V3Ch29-Departure
After talking to Samara, Tybalt and Vidalia went around and checked on the other present threats as best they could.
The High Priestess was indeed still on house arrest as Samara had told him.
The Walian forces were fortifying themselves in a fortress in southern Niet that they’d taken.
The Bloodlady and her forces were camping, a bit further into the border with Niet - surely courting a response from the Kingdom by sticking around, whether the horde knew it or not.
The High Elf King had been magically inaccessible last time, so they didn’t try checking on him.
And the Hero was still on dragonback, flying somewhere. That was worrying, if only because Tybalt didn’t know exactly where he was, where he was going, or what he was planning. The undifferentiated mountains beneath the dragon’s wings gave no clue to their specific location. They could be thinking they’d meet up with Samara and lend their strength to the Royal Nietian Army and the Divine Trust, or he could be flying straight for the Salt Waste, or they could have changed their minds and decided to get reinforcements before going back to help the party they’d abandoned on the lich’s doorstep.
There was simply no way to find out unless Tybalt and Vidalia happened to spy on a moment when the Hero and the dragon were talking, or Vidalia tried to look into the future. Tybalt was still avoiding that, since they knew that the enemy General - Caracalla, apparently - had some power that interacted with Vidalia’s predictions or the future itself. That made too much use of the ability potentially dangerous in Tybalt and Vidalia’s eyes.
As for the lich, Tybalt and Vidalia tried to look into his territory last.
But as they opened their eyes in the space where his Dread Swamp should have been, they saw instead a black space like the starry sky at night. Before them loomed an inhumanly tall, beautiful woman with half her body reduced to skeletal or decayed flesh, her dark-colored angel wings the clearest clue to her true nature.
“Necromancer, so good to see you making use of the power Lord Mudo bestowed upon you,” she said, smiling widely. “Unfortunately, the connection you sought just now could not be made.”
“Tybalt, who is she?” Vidalia asked, her voice trembling. She clung to Tybalt as if the sight of the angel had her petrified.
“It’s all right,” he said. “She was the one who, um, changed me. Gave me my classes after I passed the Death God’s trials.”
“Oh, so she’s friendly,” Vidalia said, immediately straightening up and smiling.
“You are an interesting girl,” the angel said. “I have only seen glimpses of you from afar, but I know that you and your line are favored by our Lord. Do be careful not to dream too far above your station, dear child.”
Vidalia swallowed. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Why are we seeing you and not the lich?” Tybalt asked. “Not that it’s not a pleasure.”
The angel sighed and gave Tybalt a look of faux affront. “You cannot even pretend to be happy to see me. After we shared such a passionate kiss at our last meeting.”
Vidalia turned and looked up at Tybalt with wide, questioning eyes.
“You kissed me once, and that single contact left me unconscious,” the necromancer said, one eye twitching as he resisted the urge to laugh.
We would probably still sleep with you, at least once, just to know what it’s like, but being knocked out by your kiss is a serious problem.
“I’m sure he doesn’t mean to say he doesn’t like your kisses, holy one,” Vidalia said. There was a strange combination of reverence and light flirtation in her tone.
“The fox knows how best to speak with the agent of a god,” the angel observed. “As to the lich, your predecessor has erected barriers against magical scrying, including your fiancee’s power. You are fortunate, in a way, because you have no way of knowing what he might learn from you even as you look upon him.”
“Wait, Tybalt’s predecessor?” Vidalia asked.
“Yeah, I fought a copy of the lich in the Tower of Death to become Lord Mudo’s new representative in the mortal world.”
“But the old one is still around?” the foxgirl asked, furrowing her brow. “Isn’t that like having two High Priests?”
“He is no longer High Priest, any more than the Beastking Stanislaw is Lord Mudo’s High Priest,” the angel said. “But the defiant necromancer class belongs to him as much as to Tybalt. We could not take it back from him if we wanted to. The current system is beyond the power of any one god to tamper with in that way, by design.”
“So, we can’t look and see what he’s doing, and we shouldn’t expect divine help in dealing with him?” Tybalt summarized.
“That is the message,” the angel said. “I only communicate this to you as you are both fellow agents of the Death God, and the thread of fate that binds you to each other also binds you both to Lord Mudo. I would add that you do not necessarily have to assume that he is hostile. You may find common cause. He was once where you are, once as you are, before he took the path of undeath.”
The angel’s body began to fade as she was speaking, growing more translucent.
“Can you tell me anything else helpful?” Tybalt asked. “Like where the lich is going? Who he’s fighting? What he’s trying to do?”
The angel only shook her head, smiling slightly as she faded into blackness.
Then Tybalt and Vidalia were in the void between dreams.
Finally, they simply slept.
***
“We need to decide who’s going with me to negotiate with Eolas and the elves,” Tybalt said.
It was the morning after he raised Esmerelda and had his conversations with Samara and the angel.
In the evening, all manner of future threats loomed. But in the daylight, only the reality of Eolas and the High Elf King, not far off the coast from the Salt Waste, seemed real.
The time was drawing near for Dero and Tybalt to go make some final settlement of their disagreement with the dragon, before Eolas decided that they weren’t coming and he needed to rain destruction over Tybalt’s conquered territory to get their attention.
“Why is this a big decision?” Mariella asked. “Dero can teleport back and forth with us, right?”
“Dero has informed me that the entire elven territory is likely warded against teleportation, so I’m expecting we’ll have to teleport into the waters near their islands,” Tybalt said. “We know that the high elves live up in the sky on floating islands, but they don’t know that we know that, so we’ll want to arrive at sea level and let them use whatever their method is to bring us up. I’ve done some fleshcrafting, and I’m going to spend today making a living flesh and fat raft. It should be very buoyant if I understand the principles of the human body correctly. The raft will go with us and hold us until they transport us up to their islands. It should be able to defend itself and wait for us to finish our negotiations, so we at least have a place to stand when Dero teleports us in and out. But as you can imagine, this is a kind of involved process, and we’re not going to casually do it over and over again.”
“Oh.”
“I don’t think you should take any of us,” Victoria said slowly.
“You don’t want to spend more quality time with me?” Tybalt asked.
“Of course I—” She broke off, flushing, and shook her head, recognizing she was being teased.
“I get what Vicky is thinking,” Mariella said. “Someone has to lead the beastfolk. Andric isn’t here. Would you really want to leave them in the hands of the Beastkings only? The living, ruled over by the undead?”
“They have to learn to respect our authority as your wives,” Vidalia agreed. “Also, we have wedding preparations to make.”
“I wouldn’t be any good at a negotiation anyway,” Kistana said, shrugging. “It sounds like a lot of talking.”
“Yeah, I was going to ask you to stay here and protect the others, anyway,” Tybalt said.
“So, no one wants to come with us to meet the other elves?” Dero asked. “The wealthiest place you’ve ever been, luxury and natural splendor as far as the eye can see… I mean, they hate outsiders and would probably look at all of you like you were something that they found stuck to the bottom of their shoes, but still—”
“I guess they figured knowing one elf was enough,” Tybalt said, sticking his tongue out at Dero. He looked back at Vidalia. “What do you mean about making wedding preparations? The plan was for us to go back to the mountains where the beastfolk live, and—”
“Darling, people aren’t going to want to live in the mountains now,” she said, interrupting. “You’ve taken a few towns, not counting all the ones you destroyed, and the lives the people here live are much better than anything the tribes could have promised them back home. In the worst case scenario, if we lost the struggle with the Kingdom, they’ll be near the port, where it’s easy enough to find ships to flee on. We have boats back at the mountains, but they’re centuries old. These ships have modern designs that are much more likely to bear a few thousand beastfolk.”
“So, the wedding?” Tybalt asked.
“We’ve been discussing it, and if we can get Dero to help by moving people, it would probably be most practical to have it in Whadesgart,” Victoria said, looking at the dark elf with a nervous expectancy.
Thankfully, Dero looked amused rather than annoyed. She still griped, though.
“Oh, if my dear parents could see me now,” she said, shaking her head. “From princess to mercenary to high speed camel. What have you reduced me to?”
“At least you’re a cute camel,” Tybalt said, breaking out in a grin.
“Thank you, Dero,” said Mariella.
“Thank you, Dero,” echoed Victoria and Vidalia together.
“Thank you,” said Kistana as all the other women started to hug the dark elf.
“Enough of the mushy stuff,” she said from almost underneath the others. She sounded embarrassed. “I can always change my mind!”
The other women backed off, giving Dero a little space. Her cheeks were a deeper shade of violet.
“We’ll thank you properly later,” Tybalt said.
“Yeah, you, the fire mage, and all three beastgirls can think of a proper way to thank me,” Dero agreed, winking.
Vidalia and Mariella chuckled, while Kistana looked like she was either confused or pretending to be, and Victoria tried to look like she wasn’t a little bit curious what that would be like.
“So, it’s really just me and Dero, then?” Tybalt asked.
“I hope you two have a great time,” Vidalia said. Her smile was a little sad, but she sounded sincere.
“In the meantime, we’ll lead our people in your name,” Victoria agreed.
“Well, at least you’re all safer together,” the necromancer said. “I’ll make announcements, so people know that disregarding your orders is the same as disregarding mine. Questioning is fine. I try to encourage people to ask questions or present problems. But disobedience has to be punished.”
The beastfolk aren’t uniformly good at respecting the words of their female tribe members, so this will be a test of whether my fiancees actually can command their loyalty during a brief absence.
He expected no problems from the fanatically devoted catfolk or the all-female harpies, but the behavior of the ibexmen and foxmen would be another matter entirely.
Dero teleported Tybalt and the others back to Whadesgart, and the Grand Beastfolk Army began transporting the portion of its force that it had sent to conquer the nearby towns to Whadesgart too.
Tybalt intended to make the port town into a fortified location that would support whatever actions he took around the Charnel Fortress. It would also have the benefit of being a highly secure base for his wives while he was away, with so much concentrated force that the Hero would be crushed in a frontal attack.
No matter how strong he was, he was no ancient dragon.
Tybalt spent most of the next couple of days working on his raft while Dero began moving some beastfolk from the mountains into the port.
The undead raft wasn’t an especially complicated production, especially compared with the human centipede, but Tybalt wanted it to be sturdy.
One head attached to a body with increasing amounts of human blubber tacked on. The necromancer thought it would be quite miserable to remain alive in such a condition, but the empty head of a zombie didn’t mind it. He attached more animal limbs to prepare it in case it needed to swim any distance or engage in combat. Claws, jaws, scorpion tails left over after the dragon destroyed the monster scorpions in Whadesgart.
By the end, he thought it was probably large enough to float while holding a half dozen people. A seaworthiness test confirmed that it floated effortlessly while holding Tybalt and Victoria on top of it. She was definitely heavier than Dero, so it would at least work for the intended purpose.
Finally, the day came when Tybalt and Dero would take off for the elven islands.
The entirety of the cat tribe was in Whadesgart now, except a handful left behind to guard the Valley of Martyrs. The surviving fox and harpy tribe elders had been informed that they were to prepare to move their tribe in the next month, and they were taking the ibex tribe under their wing as well, following the tragic and mysterious death of the entire ibexfolk Council of Elders.
Everyone present in Whadesgart accepted the authority of Tybalt’s wives to rule in his absence. If any quietly held other views, the undead army had also assembled there in full to enforce the necromancer’s will.
Besides the flesh raft, he only took a few undead with him, sealed in his Undead Storage: Stanislaw, William, Edgard, and Esmerelda with her horse. Three experienced and powerful Beastkings, representing three previous dynasties, perfect as both bodyguards and individuals he could trust to speak to the elves if necessary. And the vampire knight he had just created, in case there was occasion for her to see his leadership in action - to try and secure her willing allegiance - and because he wasn’t willing to send her to protect his wives given that he wasn’t completely confident in her loyalty yet.
Tybalt’s family gathered to send him and Dero off. They stood just outside the town walls, off to the side near the water’s edge. It was a quiet farewell, so as not to draw attention to the slight weakening of the town’s defenses with the two most powerful individuals gone.
Each woman went up to Tybalt and Dero and kissed and hugged them respectively. Then they all stood back, leaving the two standing by themselves on the flesh raft.
“Have a safe journey,” Victoria said, looking sincerely from Tybalt to Dero and back again.
“If you do need assistance in negotiating with the elves, come and get me and Vidalia,” Mariella said, her gaze steady but her tone betraying a hint of nervousness. “And if something happens to you… we’ll avenge you.”
“The elves won’t harm us when they’re guaranteeing a peaceful negotiation between us and the dragon,” Tybalt said with slightly more assurance than he felt. “The dragon won’t harm us and ruin his relationship with the elves. We can rely on the same international diplomatic norms as other rulers.”
Even if those norms do occasionally get violated, and I’m sort of a revolutionary who isn’t acknowledged by other governments as legitimate.
“They’d also have to go through me if they wanted to go for Tybalt,” Dero said with a slight shrug. “I mean, he has grown on me a little…”
“I know you will keep our lord safe,” Kistana said. “I hope you will also mate successfully during your absence.” She spoke in a serious tone, her eyes on Dero’s womb tattoo - which still wasn’t glowing, despite the fact that she and Tybalt were having regular, unprotected intercourse.
“Yes, breed the elf!” Vidalia agreed, winking. “Time to repopulate her race.”
“Sweet Mudo, let’s leave,” said Dero, her cheeks visibly turning slightly darker. “Fucking horny foxgirl…”
Tybalt took her hand and grinned, and they were gone.