Deus Necros

Chapter 542: Through the Dunes

Around the two, the courtyard’s murmurs thinned. A few paladins paused mid-step, as if the sand itself had seized their ankles. The sun threw a flat white glare across steel and linen; in that glare, Misty’s grin looked like something smuggled out of spring and hidden under desert light.

Ludwig blinked twice, “Misty, what are you doing here?” he asked, the question was nonchalant, but for everyone else, it meant that Davon the savior of Tulmud was a close acquaintance to their tiny devil.

She hurried toward Ludwig, carrying the suitcase with the ease of a feather in hand, which brought it to Ludwig’s attention. The handle creaked once in her grip; the thick silver plates within did not so much as clink. She swung the case up, let it settle at her hip as if it weighed no more than a helm. It was not feigned strength. The ground barely registered the weight.

“I should be asking you that, but I can see that you’re here to deliver a letter,” she looked at the man that was on the ground, “I guess you wanted this delivered to Titania?”

Her eyes slid to the paladin still nursing the dust with his pride, then up to the seal in Ludwig’s hand. She did not ask to touch it. She did not need to.

“How did you come to that conclusion?” Ludwig asked. He was surprised at how sharp she was. He had not forgotten her wit, only how quickly she liked to use it.

“Because that man is one of Clementine’s men, and seems like he was trying to get more favor with his master, and ended up eating sand. Quite deserved to be honest.”

She said it like a weather report. The fallen man groaned and tried to gather his armor around his dignity. A few clerics coughed into their sleeves to hide smiles that were not pious.

“Tell me then, where can I find her?” Ludwig asked.

He kept his voice level. The letter pressed a circle into his palm.

“Oh, she isn’t here, I can take you to her though,” Misty smiled.

No mischief in the first curve of it, only relief at a task worth moving for. The second curve arrived a heartbeat later, and that one held her usual problems.

“I feel like you’re plotting something,” Ludwig said his brows knitted together with a focused suspicious gaze.

He tilted his head a fraction, the way one does when a hound brings a stick and expects you to throw it into a thicket with snakes.

Misty looked away, playfully so as she twirled one of her braids with one hand, “Not really, I’m just… to be honest, I just want to leave this dump!” she finally confessed.

Her shoulders dropped as if a strap had been loosened. The fortress had sand in all the wrong corners, and she had been told to stand still in it.

Ludwig grinned, “I see.” He turned toward the desert sand and high mounds, “I believe it’s far more comfortable within the walls of the fortress than under the sun and above the sands.” The wind outside the gate dragged grit along the stones with a sound like paper tore slowly. The dunes beyond shimmered like coins shaken in a giant hand.

“You try staying in the same place with sweaty men and sand going to places only god knows. I’ve been here for a weak and feel like Dust Devils would be a more entertaining company.” She spoke lightly and meant every word. A paladin nearby pretended to be deaf and failed. A snort couldn’t help but escape his mouth.

Ludwig smiled, “Then lead the way,” Ludwig said. He adjusted the strap across his chest, shifted the staff for ease, slid the letter inside his coat where heat would not soften the wax.

She hoisted the case onto her shoulder in one neat motion. “We’ll head further south then, follow me, I hope you don’t mind the desert heat!” she said.

“Shouldn’t you be more worried? Last I remembered, you were struggling to carry that thing,” he said gesturing at the suitcase with his chin. The memory of her red-faced efforts on forest ground flickered. Her laugh then had been a defiance; now it was a comfort.

“Ah this,” she said as she easily placed it over one of her shoulders, “That’s because lady Titania locked my strength away. She called it training…” She rolled the word training around as if it tasted of iron. Even the thought of Titania’s hand on the chain of her strength made her posture straighter.

Ludwig laughed as he followed after Misty while the two of them headed deeper into the sands.

The gate guards watched them go with the kind of sympathy men give to those walking into heat. The fortress grumbled behind them, prayers, orders, the scrape of boots. Ahead, only the desert breathed.

The people in the fortress however did not do much, after all the man who arrived wasn’t an enemy of the empire, and the one who got punched in the face was a fool who didn’t know who he was up against. Misty leaving with Davon was also another good boon. She was stressing everyone out just by being there. Imagine if someone mistakenly wrongs her, one word to Titania and that person’s life was over. Quite literally.

So the courtyard settled, a little shamed, a little relieved, as dust fell back to stone. A cleric quietly helped the paladin sit, applied a salve that smelled of mint and ash, and did not meet his eyes.

***

There was no breeze in the desert, the air was stale, and dry, enough to make one feel like the heat of the sun was blistering their skin if they stood there too long. The first stretch beyond the wall had the silence of an empty amphitheater. Sound went up and did not come back. Footsteps pressed prints into crusted earth where clay showed through in cracked plates, then into the looser, whispering skirts of the dunes. The occasional wind that came however, wasn’t something to be joyous of, usually it picked up sand and dust that felt like sharp needles that would swat at one’s exposed skin, sandblasting it. And if it picked up enough speed and power, it might even tear through flesh itself.

Bits of grit found the corner of the eye and tried to live there. Linen tugged at the mouth. Tongues stuck to the roof of the mouth and learned to move slowly.

Sand storms were quite the occasional occurrence but whenever they appeared, they brought nothing but demise to whoever was unfortunate or foolish enough to stand in their way.

On the far horizon a brown veil sometimes rose, traveled like a wall, and then ate the world. Today the sky held itself, pale and merciless, the dunes purring in small shifts.

Under this heat and endless sand swatting, Ludwig and Misty moved without care no worry. Covering their faces with a scarf, and moving under the sun was light work for Ludwig, his body though felt heat, a simply revolution of his mana pushed away the heat and replaced it with a cool air that protected him. While Misty’s clothes were impervious to heat as the blessed cleric clothes were equipped with wards to such rough climate.

Their shadows went short and sharp, then slanted long as the day wore on. The amulet lay chill as a coin in snow against his collarbone. With each measured cycle of mana the air around Ludwig lost its bite and became a thin cool band about a man walking through a furnace. Misty’s hems did not blacken, her sleeves did not stick; the wards drank sunlight and returned a duller, kinder version to her skin.

As they moved ahead, seeing nothing but moving mounds of sand in the distance, Misty spoke first, “How have you been?” she asked.

Her voice held cheer as bait for conversation. The dunes gave them no company but their slow animal shifting.

“Out of the blue?” He side-eyed her. The wind carried a taste of baked salt. His boots sank, lifted, found the slightly firmer line where a dune’s back curved.

“I hate spending time quite,” she replied. She kicked at a bit of crusted sand and watched it break into neat shards. Silence and she had never been polite with each other.

“I can see that,” he replied, “But, I’ve been good. Not going to lie, this is far better than the cold,” Ludwig said.

The word cold pulled a shadow across his face that the sun could not burn off. The mountain air in his memory was a knife; this heat was only a hand.

“Solania must have been a nightmare… I apologize for not doing much.”

She meant it. Apologies from her were rare and quick, like birds. She kept walking as if motion could make up for the distance in time.

“You’re not to blame, also it wasn’t like it all sucked. Yes, fighting one of the Seven Usurpers was deadly at worst and frustrating at the best. The part that sucked the most was being unable to leave that mountain for years,” Ludwig sighed.

The sigh left him and dried in the air before it reached her. He did not slow. His eyes narrowed at a glare off a far dune and then relaxed.

“I guess a change of scenery is good, but we’re heading to another place that’s ruled by another one of the seven.”

Her braid stuck to the back of her neck for a moment, then the warded cloth cooled and it fell loose again. She adjusted the suitcase on her shoulder without looking.

“Two,” Ludwig said, “There is a possibility of two of them being there.”

The words left his mouth and made the hot air in the desert uncomfortably chill.