Tybalt, Kistana, and Victoria ascended the mountain once again.

  Just as in their descent, Victoria had to accept a piggyback ride from Kistana. The climb was too steep for the foxgirl otherwise, along the route they had taken.

  “Thank you both for your courage,” Victoria said for what might have been the third time.

  Yet Tybalt was far from tired of hearing it.

  “Like I said after the distress signal went up, Vidalia thinks of Carlos almost like family,” the foxgirl added.

  “That’s why we came,” Tybalt replied.

  Victoria smiled and quieted after that, allowing Tybalt and Kistana to focus on climbing.

  The necromancer used the opportunity to communicate with his undead.

  “How’s it going, Edgard?” he asked.

  “Master, all the scorpion corpses are secured as ordered,” the mummy replied.

  “Is there any significant damage to you or the others?”

  Edgard replied with a scoff. It was the most emotion Tybalt recalled ever observing from the chthonic mage. “Damage? Inconceivable. Back in my day, we would have thought these monsters were fodder compared with the Kingdom’s soldiers. No, no injuries incurred. Certainly not when we had the Mist Veil to shield us from their ranged attacks.”

  That was really more to keep anyone from seeing that I raised a bunch of mummies from the Valley of Martyrs, but I’m glad it helped, Tybalt thought to himself.

  “When will you be able to regroup on the mountainside with the others?” the necromancer asked. “I have plans for this evening, so I hope you will be able to preserve the scorpion bodies.”

  “The humans are unloading their caravan quickly, and I will be able to sense when they’re gone and we may emerge unseen. And yes, we will bring the scorpions. You were very clear, master. No matter how weak they may seem, every army needs footsoldiers.”

  I can’t wait until I get to the level where giant scorpions are just fodder.

  “You’re certain you can stay underground for all that time?” Tybalt asked.

  “Even if I ran out of mana using Underworld Motion, which I will not anytime soon, that would just mean we are temporarily buried. Of course, you know that it is not harmful to either the dead or the undead to be underground for a time.”

  As long as you’ll still be able to get out, Tybalt thought. I don’t know how deep you’ve buried yourself to stay hidden. But I won’t say that. I keep hearing more pride in his voice every time I say something that sounds like I’m questioning his abilities. Edgard’s strength is practically his weakest stat, but it’s still higher than mine. As long as he didn’t go too deep, he should be fine. Even if he did, he’ll get out eventually.

  “Very well,” the necromancer replied simply. Then he used the necromantic bond to speak with all his undead in the same area as Edgard at once. “Good work to all of my precious elite soldiers!”

  “Thank you, master,” replied the chorus of telepathic voices.

  This was the first true combat test of almost the full complement of Tybalt’s intelligent undead. Heimar was still training with Raybeck, and Baldwin had been high up on the mountain with Hieron. Tybalt would keep the four of them closer from now on. But the rest of his monsters had all been at his service. The mummies he had revived thus far, his draugrs and sea draugr, and the second fext, all gathered like the hard fingers of a gauntleted fist to crush the target.

  The mummies all had greater strength and agility than Tybalt, so they had carried the other undead the necromancer had decided he wanted present from the mountainside down to the desert sands.

  The only thing Tybalt had contributed was a strategy, and it was purely one of concealment. Hide underground using Edgard’s Underworld Motion skill, and once on the surface, Sidon would conceal them with the same Mist Veil he had used when they destroyed the mining camp.

  The necromancer didn’t want anyone to see what his monsters could do- or which creatures he had under his command.

  Unlike the clumsy but brutal weight of his zombies and skeletons, the elite, intelligent undead moved like a well-oiled machine. Most of them were strong and precise enough to kill a scorpion monster with a single blow to the invertebrates’ equivalent of a heart. For the others, it was just an opportunity to gain experience by making minor contributions to the fight.

  Tybalt simply watched and appreciated alongside Victoria, slowly farming experience from his creatures’ kills.

  No downsides.

  Although… Dero seems to have sensed something. Maybe she just recognized that killing so many monsters so quickly, even monsters that Edgard calls “fodder,” would have been impossible for me alone. Dark elves… Hm. I never knew there were more than high elves and wood elves. Maybe Vidalia will know more. One thing is clear. Dero is powerful. I’ll have to pay attention to what she does while she’s here. And what was that skill she was using to flit through the air? It looked like some sort of teleportation, but I thought Teleport was a space mage skill. She’s definitely not that. Not any kind of space mage I’ve ever seen.

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  He turned his head and noticed Kistana, sweat beading on her brow.

  That doesn’t seem normal for her level of fitness and power. Even carrying Victoria piggyback. Something is definitely wrong. It’s not like this is the first time I’ve noticed it. What do I do about it?

  He cleared his throat and deliberately slowed his climbing, and after a moment, the catgirl turned her head to look at him with a quizzical expression.

  “Kistana, one of the Elders we’ll see at the feast tonight is an alchemist. Would you like me to introduce you to her? I’ve noticed you seemed a little sick over the last few days. Maybe we could get her to look at you…”

  “I know you don’t know much about my tribe yet, my lord, but we don’t generally believe in interfering with nature’s processes. If you’ve decided that I am inadequate to perform my duties as a guard, however, I understand. You can always send me home and have a few monks assigned to protect you instead. I would be able to make recommendations if you wish.”

  “I don’t agree with that custom of your tribe, nor do the other tribes,” Tybalt said. “The fox tribe used their alchemist’s skills to save me from death after I was wounded defending their village. Surely it wasn’t the will of Lord Mudo that I die there. Just because he’s the God of Death doesn’t mean he doesn’t want you to do things to stop yourself from dying.”

  “That’s not the only reason,” she said. But Tybalt noticed a distinct lack of conviction in her voice. “The rationale is that only the strongest should survive and reproduce. That keeps the tribe strong.”

  She’s just mouthing what she’s been told, and she doesn’t even agree with it herself, he thought. It was a little irritating, but he still hadn’t managed to penetrate the catgirl’s dense reserve. She kept her true feelings to herself as best she could at all times.

  “Do you think you’re too weak to be allowed to survive and reproduce?” he asked.

  She gritted her teeth, took a deep breath, and only then answered. “I believe I will survive. As for breeding, it is a sensitive subject, but as a matter of fact, the Elders never assigned me a mate, even after I had reached maturity. The implication of that decision is that I was not meant to pass on my defective qualities. They determined I was unfit.”

  I think that’s the angriest I've seen her. Still, all she shows me is gritted teeth. I can’t think of why anyone would find her unfit to reproduce. She said they leave the weak children to die, and she’s the strongest in the tribe. How do you get fitter than that? If they wanted more than that, she’s almost as tall as me. She has clear skin, beautiful amber eyes- that was the color he’d noticed they had when her red aura flickered off- good sized breasts, child-bearing hips, nice strong thighs, a pretty voice… He stopped himself as he realized he wasn’t thinking about what she’d said anymore. How embarrassing. It’s like I can’t get enough of women, ever since Mariella and I started sleeping together. Guess I need to go fuck her again and get some of this energy out of my system. If Kistana could sense any of what I was thinking in the way I was looking at her, she’s bound to feel a bit uncomfortable. Like I might order her to do more than her job duties at any moment.

  He finally looked her in the eyes and saw that she was facing forward, up the mountain, not looking at him. Hopefully she hadn’t noticed anything amiss.

  “Do you agree with your Elders’ decision?” he asked.

  “Of course I don’t!” she exploded. “But if I only survive whatever this minor ailment is because I had help, then I prove the Elders right. I’m defective!”

  Well, there’s the anger, at least.

  “Is there any point at all in worrying about that?” Tybalt asked, barely controlling his irritation with her frankly ridiculous logic. “Those people kneel to me. Isn’t it my opinion you should be thinking about? What would even prove them wrong to your satisfaction?”

  She bit her lip for a moment, her fangs sharp enough that Tybalt saw a tiny dot of blood on one of her pink lips before the tiny hole closed back up.

  “Outliving them on my own terms without needing assistance,” Kistana said finally.

  “It sounds like you do agree with their beliefs, fundamentally,” the necromancer said. “At the very least, you’re letting their ideals run your life.”

  “That’s not- you are infuriating, Lord Tybalt!”

  “Only because you know I’m right.”

  She stared daggers at him for a moment, before the swearing she was probably doing in her head calmed.

  “My apologies for losing my temper,” she said after a short pause, turning to face forward again. “You are very wise in your way, and you are an outsider. I should not expect you to understand what I’m trying to prove with my behavior. As for whether you’re right, I’ll at least grant that I know the Elders are wrong. That’s why I wanted to show them up. I became the strongest in the tribe, and everyone else had to acknowledge that. No one else can draw my bow but me!” She proudly tapped the oversized bow she constantly carried with her, currently slung alongside Victoria on her back. “But the Elders dismissed it. They said it was because my bloodline was ‘improperly balanced.’ But if I outlive them under their own terms, if I stay strong and healthy into my gray years- ”

  “They won’t even know,” Tybalt said. “They’ll never even know they made a mistake. You’re living your life to prove people wrong who don’t give a damn about you. And if you outlive them, they couldn’t possibly know that they ‘lost’ this contest they don’t realize they’re having.”

  “As I said, I didn’t expect you to understand.” The catgirl lapsed into silence.

  The necromancer sighed.

  “Fine, do as you wish,” Tybalt said grumpily. “But we won’t have room for surprises as we prepare to make war on the Kingdom. If you slow us down, prepare to be left behind.”

  He didn’t mean what he said, but the catgirl simply nodded indifferently to his words.

  Feeling a little spiteful, the necromancer climbed ahead, deliberately moving a bit more quickly than he had been. Kistana, burdened with both the weight of Victoria and her unknown ailment, struggled to keep up and began to fall behind. Despite that, she never asked him to slow down. He had to give her some credit for that. She seemed to have strong convictions, even if he felt they were stupid ones.

  As a gap opened up between himself and the two beastgirls, Tybalt could hear Victoria begin to speak. She had remained silent through the whole discussion between him and Kistana, and the foxgirl had looked a little uncomfortable, as if she wanted to be somewhere else.

  “Tybalt is right, Kistana,” Victoria said softly, barely audible. The necromancer slowed slightly to hear but tried not to make it obvious. “I know he was a little rough, but you don’t look well. Your job is important, and you have to take care of yours- ”

  “I am fine, Lady Victoria,” Kistana replied. “I know my body’s signs. Please trust that I will not suddenly collapse and send you tumbling down the mountainside.”

  “That’s not what I… All right. It is your body, after all.”

  Tybalt sighed.