“I will not step on the leader’s tail,” Vylkher said suddenly when we were halfway across a rope bridge over a terrifying gap I was fully occupied not thinking about, “but you should know that you have…sympathy, here. The healing you granted has helped, but even before that. Though our lives are less perilous than those of the wolf and cat tribes, there are many here who are eager for the kind of change you represent.”

“I think,” I said, speaking as carefully as I was currently stepping, “I’m going to refrain from sticking myself into your internal tribe politics, on the grounds that I know nothing about them and screwing around with complicated things I don’t understand is a quick was to break shit.”

He half-turned his head to give me a glance and a thin smile over his shoulder. “Wise.”

“So from an outsider’s perspective, though. What do you reckon are my odds?”

“The leader’s decision will depend on what you say to him. He is conservative, but he is reasonable and willing to change when he believes himself to have been wrong. Ultimately, his goal will be to avoid splitting the tribe.”

“Good idea. Civil wars are the ugliest kind.”

“There will be no war. If the tribe splits, it will be peacefully, by agreement. Our laws allow for this. It has never happened, though, not once since we have settled on Dount. No one wants it. All would prefer to find a compromise. The minority will almost certainly go along even if they do not agree.”

“That’s reassuring. Thank you, Vylkher, that’s a very useful perspective.”

He glanced back once more to give me a nod, and we continued the rest of the way in silence. I could appreciate a guy who only talked when he had something important to say.

We came to the big central structure where they held their meetings—at least, the non-spiritual ones that didn’t call for the altar down below. Even on approach I could see it was occupied, from the flickering lights in the ventilation slits open near the roof. There was also a subtle smell of smoke and something else sweeter and gently spicy. Ugh, more incense. Well, I knew the Seer was there, anyway.

Vylkher went right up to the door and stopped to one side of it, gesturing me in. I nodded at him and pushed through the heavy hide flap holding out the wind.

It was only my second visit to this spot, but it felt like the third. Though I’d been there constantly during the initial meeting and then the more convivial sessions dispensing healing, the atmosphere in those two encounters had been so different they were distinct experiences in my memory. This, now, was the first one all over again. The chieftain sat on his carved bench like a king on his throne, with the Seer standing at his side as before. Now, there was an akornin brazier made from the whole shell of some animal on his other side, letting out that smoky incense. Squirrelfolk lined the perimeter of the room in ranks two deep, as during our initial audience. The available space meant this couldn’t have been as much as half the village’s population, and I couldn’t be sure how many of them were the same as before.

Not in a “they all look alike” sense; on the contrary, I was finding beastfolk easier to tell apart than members of human ethnicities with which I wasn’t familiar, simply because their fur patterns did half the work for me. I just hadn’t been here long enough, nor been paying enough attention during my first visit, to recall most of the individuals. I recognized a few, though, including the man who had given me that guitar which I could tell was a treasured heirloom. I had healed his young son of what I’m pretty sure was some kind of cancer or autoimmune disease.

I dunno exactly. I’m not a doctor, I just play one in this stupid fucking isekai.

As before, I stepped up to the cleared space in the center of the room, facing the leader and the Seer, who regarded me impassively.

“So,” I said cheerfully, “I suppose you’re wondering why I asked you all here today.”

There was a faint whisper of shuffling paws and shifting tails from around the room.

“Not particularly,” replied the chief, staring me down. “You play a dangerous game indeed with that paladin, Dark Lord.”

“Dangerous games are the only kind I’ve seen since I arrived on this world,” I replied, unsurprised. Yep, they knew. As I spoke, I reached up to carefully tug my scarf loose. “I don’t play them by choice, they just won’t leave me alone. Regardless, your people have been admirably discreet in this matter. I respect the intelligence that takes, and I am grateful for the help, however subtle. I always remember those who have helped me.”

Biribo buzzed out from the loosened folds of fabric to hover in his customary place over my shoulder, prompting another rustle from around the periphery, this one accompanied by soft murmurs. The Seer’s little squirrel familiar leaned forward on her shoulder to hiss at him. She reached up and flicked its nose.

Wow, was it gonna be like this every time? Biribo and Radatina had warned me, but I could do without him going at it with every other Blessed with Wisdom I encountered like magic stray cats. He, at least, kept quiet and did no worse than stick his tongue out at his new rival.

“Then,” the chief said evenly, “will you consider our debt for the use of your power repaid?”

Wow, he was gonna be that mercenary about it, huh. I was not inclined to accept that interpretation of events, and not just because I was getting the worse end of that deal. No, that entire approach to relations between us wouldn’t lead in the direction I desired.

“Is that how you prefer to handle your affairs?” I asked instead. “A favor for a favor, everything neatly tallied up?”

“It gives…clarity,” he said tonelessly, “which is especially important in…complicated situations.”

“Now, maybe this is just my experience with the goblins talking, but I would say that clarity only comes when terms are worked out and agreed to beforehand. Assigning value to things done after the fact seems like a terrible idea, to me. Besides, I don’t recall you ever being in my debt. I told you up front: healing is free, when I’m here to offer it. If I want anything in exchange, I’ll tell you before acting.”

“Then—”

“And I expect the same in return.” I kept my smile in place, but deliberately hardened it, along with my tone. “If someone aids me without being asked and then tries to demand payment, I will have to conclude I am being swindled. That kind of con really only works if you have the power to forcibly extract payment from the mark. Don’t you think?”

The Seer shifted her head slightly to regard the chief with raised eyebrows. He kept his own stare fixed on me, his shoulders rising and then falling in a silent sigh.

“Very well then, I expected it to come to this. Make your threats, Dark Lord.”

“Do I look stupid to you?”

Whatever he was expecting, it wasn’t that. The Seer looked amused and intrigued; the chief blinked twice, fumbling for a response.

“I…I didn’t—”

“In the hypothetical you’ve just proposed,” I steamrolled on, “I would presumably demand your allegiance under pain of… I’m not sure what you think I’d do to you, so let’s just call it ‘threats’ and move on. Your people’s specialties are alchemy and stealth, as I understand it? Definitely aptitudes I would like to incorporate. So in this situation I would have placed a bunch of skilled assassins in and around the heart of my organization, while pissing them off. As if any moron couldn’t anticipate what would obviously happen next. Tell me, do I have STUPID printed across my forehead, or do I just give off a stupid vibe?”

The chief’s mouth hung open in surprise, and there was more rustling and soft voices from around the room.

The Seer, though, laughed quietly. Her counterpart gave her an irritated look.

“Truly, you are a man of layers, Lord Seiji,” she said, stroking her familiar. “Respect and restraint, fueled by cynicism and rage, and expressed through jokes. I genuinely have no idea what the inside of your mind must be like. Congratulations; that is something I can say about few people.”

“I bet you say that to all the Dark Lords.”

“Every one so far,” she agreed solemnly.

“You continue to sow confusion, but I will admit to relief,” the chief interjected. “It is difficult to credit the idea of a Dark Lord who does not wish to rule through fear.”

“Then let me put it as clearly as possible: I will not conquer your people unless you provoke me to it. Those brought under my authority by force are only those whose aggression and general depravity has made it impossible for me to leave them at their liberty. It seems that your desire is to live as you have, in peace and solitude on your own ancestral lands, correct? Then yes, so long as your people conduct themselves thus, you will be left to do so with my blessing, even as my own holdings grow to encompass yours on all sides. I will seek peaceful relations with your tribe, respect your borders, and take responsibility for any infractions committed against you by those under my authority.”

I let them chew on that for a moment, not least because the ensuing muttering had grown to a volume that was beginning to be distracting. The chief was staring at me through skeptically slitted eyes; after a moment he turned to look a question at the Seer. She leaned close and murmured something inaudible to me.

“She’s confirming that your intentions are honest,” Biribo muttered in my own ear. “Worth keeping in mind that’s something she can apparently do, boss. Pretty standard Wisdom perk for a Blessed with the right path in life.”

Hm. Refraining from lying wouldn’t hobble me too much; I did anyway as much as I could, just because I wasn’t particularly good at it. On the other hand, I did a lot of deception by omission and implication. If the Seer could pick up on deceptive intent, I had better step carefully. Well, it might be for the best. I was trying to recruit them, after all, and that could quickly backfire if they joined up and immediately learned it had been under false premises. Assassins, stupid, etc.

“That said,” I continued after the chief and Seer had restored some quiet with some pointed looks, “I am indeed offering you a place within my organization. Offering, not demanding. If you decline, we can part in peace, hopefully as friends. If you will join your people to my cause, I will expect your talents to be used in my service—but you will also be protected and supported by the strength of every other faction on Dount which falls under my authority. I will shield you from harm if it is at all within my power, and should I fail to do so, I will avenge sevenfold any harm done to those under my protection. My people will share all resources we have to ensure none of us are left hungry or needy, and the skills and abilities of the broader community to aid and improve your lives in whatever way they can. Not to mention my own. You’ve already seen what my personal power can do for you.”

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

“These factions,” the Seer interjected. “You rule at least some of the bandit gangs and more recently, the other two tribes to the north, yes?”

“Do not overstep, Seer,” the chief growled.

“I’m not,” she retorted, and despite how seriously he was clearly taking this, the look she gave him could only be described as playful. “The leader decides, and the Seer sees. I am acquiring more information. Lord Seiji wouldn’t deceive us, after all.”

The woman actually winked at me. I felt like I might kind of like the Seer, if we weren’t meeting under such confrontational circumstances. Maybe if I was able to fold the squirrels into the Crusade we’d develop a good working relationship. Someone with her abilities would be crazy useful.

“I rule all the bandit gangs,” I said, “both those in every quarter of the countryside and the city gangs in the Gutters around Gwyllthean. These I have reorganized from dissociated gangs into a unified force with a communications network and a clear chain of command. Both the cat and wolf tribes have joined me, as you seem to know. Additionally, I rule Kzidnak and all the goblins of Dount, by popular acceptance of their populace and the endorsement of those of their leadership figures who survived the Goblin King’s fall.”

I had to pause there as outright babble rose around me.

“Peace,” the squirrel leader ordered.

“He speaks truth,” said the Seer, now staring at me without a hint of a smile.

“I have brought one of the Fflyr Clans of Dount under my control,” I continued. “A smaller one, but they are only a start and have already served me well. I have achieved a significant measure of influence over the Kingsguard of Gwyllthean. It is not control, but I am able to leverage them to a small and careful extent so long as I don’t abuse the privilege. I have an alliance with a Fflyr trading company which provides me with funds and resources. My plans to destroy and replace both Archlord Caludon of Gwyllthean and Queen Lyvien of Shylverrael are proceeding well—at very early stages, both, as these are much more difficult targets. But I am moving the necessary pieces into place. And all of this I have achieved in the four months since my arrival on this world, starting from nothing. Have I lied, Seer?”

“You have not,” she admitted, still holding my stare with the first signs of open concern I had seen on her. “Hearing this… I cannot help but question how you could be telling the truth. But he does not deceive, nor does he speak from ignorance,” she added, directing herself to the chieftain.

“The last two are so much fable and nonsense,” he grunted. “I could say I have plans to kill the Archlord and the Queen, and she would say the same of my claims.”

“Caludon, perhaps, if you were a colossal fool,” the Seer demurred. “You know our best hunters have no chance against the shadow scouts of Shylverrael.”

“I also have those,” I commented. “In the very earliest stages of training, but I have a skilled Shylver shadow scout coaching them. Should you join me, I will gladly add their expertise to yours.”

They stirred around me again. I wondered in passing just how badly Velaven’s initiative was going. Surely somebody would have signed on with her team by now. Well, I still wasn’t dissembling; that program was going to happen even if she failed her test and I had to step in and assign people.

“And what if the Archlord and the Queen choose to bend the knee,” the chief asked, leaning forward. “As you are asking of us. Will you welcome their allegiance?”

“An Archlord or a Queen, in theory, yes. As I told you, however, I will not hesitate to conquer where conquest is necessary. Caludon and Lyvien are both cruel, selfish monsters. They die.”

“And what,” he asked quietly, “would I have to do to earn a place on your kill list?”

“Nothing I can imagine you doing,” I replied. “I realize I don’t know you well, but honestly, it isn’t fucking hard to stay off my shit list. I spend my entire existence in a state of constant shock that so many fucking people on this horrible hell island can’t seem to manage it. Am I really asking too much, by suggesting people not be sadistic morons?”

At that the Seer smiled again, and even the chief shook his head ruefully.

“We are all of us shaped by our environs, Dark Lord. My people have survived through discretion and endurance, and these have become our strengths. The Fflyr are crawns in a bucket; they live or die only by clawing at each other. I cannot condemn their souls for the circumstances into which they were born. I can only try not to step in the bucket.”

“Nobody should have to live like that,” I said just above a whisper. “It shouldn’t be tolerated. They’re right to be murderously angry, all of them. Their rage just has to be directed away from each other, and at the real cause of it. Only the guilty should die. With them gone…we will finally have room to build something better.”

“You speak of carnage,” he retorted. “I don’t believe you know the chaos you are planning to unleash, Dark Lord. It was a revolution such as this that brought our people out of slavery in Savindar, and another that drove us to live isolated in the deep forest lest we be enslaved again. We remember what revolutions look like—what they do to the fortunate few who survive them. You would oil and burn the house you are standing in because your enemy is in the next room.”

He straightened up, and shook his head.

“We hide. We endure. Out here, we are left in peace. If things could be better, what of it? Things can always be better. What business is it of ours if the Fflyr mismanage themselves to ruin? Or the other tribes, the dark elves, the goblins? None of them have ever lifted a finger to help us.”

“Nor have you, to help them,” I said sharply. “The wolves at least resent you for it specifically. If that’s the attitude everyone has, no one will ever help anyone. Well, I am here now, offering help.”

“And demanding payment.”

“I have made no demands, and will not. It’s as I told you: anything you agree to with me will be clearly understood by all before you are committed. I want your willing, knowing allegiance, or nothing.”

“Then nothing is still my answer,” he stated with echoing finality. “The only promise you make with certainty is violence and suffering. All you hope to achieve… You might, or might not. What makes you think you will succeed where Yomiko failed?” He shook his head again. “If your word is good, then I will accept your offer of peace. Let your Crusade pass us by. We need none of it.”

“Don’t you?” I asked softly.

The leader inhaled deeply, his lips drawing back to show off large teeth suitable for cleaving through wood, but the Seer placed a hand on his shoulder. He glanced up at her inscrutable expression and kept still, redirecting his attention to me.

“Did you know the Inferno was an accident?”

I let them rustle and stir for a moment before continuing.

“I am sorry about that, truly. It resulted from my misunderstanding of khora biology, and how a certain spell I can cast works. I would never have done such a thing on purpose. But you see…power is like that. We all make mistakes, but for those of us who have power, our mistakes echo far and cause damage we cannot imagine in the moment we first misstep. Something tells me you know a thing or two about that, chieftain.”

I waited for him to give me a grudging nod.

“The Inferno was only the beginning, you know. The mere fact of my presence, my existence, means that carnage and chaos you fear is coming. And it’s coming for us all; carnage does not discriminate, by definition. I won’t apologize for the result of me being here, because it was not my idea and believe you me I am not happy about it. It is what it is, now. Even if I manage never to make another single misstep, war and destruction are coming for us all—and I think you know the chances of me having a perfect record from here on.”

I shrugged, looking first at him and then at the Seer, but in truth, addressing the whole tribe.

“Good job not stepping in the crawn bucket, but it’s about to be kicked over. Your options are to try to survive what’s coming on your own, or with all the protection and aid I can offer you. I won’t force your hand—well,” I amended, grimacing, “I will try not to. I don’t want to. But I sort of do just by being here, don’t I? Right, Seer?”

“Hm.” She tilted her head, seemed to contemplate something, and then nodded once as if reaching a decision. “You know, I believe you can call me Zhylvren.”

The rush of whispers that brought from the onlookers was on another level; even the chief whipped his head around to stare balefully at her. Apparently this was a much more significant thing in their culture than I was prepared to understand, and so—as per my earlier comments to Vylkher—I decided I was better off not fucking around with it until I knew more.

“I can try,” I said doubtfully. “I’m pretty sure several of those consonants don’t actually exist.”

She grinned in apparent delight. Strange woman—likable, in her way, but weird, and alarmingly smart. Maybe I ought to make an effort to get and stay on her good side. The alternative was likely to be…problematic.

“I…will deliberate,” the leader stated. He paused, noting that the undercurrent of shuffling and whispers had not completely subsided this time, and swept his stare around the room before correcting himself. “We will deliberate. There must be discussion about this among the tribe—discussion that will not involve you, Dark Lord. You have said your piece.”

“I have,” I agreed.

The Seer—Zhylvren, and holy shit there was no way I was going to try saying that out loud—leaned down to murmur something in his ear. Both of said ears immediately lay flat back against his skull and he turned to face her, baring his teeth.

What followed was a nearly silent argument, the chief clearly unhappy and the Seer calmly relentless.

I glanced up at Biribo. He flicked his tongue out at me without saying anything, and I decided to defer to his judgment. Having him narrate their discussion would definitely annoy them at the very least, and knowing what they were saying probably wouldn’t change the outcome. Besides, I could just have him tell me later.

It was with a distinctly disgruntled expression that the leader finally turned back toward me, but he mastered it quickly enough, raising his chin. At his side, Zhylvren straightened up as well, smiling beatifically.

“My Seer has shown me wisdom,” the chief stated evenly, “in a reminder of why I always make a point to listen to her, despite how annoying it tends to be.”

The Seer beamed with intolerable self-satisfaction, and I found myself empathizing with him. Like, damn, she was helping me out here and even I kind of wanted to throw a drink at her.

“What I said to your paladin friend was true,” the chief continued. “I fear the witch far more than the Fflyr. She is closer to us, and more aware of us, than they. But now, there is also you. Just as close, nearly as knowing…” He leaned forward again, regarding me with a fixed and piercing expression that seemed oddly lacking in hostility, compared to his previous stares. “…but you have promised, in what my Seer has said is good faith and sincerity, to leave us in peace as best you can. Or to share your strength and bounty with us if we agree to your terms. The witch, it must be said, has never so much as offered us either.”

I waited in silence, recognizing both his moment of production—you just didn’t upstage a fellow showman’s showtime, after all—and that he was making a decision he found difficult. I could relate.

“I still do not side against her. But I will, in consideration of these facts, tell you what I know.”

I bowed to him. “And I thank you for it.”

“I’m afraid your need to conceal your…affiliation from Rhydion doesn’t end when you leave this village,” he said with a glimmer of dark amusement in his expression. “You go to face a vestige of your predecessor. The witch was once a powerful servant of Dark Lord Yomiko, who survived the fall of the Crusade but disdained to throw in her lot with the dark elves of Shylverrael. Nor has she offered aid or succor to any of her other former allies,” he added with clear bitterness. “Over the decades she had deigned to teach our people some few secrets of her alchemy, but not the merest fraction of what she knows. At best she has given us fair trade in potions for raw materials, and at worst, made demands which we did not dare to defy.”

“She’s been there since Yomiko’s time?” I demanded. “How is that even possible? Wait—do elves live a lot longer than humans?”

“Elves?” he asked in clear surprise. “A bit longer than your race or mine, I suppose, if only because they tend to live in comparative comfort and wealth. That is not the issue with the witch of the deep forest. The alchemy she uses, the experiments she carries out with life and death itself… Whatever she once was, she is now a thing. Something far more powerful and self-possessed than those shambling corpses she has made, but…”

The chief trailed off, turning to look at the Seer.

“Occasionally she has exerted control over one bandit gang or another,” Zhylvren took over, “as sources for what she could not get from us. We have always refused to hand over our dead to her…experiments, and it seems there remains enough of a shred of decency in her that she has not seen fit to insist. Besides, she doesn’t appear to favor beastfolk corpses. Humans, mostly. Elves, if she can get them. We have learned to avoid the bandits who served her. They tend to become…bizarre. Twisted, and deadly even by the standards of bandits.”

Uh oh.

“Do they, by chance, tend to resort to…cannibalism?”

The chief and Seer nodded in grim-faced unison.

“Ah. And if someone were to, for example, wipe out a gang of cannibals operating out of the forest…”

“That person is owed the gratitude of all,” the chief stated firmly. “Such as they are not people anymore, merely abominations that can only be expunged. I might feel otherwise if the witch were driven in her hunger to prey on our kind, but whether she does still possess some form of conscience or simply has never been hungry enough, at no time in our records has she done so. On the rare occasions when she has turned to us for food, she has…bargained. Generously. So much so that some of ours have relented, despite the…price.”

“Ugh. So the witch eats people.” Fucking hell, how desperate must the squirrels have been to bargain for…what, an arm? Fingers?

Apparently not, though.

The chief shook his head negatively. “Not that, thankfully. Those who fall too far under her sway tend to turn to eating the flesh of people; her influence teaches them to see people as prey, but in the end, what she needs for sustenance cannot sustain a man or woman of any race.”

“Blood,” the Seer said quietly. “She requires living blood. The fresher, the better. Directly from the victim’s veins if she can get it.”

For a second I could only stare at them in disbelief, before my mouth finally caught up with my comprehension.

“Now, just a minute. You’re telling me I am dealing with a fuckmothering vampire?!”