Chapter Forty-Two - Ornery Oldies

The man behind the desk stared at me with narrowing eyes. He spent a long, quiet time scanning my features, though that wasn't all he did. I could sense seeking, curious tendrils of magic coming from the young lad. Not a spell, exactly, but a sense for the arcane refined into something almost physical.

There was a spark of recognition in his eyes, followed by the unmistakable stiffness of someone suddenly alert. His fingers twitched as if ready to reach for something under the desk, but he paused.

"Ah, I see," he replied finally. He rose and bowed slightly, his voice gaining a respectful undertone. "If you'd be so kind as to follow me, sir."

He pushed his chair back with deliberate care, the legs scraping against the stone floor before they settled. It was hard not to notice how he was squaring his shoulders. Alex noticed as well. The maid shifted slightly closer to me, cat ears twitching.

The young necromancer led us to a solid door on the far side of the room which opened with an echoing creak. A bit of dust dislodged itself from the top of it, and Alex sniffed reproachfully. Clearly, the door leading into the business part of this building hadn't been open in some time, which either meant that the necromancers within had another way in and out of the city council, or that they merely never left.

Knowing what I did about necromancers and their... less than extroverted natures, I could well imagine it being the latter.

He gestured to a narrow corridor that stretched out behind the reception space he had occupied. It was lined on one side by drawers and the other wall held a few small torches, all unlit. "Mind the step, sir," he advised as he gestured to a small dip in the floor ahead.

"Thank you, good man," I replied as I took an exaggerated step over the gap. This too, was a good old-fashioned trap I used to employ quite frequently.

With the floor being made of stone tiles, the step was difficult to make out unless one was looking for it. More than one intrepid knight, searching for traps, had lost their footing and subsequently their lives after crashing to the floor.

"I'd hate to take a tumble here," I said. "It would be quite the... grave mistake. Ohoho!"

The necromancer's lips twitched, but he made no comment. Alex, however, stifled a small smile, a hand briefly covering their mouth as they followed me. The corridor twisted and turned, leading us deeper beneath the city. The further we went, the thicker the air became with the unmistakable scent of old earth and lingering magic, a combination I found oddly comforting.

At last, we entered a chamber through a large wrought iron door. It was a circular chamber, not so unlike a council chamber in and of itself.

Rather than many seats, however, this room held standing sarcophagi. There were thirty or so of them, set in a large ring around the centre of the room. One slot was missing, allowing for someone to cross to the centre. A second ring was set behind the first, and a third behind that.

Each sarcophagus was currently occupied. Skeletal figures clad in ancient steel armour. Their empty sockets seemed to follow us as we carefully navigated to the very middle of the room where there was a small step onto a raised dais.

"Hello, everyone," I said before tipping my head down in the semblance of a bow.

"Lord Harold," one of the ancient corpses said. It twitched forwards, detaching itself from the sarcophagus with a shift of dust and a clatter of metal on metal. The man--for I'd long, long since grown used to noticing the slight differences in jaws and hips and such that would indicate a corpse's biological sex--clunked forwards, then fell to one knee.

The next followed, then the next.

"Well well, it seems like you lot have been... dying to see me," I said with a chuckle.

What an interesting find. I recognized these undead. Perhaps not the person, but certainly their type. Death knights.

The swords in their arms and the shields resting at the base of their resting place (hah!) were signs enough to tell that these were no mere skeletal warriors. Moreover, they were not all entirely skeletal. Some had missing limbs replaced by ghostly matter, others still had necrotic flesh clinging to them with tenacity.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

To the lay-person, there might not be much difference between these undead and the fodder I used so frequently in my armies.

To an experienced necromancer, the difference was like the sun and moon.

A Death Knight was more than a mere reanimated corpse. They were imbued with enough magic to drown a small town in fireballs. Each knight had as much magic potency as a platoon of ordinary undead.

Better yet, or perhaps worse if they weren't on one's side, Death Knights were lesser spell casters themselves.

In a way, these were my answers to one of the greatest types of ordinary foe I'd had to face in my day. Paladins.

These didn't have the holy, or unholy, abilities of the average paladin, but they had combative magics of their own, the ability to heal themselves, the ability to imbue fear unto their enemies and stand up from nearly nothing.

The figure who'd first moved raised his head and his jaw parted in what might have been a smile. "Your humour remains as sharp as ever."

"I always thought it was a little blunt," I admitted with a chuckle. "Ah, but I don't know if this is a good time to jest. We have much to discuss. I believe introductions are in order?"

The Death Knights exchanged glances in a silent conversation that I wasn't quite part of. He cleared his lack of throat. "My lord, I am Sir Cophagus, leader of this council of Opalhorn. Previously I was the lord knight of the seven hundred and seventy-sixth patrol division of your undead army. Tasked with exploring and guarding this area for future expansion and development."

"Jolly good," I said. "And what have you been doing here? I imagine those orders are quite dated."

He bowed his head. "We have kept to the letter of our orders for millenia, my lord. Even as you rested, and even as other outposts were lost to time and disaster, we stood fast."

That was genuinely quite impressive. I imagined that other such outposts on the continent would have been assaulted by the locals long ago. These kinds of places did hold some things that they'd consider treasures, and Death Knights were certainly a threat.

"You were never discovered?" I asked.

Sir Cophagus shook his head. "We had a detachment of scouts and lesser necromancers with us. They advised me to take the safer, more cautious approach. We accepted some locals into our star fortress and as they grew into a township and now a small city, we continued to advise and counsel them from here. In exchange, we bring peace and prosperity unto the humans and they join us in death."

"I see," I said. "Very well done. I'm legitimately impressed by your subterfuge. However..."

The room tensed. "My lord?" Sir Cophagus asked.

"However, the time for such things has passed. I have an offer for you, good sir. A choice." I raised both hands, illustrating what I meant. "The first is to remain here and keep on keeping on. You may continue to rule Opalhorn from the shadows as you have. Though I would ask that you transfer any taxes from the locals to my own cause, perhaps assist in my apprentice's growth by accepting trade with her little city."

Sir Cophagus nodded. "This is acceptable, my lord," he said. "What of the other option?"

"Join us," I replied. "Put an end to the subterfuge. Raise the levies of the dead and the living. Overthrow the local sect--unless they wish to join in--and march southwards. There's an entire continent out there that really ought to be conquered I think."

The Death Knight trembled. Not in fear. Oh no, this was a proper undead knight whose purpose for existing was warfare and combat, one who had likely been denied the same and drowned in the minutia of logistics for quite a long time. He was trembling with excitement.

"My lord!" He jumped to his feet, and so did all the others in a sudden cacophony of motion and sound that stopped just as suddenly as it started. "We are ready, my lord! What are our orders!"

I grinned. "Well now... let's see about the local sect, yes? I have an inkling that they're not the sorts who'd be friendly to our cause. After that... well, I imagine that by now my dear Limpet must have gotten herself into some bit of trouble. I'm certain she'd appreciate her patron bailing her out. Warlocks are all the same, I think."

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