Unconventional Heroes 2 - Two Necromancers, an Army of Golems, and a Demon Lord

by L. G. Estrella

  They spent their nights at the centre of the zombie army. The best thing about zombies – apart from their obedience and general lack of whining – was that they needed neither food nor sleep, which made things much easier for the rest of them.

  “This is good stew.” Avraniel helped herself to another generous serving of stew, using her glare to convince Gerald that it would be better to let her go first. “Where did you rats learn to cook like this?”

  Cezanne chuckled good-naturedly and gave a few squeaks, which Katie translated, before pulling out a pipe and smoking from it. Timmy wondered if it was merely tobacco, or if it was something else since the old rat seemed exceptionally relaxed after a few puffs.

  “He says that in the Old Days, their clan had to do whatever they could to survive. Providing their masters with a suitable meal was one way of earning favour and securing employment. It was also a way of remembering their past because they learned a lot of their recipes during their travels.” Katie patted Cezanne’s back. “He says that eating helps them to remember what it was like before.”

  “Why were they travelling?” The bureaucrat had one eye on his stew and the other on his paperwork. There was an assortment of taxes involved in the legal movement of a gigantic army of zombies. In the past, Timmy had always just marched his zombies wherever he wanted, which probably explained all the letters he’d gotten from the tax people. Hmm… he’d have to ask Gerald if they could get a rebate on some of those taxes since they were related to work they were doing for the Council.

  “They still haven’t told me everything,” Katie replied. “But I know they were mercenaries for a long time, wandering from place to place, taking whatever work they could find. They did all kinds of jobs. Sometimes they were assassins, sometimes they were bodyguards, and sometimes they were even pets. They did what they had to in order to survive, but they always dreamed of finding a better place. They have a prophecy that one day they’ll find a place that will accept them for who they are, a place that will allow them to regain their honour as a ninja clan, a place they can call home.” She smiled faintly. “They believe our castle is that place.”

  Timmy lowered his spoon. “Our castle? I hope they realise that it’s actually my castle.”

  Cezanne waved his pipe in the air.

  “Apparently, their prophecy includes something about an ornery ruler.” Katie giggled. She thought it was an apt description of her master. “But you have to admit, they’ve more than earned their keep, and they are loyal. Ever since you started paying them and let them have free run of the kitchens, they’ve spurned every other offer that has come their way.”

  Timmy rolled his eyes. “I happen to pay them very well, and given how much they can eat, I doubt anyone else would be crazy enough to give them access to their kitchens. And you’re right. They are loyal – to you.”

  Katie smirked. “Yes, they are.”

  “And speaking of rats,” Timmy said. “Why did you feel the need to bring some of your own, Avraniel?”

  The rats in question had emerged from Avraniel’s saddlebags shortly before dinner and were now enjoying some stew in their very own tiny bowls. There were half a dozen of them in all, and they were all wearing thick jackets, helmets, and safety goggles. Each rat also wore the same maniacal grin that Avraniel often did. It was very, very disturbing. The last thing Timmy needed was for the pyromaniac elf to team up with a bunch of rats that thought the best way to dig a hole was with explosives. He made a face. It had taken him more than an hour to fix the crater they’d left with that huge explosion of theirs. It had been roughly the size of a small lake. Oh well, it was supposed to rain soon, and he had been planning on adding a water feature near the castle.

  “I thought the rats didn’t like you,” Gerald said. “And I thought the feeling was mutual.” Avraniel frowned, and their campfire roared upward. “Uh, no offence. It’s just that every time I go down to the kitchens, I see you and Rembrandt threatening each other.” Beside Katie, Rembrandt pulled out his normal sword and began to sharpen it, his good eye locked onto Avraniel.

  “Rembrandt is a little rat bastard and so are his friends.” That drew an amused chuckle from Cezanne. “But these guys are okay.” She grinned at the rats beside her. “They understand what’s important in life: blowing stuff up.”

  Timmy took a deep breath. One of the rats was playing with what appeared to be a miniature explosive near the fire. That could not possibly be safe. “These wouldn’t be the same rats that were told to do their experiments outside the castle because everyone else was worried they’d blow up the castle, thereby unleashing the things below it and ushering in an age of unspeakable woe and horror, would they?”

  “Yep.” Avraniel gave one of the rats a high five. “They’re great. This guy here invented some kind of magical landmine.” She snickered and smiled from eat to ear. “Show them.”

  The rat tossed a small, coin-sized object out into the darkness and then threw a pebble at it. Nothing happened. Then he wrapped a bit of his magic around another pebble and threw that too. The explosion that followed left a crater about five yards wide.

  “See? It’s all well and good to bring a sword or a shovel to a fight, but nothing beats good, old-fashioned fire and explosions.” The elf sneered at Rembrandt. “He’s actually useful, unlike you.”

  Gerald stared at the crater. The blast had melted the ground into glass. “We’re all going to die, and horribly too.”

  “Yes, that looks increasingly likely.” Timmy patted him on the back. “But if you want, I could always bring you back as a zombie.”

  “Uh… no.” Gerald shuddered. The mere thought of becoming a zombie was going to give him nightmares. “By the way, I’ve been looking at some recently passed legislation, and I think I can help you save some money.”

  “Oh?” Timmy was not averse to saving money especially since Avraniel’s newfound love of rats was likely to leave a substantial dent in the money he budgeted for repairs each month. Then there were her carnivorous plants to consider. He gave it two months – max – before she found a way to create a carnivorous plant that puked explosives.

  “Citizens acting under the Council’s behest to earn a pardon now count as independent contractors working for the Council. As such you are entitled to certain rebates for costs incurred during the length of your employment that are directly related to missions you undertake for the Council.”

  Timmy did his best to keep his expression neutral. This was great news. “I see. Can I get a rebate on corpses? Keep in mind that I only bought the corpses. How they ended up that way has nothing to do with me. And what about the taxes we had to pay for moving my zombie army around?”

  Gerald summoned a voluminous tome and flicked through it. “I do believe you can claim rebates for both although there is a cap on how much you can claim each year since you’re still on probation.”

  Timmy cackled. Oh, this was too good.

  “But you’d have to file paperwork, lots of paperwork.”

  “Which you’ll do for me, right?” Unspoken was the obvious: Gerald lived in Timmy’s castle, and Timmy helped keep him alive. A little bit of paperwork was not too much to ask for.

  “Yes, I wouldn’t want the Everton Tax Enforcement Agency arresting you before you get your pardon. I’d probably get fired if that happened. I could also show Katie how to do it too.”

  “What about me?” Avraniel barked. “I’ve got work-related expenses too.”

  “You also cause an inordinate amount of property damage wherever you go. I’m certain that any rebate you would receive would be utterly dwarfed by how much you’d have to pay to settle all of the claims that have been made against you.” Gerald sighed. “Remember the last town we were in? You didn’t have to set that tavern alight.”

  “The tavern owner tried to grope me, and I made sure to throw everyone out of the tavern before I set it on fire. They should consider themselves lucky.”

  Gerald made a choking sound a
nd clutched at the air. “He wasn’t trying to grope you! He was trying to stop you from strangling one of the doormen.”

  “That doorman didn’t want to let me in.”

  “Because you threatened to set him on fire.” Gerald covered his face with his hands, and Timmy patted him on the back again. He wasn’t the most socially gifted person, but Avraniel made him look like a veritable social butterfly. He was slowly but surely learning one of life’s fundamental truths: almost nothing Avraniel did made sense to a normal person.

  “He was a jerk.” Avraniel folded her arms over her chest. The rats beside her squeaked their agreement. The tavern had also had a no rat policy. “And his face was stupid.”

  Gerald had no idea what to say to that. Luckily, Timmy did.

  “Fine. But next time, if you have to do something, just, I don’t know, swear at them really horribly. Heck, threaten them with castration and evisceration, just don’t burn the place down.”

  Avraniel stared at the necromancer as if he’d grown a second head. “And how would that help?”

  * * *

  They encountered the first wave of people fleeing from the mountains a few days later. The golems, it seemed, had finally begun to make their presence felt. The fleeing townsfolk had set up a makeshift camp in the shadow of some hills with scouts posted throughout the surrounding countryside. Those scouts had spotted Timmy’s army and immediately retreated behind their hastily made fortifications.

  They were still a good distance away, but Timmy could already hear the wailing of the townsfolk as they bemoaned their misfortune. They’d gone from being attacked by golems to being accosted by zombies, or so they believed. He rolled his eyes. Did they really think he was some two-bit necromancer out to rob people who’d fled their homes with little more than the clothes on their backs? If he were going to rob someone, it would be one of his wealthier enemies.

  He had no intention of laying a hand on these people unless they gave him no choice. The Council had overlooked his previous crimes because they had, by and large, been committed against Everton’s enemies or people even worse than him. Putting hundreds of civilians to the sword was exactly the sort of thing that would have moved him from generally annoying and troublesome to someone who needed to be dealt with as swiftly and ruthlessly as possible.

  And even if he did kill them, it would have been a hassle to use their corpses. Murdering people made reanimating them more difficult since their souls tended to stick around and rebel. He could still do it, but it wasn’t as efficient as he liked. That was one of the many reasons he preferred to get his corpses from a corpse dealer like Mike. The corpses were still fresh but old enough that the souls that had once inhabited them were already on their way to wherever it was they were going to go in the afterlife. He also wouldn’t mind having his own fiefdom one day, and from the things Katie sometimes mumbled in her sleep, his apprentice wanted a kingdom of her own. Having a fiefdom or a kingdom meant having people, and nobody would want to join them if they went around robbing and murdering everyone. Ruling over a bunch of zombies would only be fun for a few weeks before it got incredibly boring.

  Despite the obvious disparity in military power, Timmy decided to humour the townsfolk when they sent out their chief representative: a priest from the Order of the Blessed Dawn who wore the immaculate white, silver, and red of an inquisitor. Wonderful. The inquisitors had been especially loyal to the previous supreme cleric, and they had been at the forefront of several attempts to make necromancy a crime punishable by excruciating death. Under normal circumstances, he’d have hit the other man over the head with his shovel and considered it a good day’s work. Right now, however, that was not an option.

  “Hi.” Timmy waved and drew his horse to a stop at the customary distance. Not far behind the inquisitor, a small contingent of soldiers stood at the ready. He was certain that all of their bowmen, what few they had, were aiming at him. It didn’t matter. He had his shovel, and there was plenty of earth around to make a wall. Throw in the fact that Avraniel was itching for an excuse to burn something, and only an idiot would open fire on him. “I’m guessing you’re the one in charge –”

  “Silence, heretic!” The inquisitor jabbed one bony finger at him. He was positively ancient. “I have not come here to bandy words with a deranged and depraved merchant of death!”

  Timmy blinked. He hadn’t heard that insult before. “First of all, I am neither deranged nor depraved. And second, I wouldn’t call myself a merchant of death so much as a –”

  “You may have superior firepower, numbers, and… well… everything else, but I have the power of right on my side!” The inquisitor raised one hand and called to the heavens. “May the Lord of the Blessed Dawn strike you dead where you stand, blasphemer! Prepare to face his wrath.” The priest pointed at Timmy. “Die!”

  Absolutely nothing happened, not even a small bolt of lightning from the sky. After a few awkward seconds had passed with the inquisitor continuing to jab his finger at Timmy, the necromancer decided that enough was enough. He rode forward and almost dragged the other man out of his saddle.

  “Listen, you fool, we’re here to deal with the golems that drove you out of your homes. Your god is not going to strike me down because I’m here at the behest of his chief follower.” Timmy waved at Gerald, and the bureaucrat summoned a scroll and tossed it to him. “See this? It says that we’re here on behalf of the Council at the urging of your new supreme cleric, so I suggest that you tell me everything you know and then lead your people away from here. Things are going to get messy.”

  And that was the end of that. The inquisitor was so stunned – he kept staring at Vicky’s signature, his mouth opening and closing in a silent mixture of horror and amazement – that he actually obeyed and blurted out everything he knew before he sent them on their way. Unfortunately, the news wasn’t good. Hundreds of golems had attacked his town. The soldiers and mages had fought bravely, which had given them enough time to retreat, but they’d lost the town itself. There could easily be thousands of golems there now if what Vicky had told them about the golems’ ability to self-replicate was true.

  As they neared the town, Timmy sent his zombie wyverns ahead to scout.

  “Aren’t they handy to have around?” Avraniel went back to sharpening one of her daggers. “What do they see?”

  Timmy smiled grimly. “The golems have occupied the town and the surrounding area. They’ve also fortified the mountain behind the town and the mine that leads inside it. I’m guessing that’s where they’re getting the materials to build more golems.” He pursed his lips. “Gerald says that the Council can’t tell us exactly what they’re made of, but it may have some slight resistance to magic. They could also be hiding somewhere else, but this area seems like the easiest to fortify. The town’s walls are solid, and the town itself backs right up against the mountain.”

  “So, what’s the plan?” Avraniel was all smiles. “I get the feeling that a lot of things are going to have to die.”

  “I’m not sure if blowing up golems counts as killing things, but you’re probably right. Still, we’ll try this the simple way first. We’ll send in the zombies to handle the golems and try to fight our way into the mountain. Whatever they’ve got going on in there, we’ve got to stop it. If they’re like most of the golems I’ve fought in the past, they have a power source of some sort nearby that radiates energy to all of them. If we destroy it, they should stop working.”

  “Excellent.” Avraniel smirked and rubbed her hands together, a gesture that the rats perched on her saddlebags copied. “I’ve been waiting for a chance to cut loose.”

  * * *

  Gerald was not a particularly brave man, which was why he had originally chosen to become a bureaucrat. Paperwork and organisation were his forte, and the gods must have approved of his choice because they’d given him a form of magic perfectly suited to his vocation. An exciting day for him was finding another loophole to close or discovering a newer, mo
re efficient way to file things.

  Then the Council had sent him to evaluate Timmy.

  He still wasn’t sure why they’d chosen him. He was fairly certain that Councillor Winters had suggested him. He’d also been fairly certain that he was going to die on at least fifteen different occasions since he’d met the necromancer – and that was ignoring all the less horrible times when he’d only been certain he was about to get non-lethally mangled. He’d been attacked by zombies, insane elves, a dragon, carnivorous plants, and at least two protoplasmic horrors from a dimension that he preferred not to think about. It was all quite terrifying.

  But somehow, he was still alive.

  But the fact that he was still amongst the living did not stop him from worrying as the army of the not living formed up around them. The golems manning the walls of the town had already spotted them and had adopted defensive positions. Gerald had thought they looked somewhat comical with their box-like appearance. Now, he wasn’t so sure. Gleaming in the sun and standing still and silent on the walls, they looked rather menacing. He gulped. Hopefully, they could have this whole thing resolved with a minimum of fighting. Oh, whom was he kidding? He’d probably have to run for his life again. There was a loud twang from inside the town, and a boulder the size of a wagon hurtled through the air and crashed into the front row of zombies. The result was a long, gory smear on the ground. Several more boulders followed in quick succession, pulverising scores of zombies.

  “Wonderful.” Timmy shook his head in disbelief. “They apparently know how to operate siege weaponry.” He gestured at Avraniel. “Could you do something about those boulders?”