“Let’s go,” Mariella said after a long moment.

  She swallowed hard, reluctance clear on her face. But as Tybalt took her by the hand, she didn’t pull away. She let him lead her through the trees in the direction of the village, keeping their positions parallel to the squad.

  With that question resolved for the moment, and the two mages still unnoticed by their former comrades, Tybalt focused on last-minute moves he could make to better their chances of winning the skirmish. It would be a victory, as far as he was concerned, if the beastfolk village was not destroyed and Tybalt and Mariella were not killed. Even if they only drove the squad away, that was a win, since the Blessing of the War God undoubtedly had some sort of time limit. The necromancer could kill them at his leisure once he confirmed that had expired.

  The goal was not absolute victory unless it was clearly within reach. He would settle for the mere mitigation of losses.

  “Zombies, perform reconnaissance,” Tybalt ordered. “Stay low, stay hidden, do not be seen by anyone. Your bodies can move in ways that would be uncomfortable for humans. Take advantage of that.”

  His words were accompanied by mental images demonstrating how he wanted his orders followed. These were dull creatures, but rigidly obedient.

  Scouting out the beastfolk village would place his undead in close proximity once the fighting started, and getting the lay of the land beforehand would hopefully give Tybalt some advantage.

  Huh, the zombies aren’t in perfect condition, he observed as they responded to his command. One of them was dragging itself forward using its arms as additional legs, while another was moving in a noticeably off-balance way. What did those two pretend scouts do to them?

  He quickly surveyed the scene.

  While the would-be scouts were very dead, and the zombies had managed to kill them off in complete silence, the brief fight had taken its toll on the monsters. Two of the miner zombies were missing limbs that had been broken or hacked off. One of those had suffered both an arm and a leg severed. One of the beastfolk zombies had lost an ear, and the side of its head was partially caved in. Not enough to render it non-functional, but it was still surprising.

  Who were these replacement scouts?

  Their faces had been rendered unrecognizable from the zombie attack, so he quickly sifted through the zombies’ memories. The images did not present so differently from those in regular human memories, though the quality of zombie vision was different, with colors somewhat muted. In less than a second, Tybalt recognized the would-be scouts’ former appearances.

  They were such new additions to the squad that he didn’t recall their names.

  Wait, those two guys were total scrubs, weren’t they? Tybalt thought. They’re hardly out of basic training… These are the idiots Volusia tapped to replace me, Taun, and Derren as scouts? He really doesn’t respect how difficult it is to silently infiltrate enemy terrain. More importantly, it seems like despite only being semi-trained, they put up a pretty good fight. Just how much stronger does the Blessing of the War God make someone?

  The necromancer looked sideways at his companion. He saw, to his slight surprise, that she had been looking at him, but as his eyes landed on Mariella, hers darted away.

  This awkwardness could get annoying.

  “Hey, with their blessing, they’re stronger than I would have guessed,” Tybalt said quietly.

  Mariella looked at him uncertainly. “How do you know?” she whispered.

  “The scouts that I took out. They did some real damage to my zombies.”

  “Oh. Were the zombies tough?”

  “It’s not so much about how strong these particular zombies were. The two men they had scouting were pretty new, and I threw all of my zombies at them at once. They shouldn’t have been strong enough to do meaningful damage when eight creatures of any kind attacked each of them all at once.”

  “I see.” From her face and tone, she didn’t seem to get it. She probably thought that the zombies were just fodder. That’s how they would have been if a fire mage fought them. But Tybalt’s zombies were also roughly as strong as they had been while alive. If a gang of normal humans attacked two normal humans and outnumbered them eight to one, it would be strange if the two under attack managed to do this much damage

  This was just how much better the Blessing of the War God made each soldier.

  What is it, a fifty percent strength increase? Doubling? Something crazy like that… and Mariella’s going to underestimate the squad. I can see it on her face.

  “When we get to the village, I’m probably going to want you to stand back and provide ranged support.”

  “You don’t have to act chivalrously, Tybalt,” she said in a slightly affronted tone of voice. “I know you were not raised with those values, and our relationship—”

  “Has nothing to do with this decision,” he said. “I’m just making proper use of the assets under my command. If your flames are too close to my monsters, it will be a problem. And the squad will pose more of a physical threat up close, even to you, than you seem to realize. At the same time, someone who can control the element of fire is obviously a good long range attacker.”

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  “What will you be doing?”

  “Whatever is best for the situation.”

  She looked at him doubtfully, but then gave him a grudging nod.

  “Well, you’re more experienced than me in practical combat situations. I’ll obey you. For now.”

  Good, he thought.

  The necromancer sensed it as the zombies reached the beastfolk village and spread out around it. He immediately used his bond with the creatures to inhabit the Christos zombie’s field of vision.

  Interesting.

  The little buildings of the village came into view. Observing them for the first time outside of dreams, Tybalt saw the huts here were a bit better constructed and more spacious than those the Army had occupied in the abandoned ground-level village. These ones were large enough for different people to have their own rooms, but only a couple of them, and the rooms would be tiny. It was a difference of degree, not of kind.

  Fundamentally, these crappy little huts showed how poor and isolated the beastfolk were, how their resources must be constantly strained to the limit. Anyone living in such a place in the Kingdom proper would have been considered barely a step above a beggar.

  I hope they’re armed with more than stones and prayers.

  Most importantly, as Tybalt looked through the monster’s eyes and the creature continued to creep around the village perimeter on its belly, crawling low through the grass, the necromancer could see that the beastfolk settlement was not as undefended as he had feared.

  Surrounding it on all sides except the one the squad was coming from, the demihumans’ defense force lay in wait. They probably hadn’t been placed on any sort of alert that this was the moment the enemy was coming. Vidalia’s visions didn’t seem to be that precise in terms of timing. But the defenders had nevertheless positioned themselves in spots that made them difficult to see even without crouching or consciously concealing themselves.

  They sat in trees or waited in the tall grass. There were a dozen visible through one zombie’s eyes alone, armed with slings or bows and knives or daggers. Tybalt switched perspectives to other undead, quickly hopping from body to body, and confirmed there were at least around forty beastfolk lurking in the village outskirts.

  A couple of them noticed the movement from the zombies as the creatures almost slithered through the grass, but none of the beastfolk seemed to think anything odd of the moving greenery. They probably thought they were observing wild animals slinking around.

  Tybalt could see that there were also at least a handful of old-timers in the village huts.

  That small group appeared to have been left there as bait to entice the Army to make its attack, as one of the necromancer’s other undead quickly found where the beastfolk had hidden the majority of the elderly, the women, and the children.

  There was a cave in the mountainside, just beyond the village.

  One of the zombies wandered by it, almost by chance. It drew close enough that it got a decent look inside and then, once it observed humanoids, it made certain to get a good look for the necromancer. The tunnel didn’t go very deep, so Tybalt could see dozens of vulnerable people within. There were probably more hidden behind those visible at first sight, but the zombie had quickly moved off to avoid being spotted and identified in turn.

  That’s much too close to the site of battle, the necromancer thought. If I was actually on Volusia’s side, we would absolutely massacre the beastfolk. When I lead them, we’ll do much better.

  On the other hand, without Tybalt opposing them, and with the element of surprise and their numbers, the beastfolk stood what Tybalt reckoned as a fair chance of overcoming the squad, even without Tybalt’s assistance. They just had to fight as dirty as they could and take advantage of every tactical edge they had, along with their numerical parity or superiority, depending on how many beastfolk were still hidden where Tybalt could not see them.

  The beastfolk knew the terrain, they had the squad moving predictably, and soon the humans would be surrounded.

  As Tybalt and Mariella approached the village, the soldiers stepped into the village perimeter.

  “My undead are watching from all sides,” Tybalt whispered. “Move where I move for now.”

  She nodded from his side.

  Just twenty feet ahead of them, Volusia barked orders that weren’t quite comprehensible from Tybalt and Mariella’s position.

  But the necromancer knew his former boss’s typical way of operating well enough already.

  Two soldiers strode into the nearest hut, and the sound of screaming filled the air.

  “Typical Volusia,” Tybalt said, scowling.

  Mariella half-rose before Tybalt put a hand on the back of her neck.

  “Not yet.”

  “They’re killing them,” she hissed.

  “There are beastfolk all around this village, ready to defend it,” Tybalt said. “If they can be disciplined and wait for the right moment to attack, so can we.”

  She frowned, swallowed, and then nodded.

  If anything, we should be impressed that they had the resolve to make their own village into a trap, one laden with actual live bait. It would have fooled me, too, if I didn’t have my creatures. They’re seen as a more primitive people, and in the technology sense, that’s true, but they’re very resourceful.

  The squad advanced slowly, killing the few inhabitants remaining in the huts as they went. They must have recognized that the village had been partially evacuated already, Tybalt imagined, since the squad was only encountering the elderly.

  Still, the soldiers performed their duties as normal. The necromancer estimated there had been a half-dozen deaths by the time they began setting fire to the buildings. Tybalt thought he must have missed Volusia giving that order. It was, again, right out of his typical playbook, though.

  Tybalt ordered his scorched-bone skeletons to advance to the periphery huts, the furthest ones away out of the structures that were actually on fire. If they could absorb some of those flames, he could make them a little deadlier and save a few beastfolk dwellings at the same time.

  Still, he and Mariella held back, even as she seemed very uncomfortable to be standing idly by.

  The squad had advanced to the center of the village by this point.

  The soldiers were lighting the nearest huts on fire, not even bothering to check for inhabitants and kill them first. It was as the little buildings were burning, and an old woman screamed from within one of them, that the cry went up.

  An angry yell sounded from the opposite end of the village relative to Tybalt and Mariella’s position. It was echoed from much closer to them. Then the sound came from all sides of the squad.

  The soldiers looked nervous. The miners that now made up the majority of the force were absolutely petrified. The sheer volume of the beastfolk yell testified to their numbers.

  A hail of slingstones and arrows suddenly filled the air around the squad from all sides.

  “Now?” Mariella asked expectantly.

  “Now!” Tybalt replied.

  The fire mage rose to her feet and began blasting away.