Defiant Necromancer (Book 2 stubbed)

Tybalt stirred.

There was a voice saying something in his head, but it was hard to make out the words. He had a bit of a headache.

Hangover, he thought. Need water.

He blinked awake, and his eyes instantly widened. He was in an unfamiliar place. Where was this?

An instant later, he relaxed.

He was surrounded by his fiancees, in a massive bed.

Mariella lay on one side, his right arm nestled in her breasts. Dero was cuddled against his chest on the same side as her. Victoria lay with her head against his left shoulder, her body lying beside his. Vidalia lay upside down, her legs on top of her sister, her head nestled against Tybalt’s crotch. Kistana was curled up on Tybalt’s lower legs like a cat.

All of the women were naked, and Tybalt felt a little rush of blood to his lower extremity at the sight of them.

Ouch. That place was… raw. Sore.

He could remember what he and the ladies had gotten up to yesterday, and Kistana’s womb tattoo, faintly glowing still, confirmed that it had all been real. It had been easily the greatest birthday of his life, and now that the catgirl was pregnant, he was going to be a father of three instead of two.

But if he kept up that pace of activity for too many days, his manhood would probably fall off.

It was still tempting to start something with one of them, as soon as he remembered whose day it was.

Then he heard the voice in his head again.

“Master, are you there?”

It was Baldwin.

“I just woke up, Baldwin,” Tybalt sent. “What’s up?”

“I’m about to die. I think.”

The revenant sent Tybalt the memory of his complete experience fighting what Tybalt realized were the bandits he’d sent Baldwin to root out.

Tybalt started watching, then got pulled out of it as he felt the connection to Baldwin snap.

“Baldwin?” Tybalt sent.

Nothing.

He didn’t try to communicate telepathically again, just reached for the thread that bound every undead together.

It was still there, he could still feel it… but it was weak. Fading.

He reached out to the other undead from the expedition. He sensed half had been destroyed, and most of the others were incapacitated. The rest were still in combat, taking advantage of a narrow mountain ledge to beat back a larger force of bandits. But they were taking lots of crossbow bolts and javelins.

“Retreat!” Tybalt ordered the others. “Drag as many bodies and pieces of bodies as you can with you, but your top priority is to get away.”

That was all he could do for them.

He saw, piecing together a full view from the experiences of his various creatures, that the living component of the expedition, the town watchmen, had more or less all been killed. It was possible that some had been taken prisoner, but even if there were more survivors than he realized, it had been a bloodbath. The watchmen had taken a number of the bandits with them, and the bodies of both groups littered the ground.

But it was an unambiguous loss for the necromancer’s side.

Tybalt got up, shaking everyone around him in his haste. He didn’t feel he had time to move gently. Mariella shifted groggily, Vidalia clung to his thigh, Dero blinked awake, and Kistana rose to all fours in an instant, seemingly ready for a fight. Only Victoria remained fully asleep.

“Dero, I need you,” Tybalt said urgently.

“Another round?” the dark elf said sleepily. “Damn, you’re insatiable. I’m sore down there… We did it four times yesterday.”

“Not that,” he replied, resisting the urge to laugh. “Baldwin is in trouble.”

“Your super-zombie?” she asked.

He nodded. Revenant, but that distinction doesn’t matter right now.

“All right.” She sat up. “He did seem important to you.”

“I want to try and teleport to where he is,” Tybalt said. “But… I think he might be badly damaged.”

“I got it. You’ll run out of mana or close to it if you teleport that far, so you won’t be able to help him. I’ll take you.”

Not exactly. More like I won’t have enough mana to fight a whole horde of bandits… but close enough.

“Thank you.”

He crawled over Victoria, and they quickly got dressed in the middle of the room. Kistana and Mariella took a minute to put their clothes on, too.

“I’m joining you,” Kistana said.

Mariella nodded.

“Safety in numbers,” Tybalt replied reluctantly. He didn’t really want to take them into a situation that had killed Baldwin, but he didn’t think there was immediate danger, at least. The revenant had fallen from a high place, from what Tybalt had seen in the memory the revenant transmitted. Baldwin probably hadn’t been somehow pursued all the way to ground level by enemies who were now waiting around to see if he got back up.

It was one of many advantages to the undead. They played dead extremely well.

With Dero there, Tybalt at full mana, and Kistana and Mariella watching each other’s backs, there shouldn’t be much danger.

“I’ll… stay behind and pay Andrea for her services,” Vidalia said with a small frown.

“And buy, um, stuff, for later,” Mariella said.

Dero smirked at that, while Kistana just tilted her head with a slight look of confusion.

“We have to have a designated heir to the necromancer throne, in case we all get wiped out by bandits,” Tybalt said, shrugging.

“Becoming a widow with a small child sounds so wonderful, thanks for nothing!” the foxgirl replied, sticking her tongue out at him.

Dero teleported herself and the other combat-capable people out before Tybalt could come up with a good response.

I really do need to come up with a better means of securing our family, he thought. I’m going to have five wives and at least three kids, assuming no one else gets pregnant. We have an army around us, and they have the seals with the Beastkings inside them, for when things get dicey, so I guess they should be safe enough from physical threats. But I need to provide for them materially in the event that something happens to me. Vidalia becoming a widow with a small child is no laughing matter.

Tybalt could remember a version of future Vidalia, one he’d encountered in a dream, who had borne him at least one child but was now miserable, mourning him.

Involuntarily, he pictured his own father - who Mariella had once called a deadbeat for not providing any real maintenance for Tybalt when he was a child.

I won’t be like him. I’m already not. I’m present. Unless death takes me… and maybe even then… I’ll never turn my back on my family. I’ll find a way.

They reappeared at the Whadesgart gates.

Mariella and Kistana looked around, slightly confused.

Oh, right.

“We have to go outside first,” Dero said. “Anti-Teleport runes.”

I was just going to try and go straight to Baldwin. And probably get ripped in half. What a funny way to immediately die.

They walked out through the open gateway, and the dark elf took them the rest of the way to just outside the town of Humun in one jump that left her sweaty and breathing a little heavily.

“You all have a lot more mana since the dragon fight,” she observed. “It’s harder to move you.”

“I’ll practice it so that I can take some of the burden off of you,” Tybalt promised.

Dero gave him a little smile. No sarcastic remark this time.

I guess that means she thinks I can actually do it.

“So, where will Baldwin be?” she asked. “Was this situation close to the town?”

She gestured at the Humun outer walls.

“Uh, actually…” Tybalt pointed at the trio of mountains, miles away, where Sir Damek had been leading the bandit quelling expedition.

Dero gave him a sharp look. “Fine then.”

She put her arms around the group, and they reappeared in the shadow of the middle mountain.

“That’s - uh - as close - phew - as I’m getting you.”

They spent the next half hour walking quietly to where Tybalt still sensed Baldwin’s presence. There were no other intact undead nearby, although the necromancer could feel that a bare dozen of his creatures were slowly making their way down the mountain toward him, apparently no longer being pursued by the bandits.

Undead could climb in ways humans couldn’t, damaging their own bodies to get away more quickly and moving efficiently without any fear of heights.

“Gods,” Mariella said. She was the first one to spot the revenant. “I never much cared for him, but at least he died in your service.”

Kistana wrinkled her nose at the bloody mess but said nothing.

“You know he’s bringing him back, right?” Dero said.

Mariella shrugged, a gesture that said, as eloquently as any words, If Tybalt feels like it. I don’t care.

The necromancer knelt down beside Baldwin. His first undead had been with him the longest. Of course Baldwin was getting restored to functional condition.

None of the stupid bone spikes or plates I added helped him at all. What a waste. Or maybe it says something about how strong his opponent was. Or Baldwin just couldn’t get in close enough. He had an axe too, so he’d have been trying to use that.

The revenant’s weapon was conspicuously absent.

Tybalt began slowly and carefully moving the pieces back together. The fall had broken Baldwin, splattering one of his arms and breaking multiple bones. Fortunately, though his head was damaged, it was just a minor skull fracture. Enough to incapacitate, not enough to destroy.

Undead Repair.

The necromancer could do this part in his sleep. He repaired the head carefully, only because it was so important, but after that, he diverted most of his attention to reviewing the memory Baldwin had sent him, his hands moving automatically to piece together the other gory remains.

You’re welcome, Baldwin, he thought.

As he observed the revenant’s memories, fingers winding flesh back together, Tybalt frowned.

That was a pretty bad loss.

“Mas-s-s-ster,” came Baldwin’s voice.

I guess I healed him out of negative range, and that’s why he woke up.

“You don’t need to talk, Baldwin,” Tybalt said. “I know everything that happened already.”

“K-Kill her,” the revenant said. “I want to k-kill that noble brat.”

The necromancer nodded. It made sense to him to assume that someone with expensive metal armor was a noble. Why she had left that life for banditry was anyone’s guess, but the point of origin was much less mysterious.

“We’ll have to take her more seriously now that we have some idea what we’re up against,” Tybalt said. “Once Edgard takes Vors, we’ll have our forces swing back here.”

Baldwin slowly nodded in agreement.

“Good,” the necromancer said. “Now be still.”

As the remaining undead arrived, Tybalt opened a telepathic channel to Edgard.

“How’s it going on Vors?” he began.

“Can’t talk now, master!” came Edgard’s instant reply.