Five days after his first encounter with the catfolk, Tybalt spoke to the Council of Elders.

  Vidalia had anticipated that after they ran into Andric, it wouldn’t be long before the cat was out of the bag about the necromancer’s recovery. She hadn’t asked Andric to keep it a secret, because that would make it obvious to him that she and Tybalt had been avoiding alerting the Council that he had recovered.

  So instead, she and Mariella went into the village and told the Chief directly that Tybalt had woken up and wanted to speak to the Council.

  The Chief arranged a Council meeting for as soon as they could all be there in person. Every Elder had responsibilities of their own, so it took a few days.

  The necromancer didn’t mind the wait, of course. He used the time wisely, continuing to raise a couple of new mummies each morning. He spent the afternoons training with them and Mariella at ground level, in isolated places where they would be unlikely to be discovered by beastfolk who might ask awkward questions about why their preserved dead were awake and fighting.

  Tybalt practiced Breath of Decay until he acquired the skill. The key change he had needed to make was incorporating the growth aspect of his pestilence mage skills—the way his diseases tried to spread and invade as many hosts as possible and pervade their bodies. Tybalt’s mana had to do something similar for Breath of Decay to work at full effectiveness. In its final form, the skill created a cloud of deadly mana-infused breath that occupied more space outside of his body than the physical amount of air that could fit inside his lungs.

  It would still be limited by how much mana he could invest, but the attack should now be far more potent than it would have been if he hadn’t made this breakthrough. The system’s recognition that he had acquired the skill was the strongest proof that he had elevated it to a high level of potency.

  While he tried to rotate through which undead he was focusing on training at any given time, a significant chunk of those he had recovered from the mining camp worked on manual labor, building both the extension to the Twinleaf hut that Tybalt had promised and also a small house of his own. All the undead needed to help them was for someone to show them the task they needed to perform and then for an intelligent member of their number to supervise. Baldwin, Hieron, and Brunn took turns being in charge, since Heimar was still training Raybeck personally up in the forest layer of one of the mountains.

  By the time of the Council meeting, the hundreds of pairs of hands Tybalt had access to had nearly completed his new home. They lacked the technical skills to construct a fireplace and perform certain other tasks, but making the single main room and the six—six!—sleeping areas that Vidalia had insisted on was easy enough.

  Soon the necromancer and the fire mage would be able to move out of the Twinleaf hut.

  On the morning of the meeting, Vidalia, Victoria, Mariella, Kistana, and Tybalt were all in attendance. Even Uncle Edmund and young Hayden took a couple of hours off from tending their plot of land to be present for this first interaction between the necromancer their family had been caring for and the Elders.

  Tybalt began by reporting on what he had done since he woke up—in the most favorable light possible.

  “I’m Tybalt of Greentear, the necromancer. I think you’ve already heard a little bit about me from your seer.” Members of the Council exchanged glances at this. “The most basic thing you need to know is that, as she said, Death God Mudo chose me to enact his will in this world. After Lord Mudo empowered me and gave me his guidance, the first thing I wanted to do was to protect the beastfolk, his most loyal followers, from my fellow soldiers in the Royal Army. I’m grateful that my companion and I arrived in time to do that when you were under attack.” He gave Mariella an openly affectionate look, and she smiled shyly back at him until he turned back to face the Elders again.

  “Together with your brave defenders… Well, you know how the skirmish in the village turned out. The part that you don’t know is that after I awakened, I continued on with the mission. I went down to the mining outpost and finished the fight. Permanently. I hope my actions will bring you a small measure of security. What I did won’t stop the Kingdom from retaliating when they realize the squad disappeared here. But they’ll be operating with no information. Every single one of the surviving enemies from the attempt to massacre the village is dead. Most of them are my servants now. The entire mining colony, which reported the presence of your people to the Kingdom in the first place, has been captured or slaughtered. The few who remain alive are just preserved so they can be used in my necromantic experiments.

  “My most fervent desire now is to join with your people and fight the Kingdom together, to bring it under our god’s dominion and ensure no further atrocities against the beastfolk.”

  There. I gave my little speech, and I didn’t even have to lie to them. Starting off on the right foot.

  There were murmurs of shock, disbelief, and a few of dismay in places—even now, some of the beastfolk still had some positive feelings toward the miners, it seemed—but overwhelmingly, the sentiment in those around Tybalt was of approval or even excitement.

  The figure Victoria had identified as Eldest Isak smiled at Tybalt from his seat. A few people started to clap, but then Isak began to speak.

  “Thank you, Lord Necromancer. Once again, you have protected our village. Going to the mine, you accomplished something we would not have even dared attempt. As you said, I don’t suppose this forestalls the retaliation that is to come from the Kingdom…?” He looked in Vidalia’s direction, and it was clear the question was really directed at her. Tybalt sensed the foxgirl shake her head in his peripheral vision.

  The Eldest’s face fell slightly, but only for a moment. “Well, we’re very grateful.”

  “It’s the least I could do to contribute to your security after my squad almost destroyed your village,” Tybalt said.

  “Stopped thanks to you,” observed Elder Vladmir, giving Tybalt a small nod and smile.

  The necromancer judged that this old man was not easily impressed but could gradually be won over if Tybalt simply continued behaving as he had been. Actions, not words.

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  “Thanks to me and your homegrown warriors,” Tybalt replied diplomatically.

  “We intend to hold a feast in your honor tonight, Lord Necromancer,” said Chief Mihalic. “We waited for you and your… companion to both be awake and available for that, and with this news, you have only given us more to celebrate. If you don’t mind my asking, is there something you would like from us?”

  So, is that why we had to wait a few days for this meeting? So they could prepare food?

  There was a low murmur from the crowd, as if the thought had only just occurred to them that Tybalt might have some motive for helping them other than goodwill and shared faith.

  The necromancer smiled blandly and waited to see if the Chief would keep talking, even as several of the other Elders shot him pointed looks like they wanted him to stop.

  The Chief barrelled on.

  “It’s just that your, er, companion seemed most uncomfortable accepting gifts on your behalf, and of course, it’s difficult for anything that we might do for you to equal the value of what the two of you have already done for us,” Chief Mihalic said. He finally seemed done at that point.

  I find it a little hard to believe this guy is really Andric’s father, Tybalt thought. The Chief feels so slippery by comparison. His son seemed much more straightforward.

  In any case, it was time for Tybalt to play the politician a bit harder.

  “I still haven’t done enough, as far as I’m concerned,” Tybalt said with as much conviction as he could. He turned to face the crowd and added, “If any of you who have been using my undead in the village wish to continue employing them, please let me know. In most cases, I’d be happy to give them to you. Any that aren’t being useful are going to be training with the rest of my creatures to get stronger, but I told the rest of them to help the villagers before I lost consciousness.”

  That was a little white lie. Harmless. Impossible to disprove.

  He could feel the mood around him continuing to shift. Expressions that had been doubtful were turning to smiles. The majority that had been pleased with him already only seemed more certain in their views. A few looked almost worshipful. The beastfolk were practically eating out of his hand.

  Vidalia knows her people really well.

  “As for something that you could do for me… there is one thing.”

  The Chief smiled, while several other members of the Council of Elders looked nervous.

  “Only ask it,” said Eldest Isak, wearing what seemed to Tybalt to be a forced smile.

  He thinks he knows what I’m going to ask for. Access to the Valley of Martyrs. He doesn’t know that the cat tribe is already letting me do what I want there.

  “In choosing to fight for your people, I betrayed the Army, turned my back on my people, and abandoned my own country,” Tybalt said. “I can never go home now, unless it’s at the head of a conquering army of my own.”

  Isak’s face visibly fell. He spoke before any of the other Elders could.

  “I apologize, Lord Necromancer, but we do not have a real army… not yet, at least. If we did, we would defend ourselves properly, not rely on outside help and prophecies. We… cannot give you the resources to go and conquer your old home, much as we might like to.” He sounded guilty.

  “Oh, no, that wasn’t what I was going to ask for,” Tybalt said. He repressed the urge to smile and made his face serious instead. “I request that the Council of Elders forgive my crimes against the beastfolk from when I was part of the Army and adopt me as a member of your tribe.”

  The noise of shocked chatter overtook the crowd, and the necromancer had to wait for Eldest Isak to gesture impatiently for silence before continuing.

  “I have no family of my own, you see,” Tybalt said. “My companion—properly, she’s really my intended bride—is also likely to be formally disowned by her family in the Kingdom. She has no way of accounting for her actions in supporting me. We would like to try to make her family understand what happened, but I don’t want to let her out of my sight, because she would likely be killed by the religious authorities or the Army.” There were quiet murmurs of approval from the crowd, particularly the women present. “Your seer warned us of that danger. At any rate, the only family I have besides my lady… is whatever family I can make. I want to make it here.”

  He wasn’t being strictly honest there. He and Mariella had already discussed things with her father, and the General was at least still trying to treat her with some consideration, trying to imagine a way that they would not be enemies. That was Tybalt’s perception, at least. The necromancer also still had an uncle out there, plus his father, half-sister, and stepmother, but the latter three were on the list of people Tybalt wanted to kill, so did they truly count as family?

  The reaction from the Council was almost exactly the same as Uncle Edmund’s had been when Tybalt brought this idea up to him.

  Several of the Elders became emotional, even teared up, at Tybalt’s wish to join them. The Kingdom had made them feel unwanted, inferior, even hated, for centuries. They had hidden away like rats, gone hungry, and almost been wiped out over and over.

  Now the hero who had saved their village wanted to leave that Kingdom and be one of them.

  “It would be a great honor for me to sponsor your request, Lord Necromancer,” said Eldest Isak. His eyes were slightly watery, Tybalt noticed, though he was not allowing himself to actually openly shed tears, unlike Elder Cyril and Elder Milena.

  “The honor should be mine,” said Chief Mihalic, though Tybalt detected that the youngest Elder was not as enthusiastic about saying that as Isak had been.

  “I insist!” boomed an old female voice, carrying over the others and the rising murmur of the crowd.

  Tybalt looked at her. She carried one of the shamanic staffs he had seen before.

  Right. Elder Elswyth.

  “I think,” Tybalt said, cutting off the other elders before they could speak, “I must go with Elder Elswyth’s offer. We are both sworn to the service of Lord Mudo, so I already feel a sort of kinship tie toward her. I thank both Eldest Isak and Chief Mihalic for their kind overtures, and I appreciate the sentiment that motivated all of you. I feel very welcomed.”

  He thought about mentioning the fact that Elswyth seemed to be the eldest of the Council of Elders and therefore took precedence that way, too, but telling an old woman that she was old seemed like a good way to burn through some of the good will he’d earned by choosing her.

  The real reason Tybalt chose her was to do with power dynamics. His “sponsor” was effectively adopting him. There were expectations that came with such arrangements. But the fact that she was a sort of religious official and that he was the High Priest of Mudo would muddy those waters.

  “Good!” Elder Elswyth barked, chuckling. “Good!” She pointed at him with her staff, the skulls dangling in his direction jangling against each other as she did so. “Now that you’ll be my son—er, wait, does the rest of the Council approve of this?”

  There were a flurry of awkward nods before Eldest Isak spoke up.

  “If the Council of Elders are all in agreement, we can simply approve by acclamation,” the Eldest said. “We need to move on, and Lord Necromancer is undoubtedly busy as well. Are there any objections?”