Deus Necros

Chapter 408: Fractures

The manhole in the middle of one of Tulmud’s wide, bustling avenues shifted with a low metallic groan.

At first, no one noticed; the city was alive that morning, its streets thrumming with the noise of merchants hawking wares and travelers shouting over the clatter of cart wheels. It was the second day of the tournament, and Tulmud’s capital was swelling with bodies, nobles on horseback, armor‑clad soldiers, barefoot children darting between market stalls, and pilgrims clutching wooden charms.

Then the heavy disk of the manhole shuddered a second time. A few heads turned. It would take two, perhaps three strong men to drag that iron cover aside, yet here it was scraping inch by inch over stone. The chatter faltered as a pale hand emerged slender, unadorned save for faint scars running over knuckles. It was a hand that did not match the raw strength it was displaying. Murmurs swept through the crowd.

With a final grating screech the manhole cover was shoved completely aside. From the darkness below, a figure rose. Her white robes and trailing mantle, though smudged with soot and damp from the sewers, could not disguise the unmistakable presence that seemed to part the air around her. Lady Titania, the Holy Maiden, climbed from the black mouth of the undercity as if from some mythic underworld.

In her hand she held a rope, thick, tarred hemp that strained taut, biting deep into her glove. Whatever burden it bore below was heavy enough to make the onlookers flinch in expectation, yet her arm was steady, unshaking.

“Get up,” Titania said without looking back, her tone calm as a stone dropped in a still pool.

“One moment…” came a softer voice from the depths. A second hand appeared, smaller, slimmer, trembling slightly as it grasped the rim of the manhole. A young nun climbed out after Titania, skirts muddied to the knee, cheeks flushed from the climb. She paused on her knees, brushing grit from her robes and glancing around with wide eyes. “We’ve got… a lot of audience today,” she murmured, the faintest tremor of unease in her voice.

Titania did not look up. She was already bracing her stance, shoulders drawing back as she began to haul. Her gauntleted hands worked the rope in smooth, steady pulls, heavy from what it looked like, but her breath never quickened.

“Good,” Titania said, voice even as she dragged another arm’s length of rope to the surface. “Get them to call the guards.”

A shadow moved beneath the hole, followed by a rasp of metal against stone. Titania planted both hands on the rope, muscles coiling under her sleeves. “This might hurt a bit,” she said flatly, and then pulled.

The crowd gasped as the rope drew tight and something massive scraped against the manhole’s edge. With a grunt that was more exhale than effort, Titania heaved upward, and the bundled cargo broke into the light. It was a net, thick with knots, straining under the weight of human bodies, more than twenty men and women lashed together like firewood.

They spilled onto the street with the sound of flesh against stone. Groans and broken sobs erupted as they tumbled in a heap, limbs twisted at unnatural angles, blood staining the cobbles. Not one of them was dead, though some looked as if they’d wished they were. They writhed and whimpered in a pathetic chorus, and the stench of sweat and rot rose around them.

But what made the crowd recoil wasn’t the gore, it was the dark cloth, the stitched symbols, the sigils burned into belts and sleeves. Every one of the prisoners wore the markings of a cult.

A horn blew from somewhere up the street, and soon the tramp of armored boots thundered closer. Guards in crimson and gold shoved through the crowd, but the moment their eyes fell upon the woman standing over the bound heap, they stopped short as though struck.

“Holy Maiden!” one of them cried, voice breaking in awe. He dropped to one knee, head bowed. “Please, allow us… let us take care of this.”

Titania gave him a single glance, then nodded toward the heap of cultists. “Get these to the closest Order church,” she said, voice carrying easily over the murmuring crowd. “Careful, most of them are suicidal. I’ve already taken their teeth, but keep watch for poison capsules. These are the heads of the cultists; the stragglers and followers are still below. A few sessions in the church might cleanse the lesser ones. But these…” Her gaze hardened as it swept the trembling, bound figures. “These are beyond saving.”

“M‑mercy!” one of the men gasped, his swollen lips splitting with the word. He tried to push himself up despite his broken arms, eyes wide and wild. “Please… mercy!”

Before Titania could even look at him, a boot swung in a sharp arc. It connected with his jaw, snapping his head back with a choked cry.

Misty stood over him, her own boot still raised. “You didn’t show those kids mercy,” she spat, her voice low but shaking with fury. “The only mercy you’ll get is the gallows. After you’re scrubbed clean in the flagellation chambers.”

“No… no!” The man’s voice broke into ragged sobs, joined by others in the pile.

The sound traveled like a ripple, but it was soon drowned out. The crowd had recovered from its initial shock, and now cheers began to rise, a swelling tide of gratitude and relief. Hands clapped, voices shouted blessings. Flowers, hastily plucked from baskets, were thrown into the street.

“Kind people of Tulmud!” A voice rose above the din, sonorous and commanding. From the far side of the square, a man in robes of crimson and gold stepped forward, flanked by priests. The sunlight struck his polished breastplate, turning it to a mirror of fire. It was Cardinal Clementine himself.

“As you have seen with your own eyes,” he called, raising his arms, “the Holy Church works day and night for your safety! For your children, your homes, your streets!” He gestured grandly toward the bruised captives. “Look well upon this day, and know that we guard you even in the darkest corners of the earth!”

The people roared their approval, some dropping to their knees in prayer, others raising purses high with shouted promises of donations.

Clementine’s eyes crinkled in a smile as he and his entourage drew close to Titania. But as they neared, Titania’s gaze cut to him, sharp as a blade.

“You’re pushing it,” she said quietly, her tone flat but carrying enough steel to cut through the surrounding cheers.

“Smile a little,” Clementine replied, lips still stretched in that public‑perfect grin. He gave a cheery wave to the crowd. “If they see us bicker, they’ll think we’re fractured. We need to show a strong front.”

Titania’s eyes narrowed. “No, what you need is to push your image,” she said under her breath, pitched low so only he could hear. “You’re using me as a ladder, Clementine. You want that Pontiff’s seat so badly you can taste it.”

“It is only natural,” Clementine murmured, still smiling and waving, “for a cardinal to hope to serve the people better.”

Titania’s lips curved, not into a smile, but into something closer to a sneer. “It would be interesting,” she said softly, “if the people learned what a liar their new cardinal is.”

Clementine turned his head a fraction, enough to look her in the eye, his own expression still affable but his voice low. “When have I ever lied to you, Titania?”

She didn’t blink. “I had two weeks of rest. One spent traveling, the other hunting down sewer filth. That isn’t rest. That’s you working me to the bone while you preach about the embrace of the Four.”

“Titania, Titania…” He reached as though to touch her shoulder, but the faint odor of blood and sewer slime that clung to her robes made him hesitate. His hand hovered awkwardly before dropping. “You know your duty comes first. We rest when we are in the embrace of the Four, don’t we?”

“You might,” Titania said quietly. “But I’ve lived too damn long, Clementine. I’ve yet to find any rest worth the name.”

She turned, gesturing to Misty. “Let’s go. Let them handle the cleanup.”

Misty nodded, then hesitated, offering a quick bow to the cardinal. He returned it with a genial smile, and the two women stepped away, Titania’s boots leaving dark prints on the cobbles as they vanished into the press of the crowd.

Clementine watched them go. For a fleeting second, the mask slipped; his smile flattened, his eyes turned cold. But the instant was brief. He turned back to the crowd, his arms spreading once more in a gesture of blessing.

“Do not fear,” he proclaimed, his voice booming over the square. “We will not let this filth” , he gestured to the bound cultists, “taint your lives! You are safe. You are protected. You are the future of this city!”

The cheers rose again, filling the air until it seemed even the stones trembled with them, and Clementine’s smile remained, radiant and untouchable.