Deus Necros

“Euh…” Misty was completely confused and did not understand what Ludwig could mean with his statement.

He watched the small crease form between her brows and let the silence breathe for a heartbeat. Then he smiled the way one does when a thing is simple to him and not to the other. “The Faceless Blade… the dead guy, needed blood to open up what looks like a chamber here. He was just a bit short… I would have used mine…”

“But yours isn’t human,” Misty finished his words for him.

“Nah, completely human, just not the right type of blood…” he further explained. His eyes were already on the idol, judging the faint pulse that seemed to crawl around its carved edges, counting the way old red had dried into darker seams. The air above the key felt thin and cold in a way that did not match the heat of bodies in the room. There was a smell like wet copper and old incense beneath all the dust.

“I see,” Misty said. She drew closer to Ludwig, careful not to let her chain scrape the floor, and opened her palm. The skin in the center of it looked soft in the poor light, a small pale target she held out without fuss. She did not look away, though she did not look directly at the blade either. Her jaw set as if bracing for a blow that should not be necessary.

She squinted her eye expecting a large gash where Ludwig simply pricked her finger with the top of Durandal. The point was neat and clean and quick. A single bead lifted, round and bright and almost pretty for half a breath. The droplet slid, gathered a sliver of shadow from the steel, and fell on the idol’s forehead.

Nothing happened at first. The bead spread the way dew spreads on a cool leaf. It found the rune that curled like a hook near the brow ridge and settled there as if it had been meant to do only that. So Misty asked, “Don’t you need like… a lot more?” She kept her voice low, out of respect for the nailed groans that still climbed the walls behind them.

“Just give it a second,” Ludwig said, watching the glyph flicker the way an ember does before it catches. In his sight the counter inched. The little bar that had glared red for lack became full. The percentage that had sulked at the precipice tipped and climbed and sealed. He did not blink.

The idol then immediately began shaking, not with violence but with purpose, and along with it the whole cave shuddered as if remembering how to move. A seam that was invisible a moment ago tore open in the wall in front of them with a patient parting, stone sliding against stone like old teeth. Air pushed out from within. It carried a clean breath that did not belong to this room. It tasted of dew and wet earth and the dark hollow smell of rain striking dry ground. The tang of blood and the stale press of dust were pushed back and peeled from their tongues. The guards on the edges of Ludwig’s senses loosened half a notch, then went tight again.

Within the chambers a man stood, battered and bruised, with several bandages made of torn white cloth around his forehead and chest. The wraps had been tied by hands that were steady when they were made and shaking when they were finished. He wore nothing more than his leg armor. The plates there were scuffed and bitten and told their own tale. His bare chest had more scabs and bruises than a man who was slaving for the rich. Fever had smoked his skin. Breath rasped and caught. He held his sword the way a gate holds when both hinges are bent and the bar is splintering. The eyes above the cloth were bright with the kind of clarity that comes when the body has spent everything it has and is borrowing against itself.

Behind him a woman with a slightly darker complexion, quite similar to the one the captain of the ship that brought them here, stood with fear clear in her eyes and steel under it. The bottom of her long white skirt was torn. She had torn it herself, not in panic, but to give him bandage and sling. The thread at the edge frayed where fingers had worried it smooth. Her hair was pulled back in a way that tried to be neat and failed at the ends. She placed herself half behind, half beside, as if she could both hide and stand between him and harm. The way her hands hovered near his back showed where her duty sat.

Behind them was an even bigger altar. This one had the same figure, the winged crow, only this one was far more defined, as if the very carving of this standing statue was a physical manifestation of the deity they worshiped. The cut of the beak sharpened the shadows. The feathers had been scored in layers so fine the stone looked soft where the moon might brush it. Old offerings had stained the base darker than the body. The crack that ran from the right foot into the plinth looked like a vein.

“Who are you?!” the man asked. Voice hoarse. Pride still there. The sword wavered but did not lower. His stance wanted to be strong and fell short by inches.

“Looks like we found the princess and her knight,” Ludwig said. He did not lift his own blade. He did not need to.

The man rushed toward Ludwig, raising his sword high as he tried to strike down. The floor took his heel out of rhythm and he corrected, which told Ludwig he had fought here long enough to learn the stones and hurt enough to forget them in a blink.

To Ludwig a wounded, sick and exhausted man was easier to handle than a toddler with a sword. He let the body move without hurry. A simple raise of his own sword stopped the man in his track. Metal met metal with a short dry sound. The impact forced blood out of the man’s injuries. It came through the bandage with a quick dark bloom.

“Just stop,” Ludwig said. He did not shove. He held and let the other understand where the wall was. “I have no intentions of harming you…” He looked past the blade to the woman. The set of her mouth slipped and steadied. He turned his head to the princess of the moon and said, “This is the god you worship?” He asked it bluntly, not to mock her, but to set the thought in the room.

“Yes…” Her voice carried the dust of days without sleep and the stubbornness of a person who had made a promise to a cold stone and would not break it while she had breath.

“Quite the useless one for letting you rot in here…”

“He answered our prayers though,” she said. There was no heat in her retort. There was a bone-deep certainty that did not tremble.

“How come, you two are alive thanks to me, not your god.” Ludwig said. He twisted his wrist. The sick man’s blade slid off. The move cost the man a little more blood and a little more strength. Ludwig caught the sword with the same casual ease with which he had brushed aside a child’s tantrum.

“But you two are alive, that means that creature has either fled or died… and that was my prayer answered.”

“I don’t see how that sort of luck and coincidence can be attributed to your god. I did not receive any revelation or order to come rescue you,” Ludwig said as he turned back to Misty. His mouth shaped a line between curiosity and faint scorn. The thought did not stay long. There were other things to watch.

“Misty, you can sense it right?” he said.

“Yes… holy power, it’s strong here…” She felt it the way a person feels a storm moving in the bones rather than the air. It crawled up the spine and set the small hairs at the neck. It was not a little spark. It was a tide.

Just as Misty finished her words, a bright and powerful light boomed and roared out from behind them, from where Titania stood. It washed over the place like a wave of a raging tide and spread from Titania’s own body. The air went gold and white and then more than gold and more than white. The shadows ran for anywhere they could hide and were ripped out of their holes. The taste of metal was replaced with something clean that made the tongue tingle. The walls vibrated in a way that was not sound and not touch but both.

This was the same as when she had her gods descend within her own body. It carried that same feeling of a door opening where there should be none, of height crammed into low places, of a presence that did not fit the size of the room. The floor felt smaller beneath the feet. The ceiling felt further and closer at the same time. Prayers that had once been said here woke like old bees.

The Ruthless Maiden is back. And she didn’t look like she enjoyed any bit of what just happened. Though she still had holes for eyes, for some ungodly reason, Ludwig felt that something was wrong, as she was gazing without eyes at him, and only him.