“So… you’re going to go with them into that dark tunnel alone?” Dero asked, raising an eyebrow.

That seems stupid and unnecessary, went unspoken but was obvious.

“Yes,” Tybalt said. “It’s the final confirmation of their intent.”

“And… I’m guessing you want my help?”

She didn’t sound unwilling, but Tybalt shook his head.

“They wouldn’t attack me if you were there. You’re an unknown commodity, and there are plenty of stories about how dangerous elves are. If I had to communicate to you to get you to come rescue me, and you had to figure out my location, that would probably take longer than the precautions I’m already taking.”

He opened up a corner of his bone armor using Scrimshaw, to reveal the Undead Storage tattoo he had placed on his shoulder.

The dark elf clicked her tongue and nodded.

“I guess undead bodyguards are good, if you can’t bring me or Kistana,” she said. “But why not just take the traitors somewhere else and get whatever you want out of them… some other way?” She clenched her hands into fists. “These people killed children. They don’t deserve any consideration, or any chance to succeed in their goals. Even if you have a bunch of big strong undead at your disposal.”

“I’ll get answers out of them underground, where no one can hear them scream. But I want to make them commit a guilty act first. So they won’t be able to deny it.”

“Tch. Acting like you’re law enforcement or something,” Dero said. There was a touch of mockery in her tone, but also a hint of something more respectful. “Are you just trying to behave the way you mean to act as a ruler now?”

“Something like that.”

That, and I want to see the looks on their faces when their plans fail. Their leader must not have given them a specific strategy to run with, just told them to kill me if they could. They’re not especially experienced, and this was the best they could come up with, using the limited resources they have. Fourteen armed people walk into a dark underground space. Only thirteen come out. It’s not a completely terrible plan. I’m not especially hard to kill, as far as they know. They’ve already heard about how long I took to recover from getting stabbed by Volusia. I’m still not invulnerable to knives or even arrows. Just get me alone, take me by surprise, and I’m as mortal as anyone. The issue is that surprise part.

“What is the rest of the Grand Beastfolk Army meant to be doing while you and the others are on this fake infiltration mission?”

“We’ll set out just after sunset. The rest of the Army is meant to get as close as it can to the town while maintaining stealth and rush in after we get the gate open.”

“We’re meant to do that, but what are we actually doing, in your plan?”

“Get as close as you can to the town while maintaining stealth and rush in after I get the gate open.”

“Oh, so it’s a real infiltration… and the others will have perished heroically, fighting the town watch?” Dero asked, allowing a thin smile to spread over her lips.

“Precisely.”

Don’t worry, though, they will continue to provide great service to their people in death.

“Might as well kill two birds with one stone, I guess,” she said. “It’s incredible that they thought they could trick you like this, though. Are you sure their plan isn’t something more elaborate? Don’t they know you have at least a few undead inside the town walls already? If you just wanted to get inside- ”

“They don’t know that. Actually, they think they know the exact opposite, because I’ve announced more than once, in Sirena’s hearing, that this was the only town we didn’t attack with my virus.”

“And you genuinely didn’t. The fact that you happen to have undead inside that they don’t know about- ”

“Is just the Whadesport townsfolk experiencing serious bad luck,” Tybalt finished, frowning.

The whole thing was a comedy of errors, but it was far from funny right now, given the possibility of the virus breaching containment.

“So, what did you bring this guy over for?” Dero asked, gesturing at the ibexman death knight who had been looming silently over the pair for the duration of their conversation.

“Harald’s here to deal with the other end of the conspiracy.”

“I see…?”

“I wanted to ask you to teleport him back to the mountains. You can collect the rest of what we asked for from Elder Sybil. Once I confirm who all the conspirators are, Harald will wait for a good moment to arrange an ‘accident’ that resolves things. I’m assuming Andric will agree with me about the right way to handle this.”

“You’re going to talk to Andric about it?”

“After I have the full picture, assuming he’s really not involved.”

“You think he’ll side with you over- ”

“I think he will do what he believes is best for his people. I’m going to give him the final say, as much as I can. He might feel bitter about it, but he’s already shown that he can keep the personal from affecting his judgment too much, when it counts.”

She looked skeptical but finally nodded. “It’s your affair to deal with, as a politician. As for the matter I’ve been concerned with… we’re close enough to Whadesport now that you know the situation, right?”

Tybalt nodded, his countenance grim and slightly guilty. “Yeah, I can sense it. My pestilence - no, my plague - made it here in full force. Not just a few random infected people turning into zombies. Not even just the undead I felt last time I reached out. It’s been progressing rapidly here, more than anywhere. Maybe driven by the population density. I remember there were thousands of people here before, more than any other settlement in this desert. It was almost like a real city, from what I saw last time I visited… I can feel around a thousand undead in the town, and maybe as much as half the town carries the infection. I won’t know exact numbers until we actually take the town and I can go around curing them. On the bright side, there aren’t any undead further East of here. So they didn’t make it out to sea, I guess.”

What a fucking bright side. We narrowly averted a global catastrophe.

“Hey, you went with your instincts and came here immediately as soon as you could bring the whole army with you,” Dero said, clearly trying to be comforting. It felt a little weird coming from her, but the effort was sweet.

“Well, that’s- ”

“Even though that meant basically admitting that I was right.”

Tybalt and Dero exchanged a look, and then they shared a smile. Not quite a laugh. The situation felt a bit too dire for that.

“I’m just here collecting the rest of my undead army,” Tybalt retorted, blatantly lying. “The plan went even better than I expected, Dero. Now we’ll have the numbers to crush whoever we want. That’s the gist of what I was saying, if you’d been paying attention.”

“And I’ll never let you forget how well this plan went. So successful that you almost caused a continent-wide disaster. For as long as you live, I’ll be there, reminding you of this triumph.”

They finally shared a little chuckle.

“That’s a promise, then,” the necromancer said.

Dero’s expression changed to one of slight confusion, her head tilting to one side.

“A promise? What do you…?”

“You’ll be hanging around for as long as I live, not letting me live it down. Was that not a promise?” Tybalt teased.

She shook her head and looked like she wanted to smile.

“… I think you need to learn the difference between a threat and a promise, or I worry for your future as a leader.”

“I don’t know. I never finished my education, so my vocabulary isn’t that developed. What do you call it when you threaten someone with something good?”

Dero’s cheeks darkened slightly for a moment. It was hard to tell with her lavender-colored skin, but Tybalt thought she might have been blushing.

“You’re not bad with the witty remarks, for an uneducated guy,” she said. “You almost make me feel rusty. I might have to up my game. Since you’re still pretty weak - only early thirties in both classes - this is the only kind of sparring we can do. I wouldn’t want to hurt you.”

***

Three hours later, just after sunset, Tybalt and the beastfolk of the conspiracy approached the outer walls of Whadesport.

The necromancer was prepared for anything the beastfolk might spring on him, and the first part of the evening went as he expected.

They discreetly found the marker that their record had indicated was where the tunnel let out, a large rock shaped like a frog. Together, a handful of them were able to lift the stone slab that concealed the tunnel entrance - Tybalt made sure not to show his strength particularly, but he was pleased to note that he could have moved the stone all by himself now. Maybe he could trade blows effectively with Dero after all. She would still be quicker than him, but he was almost certainly stronger.

As the group moved into the darkness of the narrow tunnel - only large enough for three to travel side by side - the necromancer allowed himself a private smile.

“What do you suppose this tunnel was originally built for?” one of the foxmen asked another as they moved past the threshold.

“How would I know?” the second man replied, sounding a little on edge.

“Must have been important,” said a third. He tapped his hand against a wall made of stone. “They used sturdy materials. The labor to work this thing can’t have been cheap.”

“It goes further that way,” said Mikkel, pointing behind where the slab let a patch of moonlight shine down into the tunnel. “I think maybe it went to an oasis or an aquifer that’s played out now.”

“Let’s try not to talk too much,” said Sirena quietly. “Not until we’re deeper underground.”

The tunnel was indeed sloping very subtly downward, Tybalt noted. It made sense if it was meant to move water into the town.

“I would like to know where it ends,” the necromancer said.

Since none of you will likely make it there with me.

“Um, none of us know, Lord Necromancer,” said Selvig.

“I suppose we’ll discover it together, my lord,” said Sirena, speaking close to Tybalt’s ear in a whisper that tickled his skin.

The necromancer turned and favored her with a smile. In the dimness, it would have been hard to see that it didn’t reach his eyes.

“I look forward to it,” he said, trying to match her slightly flirty tone. “Maybe lots of discoveries in the darkness tonight.”

She bumped his hip with hers.

“Whoops. It’s so dark.”

Sirena kept up the lightly flirtatious banter as the group advanced, apparently trying to keep Tybalt’s attention on her - and the cleavage that he could see more easily once the group got further in and lit their torches - and not on the way the rest of the group positioned themselves.

The necromancer was not distracted from the fact that a couple of those traveling with him, those in the back, had drawn bows. He did not fail to notice the foxmen directly behind him loosening their daggers in the sheaths. Nor did he miss the way Sirena and the ibexman to her side kept exchanging preparatory glances.

Tybalt wondered if he should be embarrassed for them or for himself. It was all so obvious, but the beastfolk mostly had their - very limited - training as fighters from him. So was this unsubtle play for his life reflective of his teaching skills?

No, no, these ones were pretty much all part of Andric’s defense force before. It’s his fault.

“How far are we, you think?” asked Mikkel in a low voice, directed at someone else behind Tybalt.

“About far enough,” said one of the other foxmen.

“Let’s go, then.”

The figures immediately behind Tybalt parted, and he heard the twang of two bowstrings.

The assassination attempt had begun.