These animals were ideal for work.

Some nobles decided to bury themselves with their horses, and they had lots of them. What a waste. But it became a golden opportunity for me. They even got embalmed, perfectly mummified, their bodies intact. Now I got a large herd's worth of creatures to plow, they wouldn't ask to eat, wouldn't rest, and didn't smell as bad as the other corpses. Stern was still not over that, ever since I reanimated them.

"I guess you are a necromancer, lady Elder." He stated the obvious. He threw up badly when the first batch of corpses started moving and seemed to be more wary of me than usual too. He cut back on the romantic jokes, which was already worth it, and I had grandiose plans with my zombies. It included this royal bastard in the future as well. "Will they keep rotting forever? How can you stand their stench?"

"This is just the way of life." I shrugged, finishing with the last one. I still needed a lot more. Normally, a barony this big would have been cultivated by thousands of people. I only gathered a hundred, although these would not complain about working overtime. They didn't care about day or night, cold or hunger. My only problem with them was that I had to assign their new tasks personally every time, which was exhausting.

"You know this, because you are that old, or is this some kind of secret knowledge?" While I was lost in thought, Stern was impudent as usual. "I know, I keep forgetting, that you merely look young, but in reality, you already had one leg in the coffin yourself. So being between these rotting fellows feels right at home for you, right? No offense though."

"You better bury yourself in a barrel of perfume, or you'll end up like them too," I claimed, overseeing how my last undead started to work.

"No, I don't plan on dying. And if I do, I'll have my body cremated. I won’t become your plaything, like these poor bastards." He announced, but that made me smile. It was cute if he thought of himself as anything more than my plaything, to begin with. But maybe after I reanimated his dead body, he wouldn't be as entertaining as now...

"Fine, whatever. I talked about the circle of life, but you are as dense as ever." I waved him off. I had more to do, and very little patience for him goofing around. "I'll probably need more bodies to have enough workers for the entire barony. And maybe I should take over the others too. I could make the nobles cultivate their farmlands in death."

"One thing keeps bothering me though." He added, walking back towards his carriage. He brought another thirty corpses today, and with the burial site I found, I tripled my current workforce. Not to mention the horses, they were truly a great find. "Why did we start sowing in early autumn? The wheat won’t ripe before snowfall, and won't survive the winter."

"Not like I had the chance to start any sooner, you know my hands were tied." I shrugged him off. My plans needed more time to come to fruition than some wheat did. "Sure, ideally I'd allow things to progress naturally, but I have to work with what I have."

"What I'm trying to say is, the seasons are in the way of your plans, lady Elder." He reiterated his earlier claims. He did think I was an idiot after all. "Whether you need grain or not, these fields won't be ready for the harvest in time. Especially, if you have this limited workforce."

"Stern, have you not learned anything from that coward Lambert? He could speed up plant growth five times with a single spell." I told him. Of course, he was an expert in agriculture, while I knew little about it. His ability to heal and the fact that he used banishment made him valuable to the Church, but his real specialty was farming. "We still have roughly two months before the first snow. If I accelerate their growth, the wheat will be ready before that."

"Right, of course." The Guard commander bowed his head. "I didn't know that necromancy works on plants too... It all makes sense now."

I could tell, he was trying to mock me again. Yes, I had to study Lambert's spells, but I was nearly a hundred years old and had unparalleled magic potential compared to the other mages of my time. I was certain, I could pull it off if I put my mind to it... And if not, there must have been other wizards around I could put to work.

But the more people were involved, the higher the risk was. I needed the citizens of Sanctuary to worship me, and I couldn't have them learn my secrets ahead of time. Everything I did here was to earn their trust and love, for that, I needed one more thing from Stern, before he left.

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This at least didn't involve transporting corpses.

"Your new Guard has volunteers from earlier craftsmen, right?" I asked, pointing at the old manor house. It has been in a state of neglect since the Collapse. "I need you to gather some carpenters, masons, millers, and bakers. The first two as soon as possible. The rest can wait until the harvest is finished, but I need the mills and bakeries operational. And some safe and dry warehouses too..."

"You also want to process everything here, lady Elder?" Stern seemed surprised. He scratched his head, looking at my undead workers bumbling around. "Can the zombies even handle such machinery?"

"They can't. Don't have brains anymore..." I confirmed but couldn't miss a chance to insult him. "In that, they are quite similar to you. And they won't last forever either... Especially if they start annoying me."

"So you want to replace them with living workers now?" He asked, confused. Yes, I didn't keep him around for his brains. "The whole point of using these is that nobody finds out your plans..."

"The undead won't survive the winter. You needn't worry about that though." I ordered, losing my patience. "I have everything figured out."

"You plan on turning my soldiers into zombies then?" Stern kept asking dumb questions. There was no point in doing that, but how would he understand? I decided to share some details if that shut him up...

"Their skills would be lost upon death... Zombies can only follow simple orders from me, and unless I keep feeding them with magicules, they'll rot away in a few weeks." I explained to the bastard. "Once they finish the harvest, I'll have them march on Sanctuary. I will dispatch them right at the gates, the more witnesses the better."

"Getting rid of your servants, posing as the savior... Ruthless as always." He looked like he had the chills. But he was right. I could even antagonize the Pope with this since his corpse was still not found. It was the perfect plan. This way I could keep recycling my tools multiple times over. I couldn't exactly afford to waste them after all...

"You only have to ensure your men won't stumble upon them until that, and have them renovate the manor house." I gave the order one more time. I hoped that he finally understood everything. "They will make the flour and bake the bread here after the harvest. Then I'll take a few Bags of Holdings full of food into the slums. I'll present them as some sort of miracle. I take it, you can make your Guards hold their mouths..."

"I'll admit, this plan is more cunning than I expected, my lady." He finally bowed his head. My explanation seemed satisfactory to him, which was great because I was out of patience. "So you want my men to prepare everything in advance without finding the skeletons? And then process the food that magically appeared in the warehouses?"

"More or less... They won't get any leaves by the time it will be up to them. You'll have to keep their mouths shut." I warned Stern one last time. "Can you arrange that much? Or should I find someone competent..."

"No, it will be done, lady Elder." He bowed once more. "I'll see to find the best craftsmen in the guard, and they won't suspect a thing. It's still way better than hauling even more rotting corpses here. But how will they avoid running into them when they are all over the place?"

"As you can see, the work in the nearby areas is almost finished." I waved around the manor. "The rest will be hidden behind the hills and treelines. If your soldiers don’t wander off, it will be fine."

"And don't let them use their noses either, right?" He shook his head now. "I'm starting to believe, you can't perceive their foul smell like a normal human being. I'm surprised nobody stumbled upon us yet."

"You surely jest. I can even smell your fear and insolence. Let alone the stench of the undead..." I assured him, being annoyed. He loved to waste my time. "But you are seriously overreacting it, Stern. Once they are beyond visual range, none of your soldiers will smell them..."

"I'm making no guarantees about that... But really, I'll do anything if that means I no longer have to go anywhere near these things." He promised, jumping on his cart. "I'll probably just burn this cursed carriage somewhere on my way back..."

"I still expect you to extract the dangerous elements from the city so I can put them to work," I noted before he got the wrong idea. "While I did find some useful burial sites, I have around a hundred zombies working. A thousand would be much closer to the ideal."

"The gods have mercy on me!" He cried out, reaching for the reins. He drove his horses in a big circle to turn around. "Speaking of gods... If your plans work, and you'll become a saint, when do you plan on getting rid of the King? And when I'll have you marry me?"

"All in due time..." I told him in a cryptic voice. "As long as the King doesn't cross my plans, I have no reason to get rid of him. But indeed, if I were to marry you as the heir, that would have to be as a saint... That way, both of our legitimacy would be entrenched in the eyes of the public."

"That's what I thought..." He nodded, urging his horses to pick up the pace. "I hope there are benefits in tying the knot with a saint. I'm not asking for immortality because you'd turn me into an undead like them, but I'd expect something nice at the very least."

If only he knew that my lightning bolts could reach him from miles away, he wouldn't keep his most insolent jokes for last. But he'd work extra hard to annoy me when he prepared to leave. I had to remind myself not to kill him... As he said, I could have just turned him into a zombie, but I might have enjoyed these interactions somewhere deep down, only a little.