Defiant Necromancer (Book 2 stubbing July 3)

As the welcome party came into clearer view - dozens of people in rich-looking robes - Tybalt strained his eyes to make out which one was the High Elf King.

The way the men and women stood didn’t make the hierarchy obvious, but Tybalt eventually noticed that there was one elf nearer the center who seemed to be getting more attention from those around him than his neighbors.

His robes were a little finer, as well, upon a closer examination. It was easier to see as Tybalt and Dero drew closer to the floating land mass.

“Do you recognize anyone?” the necromancer asked.

Dero had been among the high elves before, though it had been during her youth, centuries ago. Before her own people, the dark elves, were largely wiped out.

Back then, Tybalt knew, she had been a princess. So she should know some of these people.

“A few around the fringes,” Dero said.

“Not the King?” Tybalt asked.

She bit her lip and shook her head.

Tybalt’s eyes narrowed.

His own senses were telling him that the King wasn’t here. He could sense both life energy and magic now, and both of those indicated that the person he was looking for was not present. The King, if his daughter was any indication, should be undead. That had been the strangest observation Tybalt had made while fighting Eolas - that despite the ancient dragon showing up for the purpose of destroying an undead plague, his rider herself was undead.

The other sense, Tybalt’s Magic Sense, told him that the force that was pulling himself and Dero toward the island was not within view. The point of origin for this magic was somewhere further inland.

Could it be some sort of trap? Or is the King afraid of us for some reason? Perhaps he expects any foreigner might be an assassin. That could make negotiations difficult.

The whole situation made Tybalt nervous, mainly because of something he wouldn’t tell Dero, in case they could be overheard: he had lost contact with all his undead as they drew closer to this floating island.

Every one of them besides the mummies and the vampire knight in his Undead Storage tattoo was now unavailable to him. It was the most vulnerable the necromancer had been in months.

It seemed this area was warded, not just against teleportation and Vidalia’s dream powers, but also against all forms of telepathic communication with the outside.

After another minute of floating through the air, Tybalt and Dero finally touched down at the edge of the land mass. A shelf of solid ground standing on nothing.

“Welcome to the Kingdom of Lutnia, my lord and, um…” began a bearded elf who looked to be rather old, dressed in what looked to the necromancer like a royal coat of arms: a leaf symbol conjoined with a golden ring and a spearhead. Tybalt guessed he was a herald from his costume.

Dero seemed to stiffen slightly at the sight of his livery.

The herald, in turn, trailed off as his eyes properly took in the dark elf.

Similarly, the others around the herald all stood and stared at the newcomers - or rather, after glancing briefly at Tybalt, they stared at Dero. The looks on their faces varied between troubled and shocked.

“Er, I’m sorry, who is that with you?” the herald asked, tilting his head at Dero. “We were expecting a male human necromancer and possibly human companions or perhaps beastfolk from what the venerable dragon had told our King. Yet the young lady appears to be- ”

Interesting that Eolas failed to mention her, or was it a deliberate choice? Is she in danger? He seemed to have a thing about threats to the survival of humans. Maybe he was trying to protect Dero by not talking about her. She is one of the last dark elves.

“She is my fiancee,” Tybalt said, speaking quickly before Dero could and putting one arm around her shoulders. “And the last surviving member of the Dark Elf Royal Family. I’m surprised that you would fail to recognize someone with royal blood. She’s even visited your people before. Do the high elves have such short memories? What’s the point of such long lives if you’re that forgetful?” He finished that with his attempt at a charming smile, though everyone around them had frowned.

“Not to mention your pretensions of grandeur,” Dero added.

Damn, I thought I’d blunted her desire to snap at them a bit with what I said. Otherwise I’d have just let her tear into them. I guess I’ll try to play the good guy from now on and let Dero be Dero.

“Pretensions,” said the almost-definitely-fake King, speaking up for the first time. “How dare you? Who do you—”

“That symbol belongs to my people,” said Dero, pointing at the spearhead on the herald’s chest. “You have some nerve putting it on your coat of arms.”

“So, you really are a dark elf,” muttered one woman.

“We haven’t seen your kind in centuries,” said a man who had not spoken yet.

“I know,” Dero said. “I was there the last time!”

“You’re from the Autumn family,” said another woman of the welcoming party, eyes widening in realization. She glanced around and realized that all the other high elves had turned and were staring at her.

“They were the dark elf royal family,” she added defensively.

“It’s nice to be recognized by someone,” Dero said with an air of mild exasperation.

I guess most of these people were not part of the royal inner circle back when she was last here. Which makes me wonder, again, if the King was worried about assassination. Did he send people to greet us who he didn’t care about?

“The inclusion of the symbol of the dark elves represents the high elf race’s leadership over all the elf peoples,” the herald began explaining before Dero gave him a look that could have frozen fire.

“Peace,” Tybalt said, raising his hands before anyone else could speak again. “Peace. There’s clearly some tension here. Let’s not dwell on subjects that will only put us on edge, at least not at our first meeting.”

“Wisely spoken, Lord…?” The fake King spoke up again.

“It’s Beastking Tybalt, actually,” Tybalt said. “The beastfolk have accepted me as their ruler after all my military victories fighting for them. Eolas wouldn’t have known about that, since my coronation happened after our encounter.”

This was only semi-true; there were some beastfolk who did not know yet that Tybalt had been crowned, and he’d had very little in the way of formal ceremony, which was how he preferred it. But it was important to ensure that the elves understood the gravity of his position.

“A pleasure to make your acquaintance, then, Your Majesty. I am King Colin of the House of Allium.”

I forgot to give my new surname. I suppose that outs me as newly crowned royalty if I wasn’t admitting it already. Oh well. It’s not like I’m holding this position because I know the right forks to use at dinner.

The false King lowered his head in a nod that could almost be mistaken for the slightest bow.

Tybalt waited for the false King to make eye contact again and then mirrored the gesture.

The fake looked at Dero, who didn’t bow or bend her neck in the slightest. He turned to Tybalt with a curious look on his face.

The necromancer felt that the elves’ patience was going to be strained during this visit, so he cut to the chase.

“Will you extend me and my fiancee your protection as the diplomatic counterparty facilitating the negotiations between myself and the dragon Eolas, King Colin, or should Dero and I leave?” Tybalt asked.

“It is customary to bow when entering the domain of a king, young lady,” the false King said.

“My blood is at least as royal as yours, and I do not bow,” Dero replied.

The temperature seemed to drop slightly before the fake King put on a matching fake smile.

“Well, it is fitting that the last survivor of the dark elf royal line should be proud, even if her kingdom has fallen,” he said. “Let us go.”

He turned and began to walk away. The others in the high elf party began slowly moving from their positions around the shoreline area and following the supposed King toward a path that led through an adjacent forest.

Tybalt tried to gently guide Dero with the arm he had around her shoulders, but she didn’t move.

“These pricks have absolutely no shame,” she said through gritted teeth. “It… bothers me more than I thought it would.” At her side, her fingers clenched into fists and unclenched again, over and over.

The necromancer frowned. He had thought he had a good general idea of Dero’s level of distaste for the high elves, but she was clearly angrier than he’d realized - even more than she’d already shown.

I guess this is the most emotional I’ve ever seen her. She’s been trying to restrain herself.

That already wasn’t much like the Dero he knew and cared for.

He couldn’t say what he wanted to say to her out loud, so instead, he traced the sentence into her palm, a few letters at a time. It was a communication method they’d decided on in advance, since elves all had ridiculously good hearing and since Tybalt, as Dero’s fiancee, would be close enough to touch her most of the time.

“Do you want to kill them?” he traced.

“Tch!” The dark elf shook her head and punched him lightly on the shoulder.

But he looked down, and he found Dero was smiling slightly now.

He’d said the right thing.

“I won’t say I haven’t considered the idea myself,” she said in a very small whisper. “It would be easier to keep those thoughts out if they had just an ounce of regret.”

“It is possible,” he whispered. “They are not a society of ancient dragons.”

Tybalt really hoped that Dero wouldn’t decide they needed to wipe out the high elf royals, mostly as a selfish practical matter. He still thought the Royal Family might be entirely undead, despite the figurehead who they’d been presented with in place of the real King. That made them natural allies for the necromancer.

Or natural tools, perhaps.

But this was a matter that concerned her personally far more than it did him. If she wanted to slaughter the high elf royals for failing to help their kin in the dark elves’ time of need, he would support her.

The necromancer had already come up with a strategy for how to wipe out virtually the entire elven civilization very quickly if it proved absolutely necessary.

He traced another message on her arm.

“Fake king, right?”

“I almost asked if he was newly crowned,” she traced back.

So she definitely didn’t recognize him as a King-in-waiting from back in her time visiting.

They began to move after the others.

“He has life force,” Tybalt traced almost as an afterthought.

“That’s right,” she said quietly. “Your, um, theory. Wild if it’s true.”

“Keep eyes open,” he traced. “Real king will be watching.”

At least that was what Tybalt would probably be doing if he went to the trouble of arranging a body double to fool guests.

She nodded. They walked.

The last handful of the elven welcoming party were the only ones who had stayed behind to keep the guests company - they wore armor and looked like guards - making Tybalt think they might have already begun to wear out their welcome with that tense first meeting.

As he and Dero stepped into the forest path the others had begun to follow, he took in the surroundings, both enjoying the natural beauty of a land he had never dreamed he would actually see and looking out for any sign of the true High Elf King.

It was a pleasant walk. The well traveled dirt path they followed seemed intended to take them past the greatest natural beauty of the island, from what Tybalt recalled seeing from the air. They passed groves of trees that grew large, strange fruits in many different colors Tybalt had never seen before, along with sections of the forest that had been cleared and cultivated into gardens.

There was even a waterfall that flowed into a river that looked like it went in the direction of the edge of the island, the logic of which seemed either baffling or impossible the more he thought about it.

The whole way, the man who Tybalt had taken for the royal herald quietly told Dero and the necromancer what they were seeing.

“This is the famous eulula tree, which bears fruit the likes of which grows nowhere else in the world…”

It wasn’t a very interesting tour, but pretending to listen to the man made for a decent way of avoiding any real conversation with the other royal hangers on while Tybalt and Dero tried to figure out where the real King would be observing from.

The forest thinned slightly and then suddenly stopped at a set of high bronze walls.

The group had reached the gate into the high elf city.