V2Ch101-The Conspiracy Resurgent
They burned the town just after daybreak.
It was easier than destroying some of the previous towns had been.
Every sick person had been transformed into an undead by Tybalt’s pestilence already, and the survivors weren’t as attached as they had once been to the homes that had recently become a place of disease and bloodshed. The human element was the tricky thing in these situations, Tybalt was finding.
It was challenging but a pleasantly different thing from his soldier days, dealing with living remnants of places he had destroyed. Refugees complained, they had to be fed, and the necromancer wondered if they might one day try to stick a knife into his back, but he felt oddly righteous just for bringing survivors with him at all.
From his perspective, he was exceeding the typical standard of military conduct. Being a good person.
And as with other towns, there were many who quickly wished to join Tybalt and the beastfolk’s side. A disproportionate number of the surviving men went to him or his representatives to ask to be taken as soldiers - they knew instinctively that would be a better fate than simply being refugees shepherded around the desert - and there was a surprisingly large share of women, mostly widowed mothers of young children, who made their own arrangements, not with Tybalt but with the beastfolk.
Some took to whoring to support themselves or their young. With their worldly possessions mostly gone or carried on their backs, and the beastfolk in possession of the dead upper classes of the town’s gold, it made sense to act like the camp followers that the Grand Beastfolk Army already had in their entourage.
Other women made arrangements that Tybalt hoped would be a bit more enduring.
There were many beastfolk men who had yet to marry, or who had lost wives to previous Kingdom attacks, or who were interested in additional wives. Tybalt’s priesthood was kept busy as the troops prepared to burn the town, performing quick weddings for a dozen or so couples - most of the women being from previous towns.
The majority of people weren’t getting married yet, but many relationships were being formed from the new needs that both human women and beastmen faced.
The necromancer observed it all happen with approval and a sense of hope. This was how the destruction of a bunch of desert towns might slowly congeal towards the beginnings of a durable conquest. Intermarriage was an important element in making two peoples into one, knitting wounds together rather than leaving them to fester.
He resisted the urge to look over at Dero as his force began marching away from the burning town. Since the events of the previous night, the dark elf had reestablished a certain distance from the group. She wasn’t riding in the cart with them this time; she had commandeered her own camel and was clearly, visibly trying not to pay too much attention to the necromancer and his other companions.
This, too, was encouraging.
Tybalt thought it represented a new level of entanglement between Dero and the group. She was getting so roped into their lives that the emotional intimacy seemed to make her a little uncomfortable - which would make it very difficult for her to leave at some point in the future.
That was all to the good.
The necromancer needed her for future phases of his plans - her powers and knowledge would make things smooth that might otherwise be impossible - and if he was honest with himself, he also enjoyed having her around far more than he had expected. Her sour exterior was just a shell. Given that it was increasingly obvious that Dero genuinely cared about Tybalt’s fiancees - and perhaps about the necromancer himself - her rough edges didn’t feel nearly as abrasive to him as they once had.
“Lord Necromancer, where are we going?” came a female voice from above and to the side of the cart where Tybalt sat.
He turned his head and saw Irena - the same harpy who had been Andric’s go-between earlier in the journey.
“Oh, I ordered the undead to lead us in the direction of Whadesgart,” Tybalt said. “At this point, there’s no reason we can’t bypass a few towns and just go to the biggest one in the desert. The path would start to wind a lot if we hit every town on the way. Those towns aren’t necessarily worth the trouble of hitting with all our force. Whadesgart was going to be our biggest challenge besides the fort, but now we have such a large group with us, it shouldn’t be such a big deal. The town should also have enough supplies to feed an army.”
The necromancer could have gone on at greater length, giving reasons why the Salt Waste’s port was the best target for them to pursue at that moment, without ever hinting at his true motivation.
His quasi-dream, where he woke up as a zombie somewhere near the sea, and Dero’s genuine agitation when he had described the situation, still troubled him.
I have to make sure my virus doesn’t spread. She was right about that.
“My lord, I think I know just the thing that might help us,” Irena said, snapping him back to the present. He realized he had gone silent for a few seconds there.
“How so?” Tybalt asked.
“Well, I know you enjoy making unexpected entrances into places,” the harpy said, winking at him. “Having a bunch of men behind the lines of a fortification to open the way. I remember a few of our boys knew something about a secret way into the port town. Something that would bypass the walls. It could make your victory easier.”
Tybalt immediately registered both the phrasing - “your” victory, not “our” victory - and the slightly flirtatious tone her voice had suddenly taken on. He became suspicious.
“Interesting. Does Andric know about this secret entry?”
“No, my lord. He led the last battle, though. And he is still recovering from his injuries. Do you really want to trouble the other War Chief, when you and a handful of our stalwart boys could do this without him?” Sirena lowered her voice conspiratorially. “Frankly, Lord Necromancer, a few of the men are still upset at the way you limited their activities after the last town. I respect your restraint, of course - as a woman, I wouldn’t want to be in the midst of an army of rapists - but there are a few whispering about how they wish Andric was the only one in charge of this expedition. They think he’d have turned a blind eye.”
Tybalt raised an eyebrow, and she just put up her hands defensively.
“I’m only telling it as I hear it, of course, sir. I - every right-thinking person in the tribes - have nothing but gratitude for your leadership, but there are always bound to be a few malcontents.”
“Of course,” he agreed. “Could you get me the men who know how to get into Whadesport?”
“It would be my pleasure to be of service,” she replied, doing a sort of midair bow that emphasized her cleavage. Then she flapped away.
“What was that about?” Mariella asked.
She and Tybalt’s other close companions had remained nearby but silent for the duration of the conversation. That was how they handled almost any interaction when Tybalt acted as a commander; they avoided questioning him in front of others so as not to diminish his authority or distract from his priorities.
Right now, he was grateful for that.
“The conspiracy is rearing its head, I think,” he said very quietly. He turned and looked at each woman in turn. “With any luck, we’re finally going to learn who’s been invested in trying to have me killed. The complete list of attempted murderers. I won’t settle for anything less. Either that…”
“Or that harpy’s hoping to undermine Andric’s authority and boost yours, as part of a plan to get in your pants and boost her own status,” Victoria said bluntly.
“That’s definitely what she wants him to think,” Vidalia agreed. “But I think darling’s interpretation is right. I’ve sometimes come on a little strong with him, but this from Sirena is out of nowhere.”
Kistana nodded. “I haven’t detected a single hint of unprofessional demeanor toward my lord until just now. She seemed to know her place before this. Taking this gamble, it either means that she thinks she has received some invitation, a subtle indication of Lord Tybalt’s interest… or she is being forward because she has the idea she is going to be a part of removing him. And she expects it to happen quickly.” The catgirl bared her teeth.
“Well, she and her friends will find that he’s made of sterner stuff,” Mariella replied, shrugging.
“She’s coming back,” Vidalia said.
They all quieted as Sirena flew back over, accompanied by a dozen beastmen - almost entirely foxmen, with just one ibexman among their number.
These are the conspirators, if I’m right, Tybalt thought.
“Lord Necromancer,” said the man in the lead, a fellow Tybalt recalled was named Mikkel.
“Mikkel?” Tybalt said.
“You honor me by remembering my name,” the foxman said, puffing out his chest.
“You serve us all well by apparently having a method to win the next battle with fewer casualties than normal,” the necromancer replied.
“We all had that knowledge, Lord Necromancer,” said another man with a thin and reedy voice.
“There’s no need to fight over credit, Selvig,” Sirena said in a gently chastising tone.
They’re pretty good actors, honestly. If I wasn’t already expecting this was some sort of trap, I might be taken in. Not that it would get me to behave the way they want me to.
“Tell me what you know,” Tybalt said in a calm but authoritative voice.
Mikkel bowed his head. “Of course, my lord. The beastfolk have fought the humans before, in centuries past. When the elves were still strong in these lands, we made it as far as Fort Hadrian once. Our people are good at writing and reading, so there are written records of some of those fights. One thing that stuck out in a few of our ancestors’ records was a siege of the town the humans call Whadesport.”
“The town the humans call Whadesport?” Mariella asked.
Tybalt resisted the urge to give her a look. He was slightly worried that any interruption from anyone other than him might give something away.
“It was once an elven town, I understand,” said Selvig.
“Go on,” Tybalt said, looking at Mikkel.
“In the siege, a few of the beastmen discovered a secret tunnel the humans were using to get in and out of the city. They thought it was meant to be an evacuation route, but the besieged Kingdom loyalists brought food and drink to their population that way, since the elves had their ships there keeping any merchants from going in or out.”
“I see.”
This was genuinely interesting and perhaps could have been useful if the necromancer didn’t already have ways of moving underground. Of course, if all Tybalt wanted was to sneak into the city that way, he would just order Edgard or one of the other Chthonic Mages among the Beastkings to bring him in using Underworld Motion. He had allowed the fights to be more involved than that, sometimes to his own regret, to let the beastfolk get real experience fighting from a position of disadvantage and taking walled towns.
That had caused scores of unnecessary deaths, but the thousands of soldiers Tybalt had - both the living and the dead - were all stronger than they would have been otherwise.
“That sounds like a very useful piece of information,” the necromancer continued slowly. “How do you suggest we go about exploiting it?”
Mikkel and Selvig exchanged a quick, meaningful look.
“We propose to lead the expedition into the town, my lord,” Mikkel said finally. “The thirteen of us standing here in front of you. All armed and ready for skirmishing, but hopefully it won’t come to that. Would you be willing to lead us?”
There it was.
Yes, I will absolutely go into an underground tunnel with the group of you alone.
“How many undead do you think I should bring?” Tybalt asked. “To secure the safety of our group?”
“Oh, we shouldn’t bring undead into the underground, my lord,” said Selvig hurriedly. “I recall my great-great-uncle’s record said that the tunnel should have gone beneath a temple and a cemetery. Those grounds will be consecrated to the other gods. That harms your undead, right?”
“It destroys them,” the necromancer said, feigning alarm. A half-truth. Undead had varying levels of vulnerability to hostile holy magic. Most of the undead above the level of a zombie or skeleton would not be destroyed by mere exposure to consecrated ground.
But this confirmed his theory well enough.
Sirena, Mikkel, Selvig, and all the others in this group were the coconspirators within the force Tybalt had with him. They were trying to isolate him and probably kill him, which meant they were almost certainly connected to, if not the exact same people, who had caused the rockslide that had almost killed Tybalt and the others weeks earlier.
I wonder how Andric will take this.
Above all, their method of approach had confirmed where Andric stood in regard to the conspiracy.