Defiant Necromancer (Book 2 stubbed)

The next several days were spent in recovery.

Kistana and Mariella had both overdone their fighting against the dragon and the Hero in different ways. Kistana’s body was worn down to a nub, while Mariella had spent more mana than she actually had - it seemed that her rage had temporarily boosted her total available pool - which reduced her recovery rate.

Aoife’s situation hung in the air for a short time, but she and the necromancer quickly reached an understanding.

“You really followed the Hero around for months and let him ride on your back just because he beat you in a fight?” Tybalt asked.

“I was injured at the time,” the dragon replied defensively.

Well, you were also already worn down when you fought me, pretty clearly.

“That’s not really important to my point,” he said.

“It is important to me.”

“Fine. Otherwise, what I said was correct?”

“Why do you sound so surprised?”

“I’ve never won an ally by defeating them in a fight. Except in the obvious necromantic way, where I raise them from the dead after I kill them. It reminds me of the way boys behave when we’re around ten years old. Not what I would expect to be a rule for dragons. I’m just trying to understand the way you think.”

“Battle matters a great deal to dragons,” Aoife said seriously. “We are made for combat. We use it to decide… many things.”

That was an odd place to hesitate.

“So, if you lose a fight while you’re by my side, would you join whoever defeated us?”

“Would you run away and leave me to my fate?”

“That doesn’t sound like me.”

“Then your fate would be the same as mine.”

I guess that’s all that really matters.

“I would be honored to have you join us, then, Aoife,” Tybalt said. “Would you accept some of my undead carrying you back to Whadesgart? The monks under my command there will see to your injuries.”

His army was all around them at this point, having finally caught up from within Whadesgart after the fighting was all over.

She looked at him for a long moment, though Tybalt had the feeling that she was not truly deciding but simply choosing her words carefully.

“I will accompany you and accept your assistance, necromancer. You must allow me to repay you for your actions today in the future, however.”

It felt like the wording would curse him in some way, but Tybalt smiled.

“Undoubtedly, you’ll repay me in your preferred method whether I agree to it or not, Aoife. And call me Tybalt. My subjects call me ‘Your Majesty,’ my enemies point out the fact that I’m a necromancer, but my close allies all call me by my name.”

Aoife looked at him with obvious distrust, then nodded.

“Very well, Tybalt.”

She allowed herself to be lifted by dozens of pairs of zombie and skeleton hands, and they carried her, like a parade float, toward the town.

The rest of the walk was him asking, and the dragon answering, questions Tybalt had about her life and culture.

“What is the life of a dragon like?” Tybalt asked.

“Well, I never truly knew my parents…”

“Do your kind take sides in the disputes between different gods?”

“A few do. Most of us do not. There are no set rules among my race for such behavior. Every dragon has their own sense of what is right and seeks to impose it on the world.”

“That sounds exhausting.”

And difficult for a civilization to manage.

She bared her fangs and seemed to Tybalt to be smiling grimly.

“Just say what you mean, Tybalt. Dragons are often agents of chaos from a human perspective. We come, we seek to subsume territory under our control or destroy a town for offending us or protect a rare flower or something along those lines, and the short-lived hairless apes run and scream in terror. I have become very familiar with the human perspective on dragons, having traveled with Chad and his companions.”

“That’s not my perspective,” Tybalt said softly. “But I do think all intelligent races need some form of order. Structure to their worlds. When you show up in town, throwing all the usual hierarchies and expectations out with your appearance and power, it’s natural for them to see you as a walking disaster.”

“I suppose you have a different point of view, because you too are a walking disaster.”

Tybalt gave her a long, silent look before he spoke again.

“What is it that you want out of life, Aoife?”

“Sweet Mudo, Tybalt,” Dero interjected before the dragon could respond. “Buy the girl a drink before you start trying to ask her what she thinks about the mysteries of the universe.”

Tybalt turned, and the dark elf was suddenly standing beside them. Before, she had been keeping Mariella company, so the necromancer instinctively looked to see how she was doing. But she waved to him with a little smile. She was surrounded by mummies, so he forced himself to just smile back and nod. There was a part of him that still felt like something might happen to her at any moment.

“She’s a dragon,” Tybalt said, frowning.

“I am still a female,” Aoife said, sounding annoyed.

“Of course, and my apologies if I gave any offense,” he replied immediately, giving her a little bow of the head. “I will buy you an appropriately-sized barrel of the alcohol of your choice.”

“I intend to be in my human form for any drinking, but I will graciously accept a barrel of whiskey regardless.”

Tybalt and Dero both laughed at that.

***

With Kistana and Mariella resting and Aoife settling in - the dragon kindly shifted into human form so as not to alarm the townsfolk with her presence - everyone returned their attention to the pressing matter of marriage.

Dero and Tybalt consulted, and then she returned to Lutnia to hammer out terms with King Colin.

The necromancer himself chose to stay in Whadesgart this time. He didn’t think Chad would be back anytime soon or that Aoife would suddenly turn on the others, but Tybalt still wasn’t willing to be separated from his family any more than he needed to be after the recent threats.

He had obtained the Teleport skill as a result of using it under time pressure to reach Whadesgart and then to pursue the dragon and Hero, but if he entered the High Elf Kingdom, he would still be delayed in getting back to his family if they needed him. There was just no point.

He did take time to Teleport a chthonic mage mummy to the area where Eolas had claimed a dead dragon should be buried under a mountain, to begin searching for the body and confirm a location.

Tybalt worked on his other undead, repairing the damaged mummies from the battle. Most of them could be fixed fairly easily, but there was one tragic loss. Edwig, a chthonic mage who had kept him safe from Eolas for a few precious minutes when the ancient dragon attacked Whadesgart, had been destroyed by Chad’s holy sword. Though the mummy’s body had turned to ash and scattered after being cut with the blade, Tybalt gave orders to build a monument to the former Beastking to mark the spot where he had passed.

He made brief pilgrimages to the Charnel Fortress so that he and Stanislaw could consult with the intelligence there and prepare it for enemies.

He kept tabs on what was happening in Whadesgart by unleashing a few dozen undead rats, to maintain his influence over the town. Tybalt’s methods included infecting a few potential opponents - powerful men who were growing discontented with the Mayor’s submission to the necromancer - with a bad case of dysentery.

He had pledged not to use an indiscriminate undead plague against his enemies, and if he got close to violating that agreement, he would feel the proximity. That was how the magical contract was supposed to work. It lived inside those bound.

But a targeted infection aimed at a few problem individuals seemed to cause no problems.

Heartened by the success of this approach, he planned and began cultivating within himself the seed of a more powerful, deadlier ailment - one which he intended to use only on three specific people.

In some of his free moments, Tybalt also meditated and tried to grow closer to Death God Mudo. The intentions and wishes of a god remained mysterious, even to him, but he was grateful enough to his patron to want to understand better so that he could be of more service.

Heimar and Raybeck informed him telepathically that they and Carlos had arrived in the great port city of Sarda, and they would therefore begin working toward establishing a temple to Yeitan, the sea god who had rescued Heimar from being shipwrecked years ago when the man was a sailor.

Everything Tybalt had set in motion seemed to be progressing well enough, and he did whatever he could to move events forward.

But he spent the vast majority of his time with his fiancees.

It was mostly frivolous.

He sat by Kistana’s bedside, or cuddled her, and refused to let her go anywhere or do anything that might strain her while she recovered from her broken bones and physical exhaustion.

He walked the Whadesgart docks with Mariella, Vidalia, and Victoria, checking out local sites and eating street food. He took them to the local hot springs. He went out rowing in little boats with them, so small that the ladies had to take turns sitting with their fiancee and with each other.

The group didn’t do anything that was strictly necessary, only fun activities, and that was the beauty of it.

It was the most relaxed they had all been since their first meetings.

Part of it was because there was a good division of labor.

Tybalt was aware that all of his fiancees were handling tasks for him, keeping his mind off of small matters. Mariella had taken charge of military administrative affairs, Victoria managed the priesthood, Vidalia was keeping their home and providing subtle bits of advice, and even Kistana, confined to bed, continued to act as a leader of the monks from within her tribe, giving broad orders as they helped to repair parts of the port that Aoife and Chad had damaged.

Preparations were also happening in the background for a traditional beastfolk wedding, to join the necromancer and all his brides, but no one asked for his help or his opinions on anything but food. Tybalt was allowed to pick between three different vanilla cakes, and he chose the one that he gauged the women were most excited for.

When Kistana was fully well again, he went on a date with all four of his present fiancees, plus Aoife, who had mostly been lurking around, bored, until Vidalia invited her to go on the outing with them. They took Tybalt to see the dressmaker who they had commissioned their wedding dresses from.

“Well, are you guys going to try on dresses for me?” he asked.

“It would be bad luck for us to try on wedding dresses if they’ve actually been made,” Victoria said hesitantly. “The groom is not supposed to see the brides in them before the ceremony.”

“But they aren’t finished yet,” Vidalia pointed out. “I think Tybalt just wants to see us in pretty dresses.”

The ladies exchanged smiles. Mariella’s was an unabashed grin, Vidalia’s looked almost perverted, Kistana’s was a slightly shy smile, and Victoria’s expression had a hint of the sultry that suggested to Tybalt that her confidence had increased - or perhaps merely her sense of security in their relationship.

“We can try on dresses the dressmaker finished - non-wedding dresses - and you can decide which ones you want us to take home,” Vidalia proposed. “Just some fun shopping.”

Tybalt nodded.

“There is little point, for me,” Aoife noted. She was there in her semi-human form. Her horns were the only indicator that she was a dragon, since she had sheathed her wings inside her body in order to pass through doorways more easily. She wore armor that looked a lot like her scales. It might be the transformed form of those. “If I wish to change my external appearance, I merely will it.”

She was attractive, in a fiery, dangerous sort of way, Tybalt could not help but notice. Dark red hair, fiery eyes, curves, long legs, muscle tone on her arms similar to Kistana’s, but with a cool, brusque demeanor. Of course, her human form was presumably entirely her choice, rather than beauty she had truly earned the way human women did - through diet, exercise, and cosmetics.

It still left an impression.

“You’ll try them on anyway,” Kistana said with quiet insistence. “Because Tybalt would probably enjoy that.”

Aoife and the catgirl exchanged looks. Tybalt thought that a bond had been formed there. The dragon had been serious that her kind took combat seriously. Aoife seemed to look at Tybalt and Kistana differently from the others, with more respect.

“Very well,” the dragon said curtly. “Bask in my glory, all of you.”

She began stripping off her armor in front of all of them.

The store quickly emptied of the non-harem members who had been shopping when they arrived.

“Serving woman!” Aoife called once she was completely nude. “Bring me a dress fit to impress a king!”

It’s a funny world I live in.

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!