Deus Necros

He reached into his coat and brought out a small crystal, edges dulled, a faint, dead milkiness in its heart. “This thing died on me when I was at Solania…”

“A communication crystal?” Sigurd leaned in despite herself. “That’s hella old. The new issues are much better…”

“My master gifted it to me.” He turned it over, as if warmth from his palm might coax a ghost of light. “Still, I can’t contact him.”

“I can give you mine?” offered the youth with the too-big gauntlet, eagerness and the need to be useful stumbling over mistrust in his voice.

“I don’t know his frequency.” Ludwig shook his head. “Still.” He looked up. “Tell me, what happened after the fight in Tulmud?”

Gehrman exhaled “Well… the imperial army marched in. Killed off the remaining monsters. Took control of Tulmud.”

“What about the royal family?”

“Slaughtered to the last kin.” He said it without relish, without cruelty, the way you report the weather that ruined a harvest. “There are no kings in Tulmud anymore. It’s a full proxy state of the Empire now. Ruled by the army.”

“Damn…” Ludwig let the word hang. A cold place inside him acknowledged inevitability.

“Any other news?” he asked.

“Yeah. Big one.” The youth found his tongue again, with the morbid excitement of passing on a rumor no longer rumor. “We’re currently at war with the Kingdom of the Sands.”

“I heard something about that before I got shoved into this hellhole.” Ludwig’s mouth twisted. “They actually went and did it. How’s the war?”

“We’re in a stalemate,” said Sigurd. “The two sides are only checking each other. No full fights. A few skirmishes. Why? Want to join and be with the Hero party for the glory?” Her tone was halfway between mockery and the test of a hand against a door. “I mean, you said you killed the… Wrathful Death.”

“Hero party?” Ludwig asked, the words tasting sourer than they should. “He’s making moves? Last I remember he didn’t even do anything at Tulmud, ran with tail between his legs.”

“Yes, I suppose,” Gehrman said. “The Hero showed his prowess with a few companions. Strong party. They drove off an entire battalion of the Sand Kingdom by themselves.”

“I mean, they’ve the young apprentice of the Red Tower of Destruction,” the youth put in, eager again, “and the second youngest Aura user in the empire. Alva Urbaf…”

Ludwig felt his brow lift despite himself. “Wait. Alva? She can now use Aura?”

“You speak as if you know her,” Sigurd said, curiosity pricking through the crust.

“Yeah. We had some interactions before.” Though he didn’t want to specify, their battle back at Mira and against the people of the Kingdom of The Sand nevertheless, but that wasn’t Davon that helped her, it was Ludwig, and Ludwig is wanted.

“I mean, Alva is strong,” the youth said, “but to be honest the creepy one, and probably the strongest besides the hero is the fourth companion. He’s been with the Hero the longest, too…”

“Yeah.” Another of the party shuddered, unprompted. “That guy is a total freak…”

Ludwig waited for them to reveal the last of the hero party.

“Yeah. Hoyo Drak. If I remember”

The name snapped something like a wire in him. Heat rolled up from the floor of his chest, quick and clean as a blade leaving a sheath. The world sharpened. He felt his lips peel back from canines that had no right to be that long in a living man’s mouth.

“Ho…” The single syllable cut the air. “He’s still alive.”

[You’re in a Hostile environment!]

Ludwig’s hand moved without thought and Oathcarver hissed as it came free, Red crystalline material manifested alongside the broken sword shaft recreating Oathcarver not out of steel but out of Aura physical blood red and crystalline aura.

The youth yelped and dragged his own sword up, fear crowding judgment out of his eyes. “Shit! I knew he wasn’t trustworthy!”

Ludwig didn’t even look at him. His head had already turned toward the cave’s sealed throat, the slicked-over wall of ice that had comforted adventurers for so many winters. Beneath the frost, the stone breathed. A heavy, muffled rasping. Something in that sound tugged ancient prey-thoughts up out of the spine.

He lifted the blade and pointed at the wall. “Come out.”

For a heartbeat, nothing moved. Then the ice did not crack so much as slough away, peeling like scabbed skin torn off a wound. The rock buckled outward and the seal failed with a sound like bones dragged over slate. Cold rushed forward from the dark, smelling of old fur and iron.

The first Yeti stooped through the breach, and the word ’yeti’ felt too small for what filled the cave. It unfolded upward until its crown scraped the ceiling and nested there, a mass of corded muscle matted with blood-clotted hair the color of dirty snow. Its arms were as long as Ludwig’s body, wrists thick as tree trunks, hands like five-bladed rakes. Frost steamed from its maw in gusts that smelled of scavenged marrow. Its eyes were jewel-black and simple, filled with the winter certainty of hunger.

Behind it, something else shifted, heavy and patient. Another breath. Another. Hibernation had been torn like a veil, and the den woke at once. Quietly, as huge things wake.

“Back,” Ludwig said, without raising his voice. The order set steel into the air. “Your healer isn’t up yet, stick together, I got this one.” He rolled his shoulder and stepped ahead of them, feeling the cave’s cold settle along his new, living nerves like a thousand pins, and under that, the steady thud of the heart that did not belong to him and belonged to him entirely. The beat rose to meet the danger.

Sigurd’s dagger came up. The youth swallowed, audible in the hush. Gehrman shifted his stance, his weight balanced the way a man does who has stood against larger things than himself and walked away breathing.

The Yeti’s gaze dragged across them, and chose. It lowered its head and bellowed, the sound flattening in the tight stone and coming back teeth-first. Then it lunged, all that bulk moving with sickening speed.

Ludwig met it.