Deus Necros

The last line struck like iron on an anvil. The sound did not exist but his bones knew it. Immediately, energy far beyond anything he had ever been permitted to master or channel surged through his body, and then through the corpse. His depleted reserves did not matter. The vigorous heart of Wrath inside his own chest answered with a heavy, steady push, but even that became only one drum inside a marching line that stretched past sight.

[Necros’s Blessing has ended]

The statement arrived at the exact point the pressure released. Before Ludwig could even take a gasp of air he did not need, he felt the whole world turn white. The white had no heat. It had the clean feel of a bare blade pulled free of a scabbard after a winter tucked away. Then the blade returned to the scabbard without a scrape, and he fell unconscious next to the corpse of the Knight King.

For someone who had no need for sleep or rest, oblivion took him without argument and without shame. It felt natural, the way a battlefield nap feels natural when the horns have not yet been blown and the armor still leans warm against the ribs.

***

The morning sunlight hit Ludwig’s face and folded inside the mask with a thin gold warmth that startled him awake. His eyes snapped open. The room returned to the world’s music. Distant footfalls, a broom far along the corridor, a servant coughing into a sleeve, the hush of expensive cloth, everything lay in its proper place.

A pair of notifications stood ready.

[Your Death Point has been saved! Royal Palace of the Sand—Guest Bedroom—]

[You have achieved great advancement in Necromancy]

Your understanding of true necromancy has grown a bit.

Your [Rise Undead] skill has leveled up to Intermediate.

[You have achieved the title—One who was possessed by a god—] Your resistance to Hostile Divine Interventions has increased.

You have created your first [Death Knight]

[Upon using Rise Undead on a knight class corpse, there is a small chance that it will revive as a Death Knight.]

[Thanks to the Interference of Necros, your first Death Knight has been improved]

He let the words pass into him and arrange themselves, then turned his head. Metal moved near him with the calm weight of a tower door eased open by a patient hand.

Ludwig turned his face to see the Knight King in front of him standing tall like a knight from a dark tapestry. Black of armor from crown to boot. A T-visor helm that made a cross of shadow around the eyes. A chest plate that looked as if a falling world would strike it and think better. The black had depth in it. It was not paint. It was the color iron wears after being held under running shadow.

Pauldron of great heft sat his shoulders like the old rights of a coronation. A tower shield on his left hand could have been a gate by itself. The iron’s edge had no decoration and did not need any. The Knight King’s eyes shone a pale blue from within the visor, not hot, not cold, the color of the horizon just before morning admits it has made a promise. His former broken and shattered armor was no more. What had been ruined was now gathered into a single intention.

A prime knight of ebony and ash stood before him, though it felt lacking to the one who wore it, and Ludwig felt the thought move in that iron as clearly as he would have felt a hand on his shoulder.

“You wake…”

“I did not think that I could even sleep. What happened?” Ludwig asked. He pushed himself to sitting and flexed his right hand once. The cut had sealed into a clean scar that already looked old.

“It was a success,” the Knight King said as he raised his right arm. The plates articulated without a scrape. “Though it feels strange, to have sense when I should be dead…”

“What do you mean have sense?” Ludwig asked. He stood, and the room felt shorter by a thumb’s width with the knight filling it.

“I can feel the touch of wind, and the heft of armor. It is something I have missed.” The voice carried a surprise that tried to keep itself small and failed.

Ludwig thought for a second, then placed his thumb against his ring and turned it. A bottle of wine came to hand with a soft arithmetic of glass against leather. “Can you taste this?”

The Knight King tilted his helm a fraction, as if the motion helped the question settle. He took the bottle in gauntleted hand, slow and deliberate, as one would lift a relic in a quiet chapel. He set the lip to the bar of the visor where a narrow seam opened, took a single sip, then gave it back.

“It is a terrible wine… but at the same time the best tasting wine I have ever had.” The Knight King placed the truth down as if it were gold on a scale. You could almost feel the smile from behind the helmet, not on the mouth that could not be seen, but in the set of the shoulders and the small shift of weight.

Ludwig smiled. “I guess Necros took a liking to you, for him to allow you your senses.”

“Still…” The Knight King’s helm turned a little toward the shuttered window.

“What is it?” Ludwig asked.

“I am not enough. Right now. Not nearly close enough.”

“You are still thinking of the Gluttonous Death?”

“Indeed. I do not feel that the current me is a match to it. Though I am probably as powerful as I was before death, it is not nearly enough.”

“For you to revive this strong from the start, why do you think it is terrible?” Ludwig asked. He had expected pride. He met discipline instead.

“Why would I not. I could not improve when I was alive, and there will be no change to that fact now that I am undead.” The words did not seek pity. They set a boundary and waited to see if it would be moved.

“You are wrong,” Ludwig said. He let the sentence rest between them until the quiet took it in. “Do you think the path of sword is only allowed to the living?”

“It shall be difficult to improve with a body that cannot improve.”

“But you can.” Ludwig stepped closer, close enough to see the faint pale light inside the visor catch the curve of the eye socket and disappear.

“How so?”

“Look at me,” Ludwig said. “I was but a mere skeleton undead.”

“You are special.”

“And so are you. When did you ever see a Death Knight enjoying wine. Or at least a Death Knight that was sane.”

The Death Knight smiled, he tipped the bottle a finger toward the helm as if the gesture itself could be a toast.

“I see. I made a foolish remark.” The Knight King inclined the helm, the small bow a warrior gives another when a strike lands clean.

“How about this. We will train together. It will be much better than me hearing all about correct your posture when it can be tested in a real spar.”

“It would indeed be a good idea.” The Knight King drew his right hand into a fist and opened it, testing the catch and release of strength. “But I am missing a weapon.”

Ludwig thought for a moment and weighed a dozen memories with a single look. “Right now I cannot fix that. Oathcarver is back at the empire, being mended. So you should wait until you get it back.”

“That was your weapon.”

“And now I am giving it back. I already have other weapons. I am quite interested in the mace.” He felt again the way Nightbreaker had sung like a red sea tearing a shore. The memory made the skin at the back of his neck lift.

“It is indeed a powerful weapon and can work well with the Tyrant Blade technique. Even if it was a technique made for sharp weapons, the thought behind its birth was the desperate struggle in a battlefield of fiends and monsters.” The Knight King’s voice gathered a teacher’s patience. He spoke not as a man clinging to old words, but as one who knew where they had come from and why they had been shaped as they were.

“And the mace is a far superior weapon when it comes to desperate devastation.”

“It is something that we shall inquire and study upon when the time comes.” The Knight King’s helm turned toward the door. The visor narrowed with the change of light under it. “For now, I believe you should remove this bubble. I sense living beings approaching your room.”

Ludwig listened. Beyond the door quiet had thickened in that way it does moments before knuckles touch wood. A weight paused outside. A breath gathered. He set the bottle back on the table, wiped the last trace of blood from his palm with a square of linen, and let his hand fall to his side.

“All right,” he said, and the words were calm.

The Knight King lifted the tower shield a thumb’s width and let it rest again, a quiet promise that if steel were required it would be brought forward without fuss. The morning light pushed a little farther across the carpet, laid a pale bar at Ludwig’s boots, and waited with them for the knock.