Necromancer: Kingdom Building with My Legion of Undead Knights-Chapter 47: Finalizing

Garren was already in the great hall when Darion came downstairs.

The windows were closed, with fire crackling softly at the fire place.

Two cups of water were on the table, which meant he’d been waiting long enough to think about setting them out.

He looked at Darion’s face when he sat down and didn’t say anything about how tired he looked.

Darion drank half his cup before he spoke.

"I need to tell you what I’m planning to do about Valdenmoor."

Garren folded his hands on the table. "I’ve been wondering."

Darion laid it out. All of it. The venomous undead, how the venom worked, the bite didn’t hurt, and for the first two minutes nothing felt wrong.

Then the effects started.

The plan was to send the four of his venomous undeads into Valdenmoor’s barracks at night. Move quiet through the camp while the soldiers slept. Bite as many as they could reach, then pull out. There would be no fighting, no noise and no sign anyone had been there.

Before they realized what would be happening, he and his undead would be back in Percvale, and there’d be no way to connect what was happening in Valdenmoor to anyone outside.

He explained why it would work. The undeads had no smell, no breath and no body heat.

None of the stuff guards learn to watch for. A living person trying to move through a military camp at night has a dozen ways to get caught. His undead had almost none of them.

He explained the loyalty training, why he’d spent three days on it, what sixty-five loyalty meant compared to where they started.

He wasn’t sure Garren understood much about Necromancer stuff though.

He also told him how he was to command his undeads from high up using his Distant Command.

Garren listened without interrupting. He only did that when the subject was serious enough that he wanted to hear everything before he decided what he thought.

When Darion finished, Garren was quiet for a moment.

"It’s clever," he said finally. "Actually clever. The venom looking like an illness, spreading through the barracks with no explanation, that’s the kind of thing that breaks an army without ever fighting them." He paused. "I won’t pretend it isn’t a dark way to go about it."

"It is," Darion said.

"They invaded Percvale," Garren said. "Took our grain. Fourteen knights died keeping them from taking more." Another pause, shorter this time. "I’m not saying that makes it right. I’m saying I understand."

"What are your concerns?"

Garren picked up his cup.

"A few." He set it down without drinking. "The undead aren’t invisible. No smell and no breath, that helps at night. But they still take up space. If a guard looks the right way at the wrong time, he sees something moving that shouldn’t be there. One shout and it’s over."

"I know," Darion said.

"How do you handle that?"

"I watch," Darion said. "I need a spot outside the camp where I can see the barracks area. I direct them from there. If a guard is moving toward them, I pull them back before there’s contact. I’m not sending them in blind. I’m running them the way I ran the scouts in the forest, except from outside the camp instead of up a tree."

Garren thought about that. "If you spot something and want to command them to escape or something like that, how will you do it?"

"I’ll just unsummon them," Darion replied.

"You’d need to see clearly to know when things go wrong. Directing undead through a military camp at night from a distance, in the dark, that’s more than just having a general idea of what’s going on inside."

"I’ll need a spyglass." 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶

Garren looked at him for a moment. "A perspective glass."

"Yeah. Something that lets me see far."

Garren was quiet for a second. "I have one. My father’s, from when he was at sea. I’ve kept it." He pushed back from the table. "Wait here."

He was gone for a few minutes. Darion heard him moving around upstairs, something being moved, a box opening. Then footsteps on the stairs.

Garren put a wooden box on the table. It was old, the wood dark, the brass fittings on the corners green with age. He opened it. Inside, resting in cloth that used to be nice, was a perspective glass. Brass tube in three sections that slid out to full length. The lens at the end was a little cloudy around the edges but clear in the middle.

Darion picked it up and pulled it open. He looked through it at the far wall of the great hall. The distance closed up. The stones of the wall jumped into focus, the lines of mortar between them suddenly sharp.

Nice!

"That’ll work," he said.

"It’s old," Garren said. "The glass has some age. But the center is clear enough."

Darion collapsed it back down and set it on the table.

"I go tomorrow," he said. "Leaving in the morning, get to the edge of Valdenmoor’s territory by evening, wait for dark, do my stuff, pull out before dawn and be back here the next morning."

"Alone?"

"Yes, alone. You stay here amd keep everything running. Nothing would really change in Percvale while I’m gone. Nobody knows I left except you. I mean, when they see me leave, they won’t exactly so much of an idea as to where I’m going."

Garren let that sit for a moment. "And if something goes wrong?"

"Then I deal with it." Darion looked at him. "Nothing should go wrong. But if it does, there should be no way to trace it back to Percvale no matter what happens. That’s another reason I go alone. If two people from Percvale get seen near Valdenmoor the night soldiers start dying, that’s a different problem from one person who never got seen at all."

Garren nodded slowly. He didn’t like it, it was like Darion risking his life. But oh well...

"The perspective glass goes in your saddlebag," Garren said. "Wrapped in the cloth, it won’t rattle."

"Thanks."

Darion picked up the box with the spyglass and carried it upstairs.

Tomorrow night, Valdenmoor’s barracks.