Defiant Necromancer (Book 2 stubbed)

“I believe we already had the basis for an agreement, from my discussions with Eolas before the two of you came here,” Colin said in a voice that clearly strained to be calm and neutral.

“Yes,” Eolas agreed. “The necromancer knows exactly what I want. It was a simple matter of not being able to trust that he would keep his word without some third party enforcement. I will not spend the rest of my life following him and monitoring his activities.”

The High Elf King nodded and looked at Tybalt. “Right. So, simply looking at what Eolas described of your last conversation with him, is the following agreeable: the venerable dragon would agree not to attack your army again, and in exchange, you would agree not to use disease as a weapon of warfare?”

“I think it should be specifically that I would not use a disease that turns random people into undead,” Tybalt said. “As opposed to, for instance, giving enemy soldiers diarrhea. I have a number of skills to create disease, and I would prefer not to completely exclude that from my arsenal.”

Colin looked at Eolas.

“Reasonable enough, I suppose,” the dragon said, waving his hands dismissively. “I do not mind so much how you kill fellow humans who you are already attempting to murder, as long as you do not risk the continuation of your species over some regional conflict - or even a global one.”

What a humanitarian.

“There is also the matter of reparations for all the resources you destroyed in your unprovoked attack,” Tybalt said. “I require some recompense.”

“You want what?” Eolas asked incredulously.

“Compensation,” Dero said. “I believe my fiance said what he meant clearly.”

“It is ridiculous to demand compensation for what I was forced to do to stop the spread of your pestilence!” Eolas roared, glaring at the necromancer and banging his fist on the table.

Liora flinched at his wrathful voice - she was sitting between Tybalt and her father, with Dero on Tybalt’s other side, while Kamila and Eolas sat to Colin’s right, directly across from Tybalt and Dero.

The dragon blanched at the elf girl’s reaction, as if he hadn’t realized the fury in his own voice until he saw how it made her jump.

“Well, at least the furnishings you provided seem sturdy,” Dero noted, observing the lack of any marking from the dragon’s fist on the surface.

“What even gives you the right to sit at this table and partake in these discussions, Dark Elf ‘Queen’?” the dragon asked, raising an eyebrow, his voice much calmer. “Your homeland has no ruler. It does not even have any apparent dark elf inhabitants. I have flown over your land myself in the last year or so. The city of Dore is a ruin.”

Dero’s violet-colored cheeks darkened slightly with some degree of embarrassment, and she opened her mouth to reply.

“The right to rule does not depend on where you and your people reside,” said Colin before Dero could raise any argument in her own defense. He sounded studiously neutral, as if he and Dero hadn’t just been having a disagreement about the fate of the dark elves. Then he added, “Even if we considered her as a mere vagrant, she would be here as the guest of your counterparty.”

“As for why I demand compensation, you destroyed a large quarter of a town that now belongs to me,” Tybalt said. “The inhabitants have been rebuilding, but it will take years before Whadesgart recovers, even with my support. Your attack, and the drain on my resources that the fight required, spent over a thousand undead. It cost many of the human locals their homes.”

“That is war, human,” Eolas replied. “You make gains and take losses.”

“If I had taken such a callous attitude with you, we might not have returned your precious niece,” the necromancer observed. “Dero and I could have escaped with her. But the ‘vagrant’ wanted to negotiate with you, so she did not immediately flee once our hostage was secured.”

The dragon’s expression marginally softened, his eyes darting toward the palace. Tybalt followed his gaze and saw a slender, long-eared shape gazing down through a frosted window, until the figure darted away. He guessed it was Kamira, the younger daughter.

“What would you even ask for in compensation?” Eolas asked. “Gold?”

“Oh, you don’t have to give him anything worldly like that, ancient one,” Dero said shrewdly before Tybalt could speak. “My fiance is a necromancer. Perhaps you could provide the remains of some dead dragon. An enemy of yours, even.”

Is that something he could do? Tybalt wondered. Are there… dragon burial grounds somewhere out there?

Eolas’s face darkened. “You do not know what you - wait. Hm. Is that all you want in compensation?” His expression cleared slightly. “You would be satisfied if I told you the location of some dead dragon that you could exploit?”

“If it is accessible and usable,” Tybalt said.

I wasn’t even imagining he’d say yes to Dero’s wild demand. A thousand pounds of gold would have been my ask, but acquiring a single dragon is more valuable than hiring a few thousand mercenaries from overseas would be.

“Very well then, necromancer. I think I could do that.”

“Are these the only terms you require to reach an agreement?” Colin asked. “Neither of you will attack the other - or the other’s forces - until and unless it is violated. The necromancer will not create further pestilence that indiscriminately spreads undeath, and mighty Eolas will provide the location of a dragon to King Tybalt?”

“Yes,” said both Tybalt and Eolas.

“What is the penalty for a breach?” the necromancer asked. “How will the agreement be enforced?”

He was reluctant to give the High Elf King too much of a hold over himself.

“We will get to that,” Colin said. He took a small silver bell from a pocket of his ornate robes and rang it.

Instantly, a side door opened, and a pair of high elves appeared from within the palace.

“Contract mages,” Colin said in response to Tybalt’s questioning glance.

Why do I have the feeling my pocket’s about to be picked?

They spent the next half hour hammering out specific terms for things. They defined an “attack” by Tybalt or Eolas as anything that measurably reduced the health or destroyed the other or the other’s minions or known allies. Eventually, they reached the point where Eolas was meant to provide the location of a dragon’s remains.

He explained as follows: “The true draconic homeland is far across the ocean, and the younger dragons of today mostly hatch on a small island relatively close to your continent. But in ages past, some of my brethren were truly careless about where they lay their dead. Some of the mountains around the desert you call the Salt Waste are not truly natural mountains but barrows, where great mounds of soil were placed so as to bury the bodies of dragons. The body I am thinking of should be in good enough condition to be usable. It takes many centuries for natural decomposition to reduce a mature dragon to mere bones. And it should be accessible, right there in the Salt Waste. You only need to dig up a mountain to get to him. Are you satisfied with that?”

Eolas wore a slightly poisonous smile as he spoke. The air grew heavy as he and Tybalt locked eyes.

In that staring contest, Tybalt could feel the ancient dragon’s readiness to fight if the negotiation broke down. Not just readiness. Eagerness. There was a natural aggression in this figure, no matter how “venerable” and “ancient” he was. Tybalt had been marked as an enemy in his mind, and the desire to rip him limb from limb would not easily fade.

A slight chill ran up the necromancer’s spine at the thought.

Still, he forced himself to take a moment to think.

Digging up a mountain to get to a dragon would be difficult. But hopefully very rewarding for the difficulty involved.

We can handle it, he decided.

“Certainly,” the necromancer replied. He locked eyes with the dragon and smiled maliciously. “Digging up a mountain is well within the realm of things I’m capable of, Eolas.”

“Wonderful,” the dragon said, expression instantly shifting from malice to indifference.

“Give me the location, and I will begin excavating.”

Eolas frowned but immediately began describing a place, not so far from beastfolk territory.

“The mountain is near the ocean, at the northernmost tip of the continent…”

When the two were done specifying terms, the contract mages took a drop of each of Tybalt and Eolas’s blood. They had already explained what would happen, so the necromancer just waited for them to write it out in blood.

Only that final paragraph of the magical contract, Consequences for Breach, was written in the deep red from the two parties’ droplets.

“If either party should break this contract, their bodies will self-inflict a crippling mana sickness, and with what remains of their healthy mana, the breaching party will continually emit a signal that marks their exact location for the non-breaching party and the high elves alike.”

Mana sickness would really fuck me up. I wonder how badly it would mess with Eolas.

High Elf King Colin added a droplet of his own blood at the bottom, and the contract mages added, “A state of war will exist between the high elves and whoever breaches this agreement.”

No big deal, Tybalt thought. Should be fine. If I make a plague, I’ll just be facing the entire high elf army and an angry ancient dragon who I couldn’t kill even when I fought him with all my resources ready.

There was a little part of him that wondered if it was possible he could kill Eolas if he leveled some more and then made sure every circumstance was perfectly prepared for the dragon’s arrival, but Tybalt was aware he was far away from even considering something like that.

Eolas, Tybalt, and Colin each signed their names at the bottom of the contract, and the necromancer felt a little jolt as a bit of the dragon’s mana and Colin’s mana surged into him, while a little of his own flowed into them in turn.

There was now a magical bond between the three, and Tybalt recognized it was not entirely unlike the connection between himself and his undead. The connection would not allow for control, but it was deeper than he would have suspected before they made the contract.

The feeling faded, however, like a suggestion planted in the back of his mind.

“A geas is placed on all of us to adhere to the terms,” Colin said. “Trust me when I say it will make any of us most uncomfortable to violate them.” He shifted his expression into a wry grin. “Just trust me on that.”

I feel almost certain you’ve violated one of these before, the way you’re phrasing it. But it clearly didn’t kill you.

“Now, venerable Eolas, would you care to eat something or perhaps have a glass of wine?” Colin asked. “King Tybalt and I must negotiate something a little more personal. Since he has been here, he has been in certain discussions with my elder daughter, Liora.”

“I see,” Eolas said dryly, furrowing his brow. “Interesting choice of when to mention it, neutral arbiter.” He shook his head and looked grimly amused. “You never change, Colin. I suppose I find it refreshing. Someone who always remains the way he was when I last met him. Always playing your little games.”

“That is all we long-lived beings have, is it not, old friend?” the High Elf King asked. “We play one particular game as long as it pleases us and hope something good comes of it? Then a bunch of life forms with the time horizon of a fruit fly come along and stumble over the sand castle we spent ten lifetimes building.” He looked slightly pained, as if recalling some old wound.

“I suppose,” Eolas said. “I will go and find Princess Kamira, then. Undoubtedly she will not mind entertaining me.” He looked at Liora. “Good luck, Princess.” He pointed at Colin. “Do not let this scoundrel bargain your future cheaply.”

“Eolas!” Colin exclaimed in a slightly wounded tone.

The dragon rose and walked back to the palace.

“Well, I was going to tell dear Liora to leave, too,” the High Elf King muttered discontentedly. “But now I fear that she might think I am bartering her away for a dozen goats.”

“No, father, I know you would get at least a hundred goats,” the girl deadpanned.

Tybalt stared. She has much more of a sense of humor than I realized.

“I think she should stay,” said Dero. “Much more entertaining to watch you try to talk while she’s right here, Colin.”

“We also need to discuss what happened outside my palace,” the King remarked, eyes narrowing. “I have not forgotten you apparently fomenting unrest inside my Kingdom.”

“They are not your subjects, they’re mine, and the only unrest they want to foment is leaving,” Dero said, shrugging.

“Something can be worked out, perhaps, to make me overlook their breach of their oaths. Some more generous terms for my daughter, perhaps, such as preferential treatment in the line of succession.”

“That was never on the table as a matter for this negotiation, Colin,” Tybalt said sharply. “I will choose my own heir, or possibly heirs. I will do so based on what methodology I choose. Whichever of my children is the most competent ruler, or perhaps which wife pleases me best.” Liora flushed slightly at that. “Or which father-in-law gives me the least trouble.”

“On second thought, I think you had better leave,” Colin said to Liora. “I will be very distracted if I have to think about what to say to not hurt any feelings if too many ears are present..”

“As you wish, father.” She instantly rose, curtsied, and walked away. The picture of the perfect, obedient daughter. Tybalt caught a sudden movement. His eyes darted over at the same moment that she looked back at him and the table. Then her gaze flickered away. He caught a slight reddening at the tips of her ears, the only hint that she’d been looking.

She really is a charming girl. Colin and his wife trained her well.

“Now we can get down to the discussion,” said Queen Kamila, who had been silent for most of the conversations before this.

“I will just want to send a quick message to a few of my undead placed closer to the mountains,” Tybalt said. “I want to order a couple of my creatures to begin locating the exact position of Eolas’s peace offering.”

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