avenge me, and I wouldn’t be here to protect you or your loved ones… I hope you know what you’re doing.”
Tim swallowed but nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“Good.”
The beastmen, Tybalt noted, looked mollified by those final exchanges as they took Tim away. At least they weren’t cursing the favoritism the necromancer was seemingly showing for his own kind.
Tybalt was quite pleased with the results of an afternoon’s work. A new priestess, a new archer, enough food taken from the village to feed the new additions to his force for several weeks, and they were ready to move onto the next target.
I don’t know what Tim’s real motives are, but he can’t turn on me. Not without risking everything he values. I could build a substantial army on soldiers just looking to rise in the world or help their families… There are a lot of men like that.