V3Ch77-What You Value Most

The necromancer continued, “Kistana, Mariella, I’m hoping you can integrate the high elves Colin sent us with the elite units of the Grand Beastfolk Army. I’m only planning on taking a fraction of our living forces into this first battle. I don’t want this to be a fight where we’re just throwing numbers at the enemy. They’ve brought a relatively small, elite force, according to Vidalia’s visions. At least, as small and select as you can get when you’re still taking enough troops to call it an army. They could have had ten thousand or more, and it’s going to be less than half of that, probably. Similar numbers to our forces without Ragga’s people. They’re hoping to cut down as many of our low level soldiers as they can and keep the number of dead bodies we can replenish our numbers with to a minimum and shrink us down to a nub of ourselves, easily snuffed out. To counter that, we should be matching our elite against theirs instead of throwing easy levels at them. The high elf mages and soldiers are part of our elite forces now.”

They both nodded, while Liora looked like she wasn’t sure whether to be pleased or upset. It was surely a positive that Tybalt considered the forces her father was contributing - effectively her dowry - as valuable, but it might be considered troubling that the necromancer wanted them to be among a small number of living troops he was throwing into combat.

“In case any of them fall, I will work with Liora on a ritual to raise these elites as vampires,” he added. Her expression shifted to more unambiguously positive immediately. It seemed she was on board with her father’s plan to turn the high elf population slowly into vampires. “Related to that, one of my top priorities is that I’m hoping to raise most of the enemy troops as undead after we kill them, so our undead will have specific orders about how to fight them so as not to spoil the bodies.” He looked at all the Beastkings, one at a time, and at Esmerelda as well. “I expect all of you to use your best judgment on how to use the undead that report to you specifically to achieve that objective without sacrificing too many of our own. As for how I’ll use each of your talents in the fighting—”

“Where will you be?” Mariella asked, interrupting.

“I’ll be commanding one of the units, naturally. Probably alongside one of the chthonic mages to maximize my mobility.”

It was a shame we lost one to the Hero, but fortunately, the beastfolk were incredible about preserving their dead and ensuring there were redundancies built in there.

“You can control all of the undead at once and see through their eyes, right?” the fire mage asked. She already knew the answer, of course. Tybalt knew what she was getting at.

“Yes, but I should be close enough to the fight to help, which means I’ll have to focus on where I actually am. I can repair the undead, use attacks that cause multiple casualties at once, and generally fight more effectively than the average undead under my control.”

“You’d be much more effective if you weren’t anywhere near the front lines at all, Tybalt,” the fire mage said bluntly. “You’re a good fighter, and you’ve gotten much better since you were sparring with me back in the mountains. Your skills are more lethal than those of almost anyone else here—” She tilted her head at Dero, the obvious exception. “But you’re far more effective as a leader than as an individual warrior. Your ranged attacks are more limited than mine, let alone being comparable to the ranged attacks from the Kingdom’s elites. There’s no one, no army in the world, that can replicate your ability to see through the eyes of every individual soldier at once and adapt to the situation on the ground in real time. You should forget about giving us specific roles right now. Just put each of us with one of your undead units, plan to seclude yourself somewhere safe during the battle, and then pass us specific instructions through the undead around us as the fighting happens. With your ability to see what’s going on everywhere at all times, you can coordinate so we’re never at a disadvantage.”

You shouldn’t be talking about yourself being involved in the fighting at all, Tybalt thought. You’re even bigger now than you were when you insisted on coming to confront the Hero.

His eyes fell to her swollen belly, then darted back up to her face. Their eyes met, and he saw she definitely knew what he was thinking.

“As a related matter, I’d rather not take all of you into battle,” he said after a moment, deliberately ignoring Mariella’s main point. “Some of you, yes. I prefer not to impose my own preferences on you, but I need you to select from among your number those who will sit out the fighting.”

“None of us would willingly stay at home when you’re fighting for your life,” Kistana said immediately, her voice pleading, looking Tybalt in the eyes. “I… can’t speak for others, but who would want to outlast the rest of this family? I assume Lady Vidalia will be here, because she can’t fight and needs to be protected, but other than her—”

“Actually, kitty cat, I need to be at the fortress,” Vidalia said in a quiet, cheery voice. “My power will be essential for part of the battle.”

You’re both fucking pregnant, too, the necromancer thought, quietly exasperated. Vidalia was roughly as swollen as Mariella. And I didn’t even mean you, Kistana. You belong right by my side, although… it’s fucked up, my first thought was that I want you there to protect me. I shouldn’t even be thinking like that anymore now that you’re pregnant.

“Only an early part of the battle,” Tybalt said, picking up the thread of what Vidalia was saying. “You should definitely keep back from the fighting after that. Dero can Teleport you out of harm’s way and then return, I think.”

The dark elf nodded and looked at Vidalia. “There’s no sense in risking you and your baby for any longer than we have to.”

The foxgirl just shrugged and looked at Tybalt. He nodded to her.

Yes, please, leave as soon as you can after you fulfill your mission, he thought.

“As for the rest of you, I ask that you consider this situation more carefully,” the necromancer said firmly, giving Mariella a lingering look. “Ideally, more of you should volunteer to stay back. No individual fighter is completely irreplaceable beyond those early parts of the battle, when I absolutely need Vidalia and Dero. I’m talking to you all not just as your lover, but as…” He swallowed, then made himself continue, a little emotion creeping into his voice, “As the father of all the babies growing inside you. Every one of you besides Liora, Vicky, and Aoife is pregnant. My children with you are more important to me than my own survival. I didn’t crown myself a king for my fucking amusement, or my ego, and frankly, it wasn’t even entirely for the beastfolk. It was so I could pass something down if and when I die. To be different from—” He swallowed down the words, My father—“from so many other people who fail their children. To establish something that would outlive me and give it to my children to protect and share together. In the unlikely event of my death, the undead will obey whichever wives remain alive, along with the Beastkings. As long as you remain alive and united, there’s no reason that this Kingdom can’t outlive me. No, it has to continue beyond the next few months. There’s our children, and there are thousands of people we’re responsible for. This country, and this family, will be stronger with more of its queens alive rather than just one or two.”

The words felt a little strange coming out of his mouth. He had spent so much time thinking about vengeance and killing. But as he looked at them, it was obvious that his wives, the babies they were expecting, and even the little people who supported them were all more important than conquest.

Dero gave him a look of sympathy but said nothing. He wondered if she was already seeing a sad ending to his ambitions but simply didn’t have the heart to say so. She had witnessed countries rise and fall before.

I can understand how one of my predecessors ended up trying to make peace with his enemies before the end… or at least, I would understand it if he had remained human, with partners and children to think about. It would be a hard thing, if someone went after any of you and actually killed you. Maybe I’m getting soft.

“I know I can’t help much in the battle itself,” Victoria said, frowning and clenching her small hands into fists. “I had already figured that I wouldn’t be in the thick of fighting. So I agree with you, I’m willing to keep away from the site of combat. But I think, if Vidalia and I are the only ones who sit out, our situation will be incredibly delicate. Two women the village didn’t even listen to before you came along… and Vidalia will be giving birth and recovering from that in the next few months. We’re supposed to lead a war by ourselves?”

The necromancer looked over at Mariella, hoping she would volunteer to stay out of the battle. She was literally the only one of his wives besides Victoria that he could spare. Mariella gave him a little shake of her head.

I’ll talk to her about it later.

“You’ll act as the leader during that time yourself, if the rest of us are gone,” Tybalt said finally, turning back to Victoria. “Since the rest of us are volunteering to put our lives on the line. A high religious official, and her twin sister who can see the future, backed up by an army of undead. People will obey you. And I should probably survive, anyway, if I follow Mariella’s suggestion that I guide the battle from somewhere the enemy can’t get me. This idea of who lives and who dies is mostly hypothetical.”

I hope.

“I agree with the fire mage,” Dero said. “You’re no close combatant. In your fight with Ragga, I caught eight different times I could have ended the fight if I were her.”

Tybalt sighed. “If I was fighting you, I would have used different methods than I did against Ragga. Since you’re not a ten foot tall ogre.”

“You are quite delicate,” Kistana said. “You were almost killed by a boulder falling on you, remember?”

So were you! the necromancer wanted to say. But he refrained. Kistana had gotten strong enough to trade physical blows with Aoife, after all.

“Then we’re agreed,” Tybalt said finally, shaking his head. “I’ll be out of harm’s way, while most of my hardheaded wives are fighting directly alongside the hordes of the dead.”

“We should discuss which undead units we’ll each fight beside,” Liora suggested. “Then what my father’s loaned elven troops will be doing. I suggest…”

The conference continued until late in the afternoon.