ósma
The battle was going poorly.
Not because he was incapable of hurting the thing. No, that was easy enough. Rather, the issue seemed to be that this bastard didn’t require its flesh to move.
ósma snarled, barely avoiding the swipe of an axe. Flicking out his first two fingers in retaliation a dozen silver threads struck out, evasive as a snake and razor thin. They carved lines through the zombie’s skin, sieving off chunks of flesh like an overly enthusiastic cheese grater. Each second was a pound of flesh lost, bloodless meat rotting the moment it was removed from its host’s body.
Yet silver light poured from each of the wounds he’d inflicted, skin quickly rebuilding itself even as it was destroyed. Even when he sliced off the hand holding the axe that didn’t slow the monster down, as with instincts not its own it swiftly caught it with a new hand of pure light, cutting through his own attacks with silent efficiency.
If he’d been fighting a person they’d be long dead by now. But the undying monster before him was fueled by something other than blood, its innards little more than light and bone. He had no idea how to hurt it, not in any way that mattered.
Trying to make some distance ósma stumbled away, wheezing heavily. Each titanic gasp was a blow to his chest, his body telling him he was pushing it way too hard.
He truly was getting too old for this.
“Stay back,” he growled between breaths, another dozen threads crisscrossing the space between. Barely touching one would be enough to lose a finger.
The zombie walked straight through it, skin sliced to pieces yet refusing to fall off its heretical frame. Every injury patched itself up almost immediately after being inflicted, the thinness of his strikes for once more a boon against a being who could not be killed by simple cutting.
ósma’s scowl deepened at the sight, even as he tried to create more distance. Directly attacking this thing, it seemed, was not something he was capable of at the moment.
A shame, but he could improvise. Now, if he could just position the zombie—
ósma’s eyes widened as it was suddenly in front of him.
There had been no warning. No tensing of muscles or narrowing of eyes. One moment the zombie was near the other side of the street, the next it was suddenly on him.
Ah, it seemed he forgot that for all it was an abomination, this body was still his brother’s.
He tried to dodge, but age and exhaustion had slowed his movements. The axe fell, catching him in the shoulder. The blow was as heavy as a mountain and the blade as inevitable as death.
ósma roared in agony as his arm was nearly cleaved from his body, the only thing saving it from being severed completely was the dullness of the axe—clearly, it had not been well maintained in the crypt.
The last of his prepared spools unwound themselves, pushing the undead orc back in what was more a mass of fabric than a true attack. What little remained he frantically sent into his own body, stitching the gaping wound shut as fast as he could. Threads bore into his bloody flesh, winding between nerves and puppeting joints. As he barely ducked beneath the next swing he knit his own body back together, piece by bloody piece.
He wasn’t dead, not yet, but he knew he couldn’t take another injury like that.
Unfortunately, it looked like he wouldn’t have a choice.
Whatever reluctance had held the zombie back before was now gone, an endless flurry of attacks bearing down on him from a warrior which required neither breath nor rest. With each swing it took it forced him a step back, each cut of the blade another thread lost. He was forced on the backfoot, surviving if only just, but victory was still not impossible—
His back hit a wall.
The street had ended, their battle having taken them far from where they started. Now the limestone brick of a building had blocked his path of retreat, and with it any hope of a running fight.
The axe came down again, and this time there was not he could do to stop it. With all the cadence of a lumberjack chopping down a tree, his arm was felled from him body in that single strike, leaving only a bloody stump behind.
ósma bellowed, the pain too much for words. His head throbbed from bloodloss and his shoulder twitched with broken nerves. It was a blow that should have ended the fight, right then and there.
But he did not falter. So he had sworn, he would never falter again.
‘Got you,’ he snarled over the pounding in his skull.
ósma’s doublet exploded, the threads which made up every article of clothing he wore unweaving and glowing with silver moonlight. The zombie, too close to dodge and mid-swing beside, could do nothing to stop the thousands of threads from lunging at it, each individual strand digging into its body like hungry parasites.
But ósma had learned from past mistakes. They did not tear the monster apart.
No, this time they sewed it together.
Flesh was undone, rent and resewn. Bones were pulled out of place to embroider skin, one thread flaying it as another stitched it back together in an organic cage. A tailored suit turned scalpel remade the undying body, locking together joints in a prison of tissue and cloth.
And the monster didn’t even try to fight back. It simply stood there as it was entirely remade.
Perhaps it didn’t realize what was going on.
…Perhaps it was far to used to being remade to care.
Within seconds which felt like hours, the zombie was defeated—but not dead. Now it was what could only be called a sack of flesh and bone, unable to do much more than twitch and shudder, still trying to attack him even without limbs capable of doing so.
ósma wheezed, falling on his ass as the adrenaline left his body. For a moment, he wondered if it would be fine if he just took a short rest…
Then he remembered he was currently bleeding out, and he jolted back awake.
“Damn,” he swore, his good hand reaching for his stump. He grimaced as he took a good look at it—the cut hadn’t been clean, and he wasn’t a field surgeon. “Double damn.”
Maybe he should try to save the arm, but he knew how poorly inexperienced surgery could go.
It was a shame he’d never bothered learning to heal. But then he’d never before been stupid enough to get into a fight without a healer on hand. A healer such as the one he’d sent on ahead.
“Hah…” he sighed, rubbing his face. “It seems time makes fools of us all.”
Maybe he could save the arm, maybe he couldn’t. But for now he brought what thread he could spare up to his stump, silver moonlight sewing shut his flapping skin. In seconds, only a shimmering scar remained to show his injury.
Good enough.
Staggering back to his feet, ósma took a moment to glare down at the thing which wore his brother’s skin.
“I don’t know how to put you down,” he told it with ragged breaths. “But it can’t be impossible. I’ll find a way, brother. I promise.”
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But he had one last thing to do before he left.
Reaching down, with his remaining hand he grabbed their father’s axe, the cold wooden grip sending a pang of loss through his heart. It was a simple weapon, but it had been their first. And last he’d seen it had been when he placed it on his brother’s grave all those years ago.
“And I’m taking this with me. You can have it back when you go back to sleep, you damn broken bastard.”
With that he turned, leaving behind the wriggling cocoon he’d turned his brother’s corpse into. Because much as he wanted to find a way to finish this here and now, he had other priorities, other responsibilities.
He still needed to find the girl. He had a lesson to drill into her head, undying zombies be damned.
-
Palmira
“You’re insane.”
This was, perhaps, not the best response to a person declaring their megalomaniacal plan to usurp the Goddess.
But what else was she supposed to say!?
“They can’t actually do that, right?” she glanced down at Morte, more begging reassurance than truly asking. “You can’t just… become the Goddess like that that!”
A rolling chuckle boomed from Rosalina’s staff, mocking and patronizing in equal measure. “How little you must know, girl. What has the traitor been teaching you, that you don’t even understand the basics of divinity?”
“Traitor…?” That… that wasn’t the first time a Demon had called him that.
“Ignore him, kid,” Morte told her, before snarling at the Lich-King. “For your information, I’ve taught her plenty. It’s just that unlike a certain someone I stagger my lessons so that I don’t drive my students insane.”
“I’m not crazy, you know,” Rosalina pouted. The expression was unnatural, someone so mad trying to act cute. “I learned just as much from you as I did from him. But you always were one to leave out the context of your lessons, my teacher.”
“That’s because the context in this situation is unimportant! What do you want, an itemized list of the countless atrocities humanity committed the Age of Dark? The exact reasonings of men long dead and buried? What do they matter, compared to the aftershocks of those actions that we still suffer from to this day! You ask why I call you insane, and it’s for that reason why—not because you can’t succeed, but because I know success is not worth the suffering a world ruled by Men would bring.”
“Unimportant!? We were once the greatest civilization to ever exist! And yet our golden age was stolen from us by that vile elven idol!”
“We stole it from ourselves! In our own arrogant ambition we thought to play god! And look where that has brought us! Unfathomable death and decay for centuries unending!”
“Morte,” Palmira interrupted the arguing weapons, clenched her fingers tighter around the staff. “What are you two talking about?”
“…Morte?” the Lich-King asked, incredulous and amused. “Is that what you’re calling yourself these days, Dodékatos?”
“That is not my name, Aethric,” Morte snarled. “Not anymore.”
Palmira blinked. “Dodékatos…?”
“Oh? You haven’t told the girl? How very dishonest of you. But I suppose you were always a consummate liar, even back when you were little more than fodder. Always scheming, always plotting. It’s a wonder you ever got anything done.”
“Wait, what?” A pit formed in her stomach. Surely the Lich-King wasn’t implying… “Morte, were you part of…”
“That doesn’t matter right now. Ignore him, Palmira!”
“But…”
“He’s just trying to distract you!” Morte snapped, before forcibly softening his voice. “Look, here’s a deal—I’ll tell you whatever you want after this. My name, my past, my fucking birth sign if you’re so interested. But we do that later! When we have time to talk about it.”
She… found she didn’t trust Morte to tell the truth. But she also found she trusted him to protect her. It was a weird combination of feelings which caused her head to spin in circles. She hated the fact that the only times she learned anything about Morte was from other people.
Later, he said. Later wouldn’t have a mad priestess and her enslaved lich to force him to tell the truth—
Though, thinking of it that way, maybe they weren’t the best people to trust.
“Really now,” suddenly a familiar voice entered her mind. Gentle as it was blasé, it nonetheless filled her with a sense of relief to hear that woman again. “Morte, spilling the beans already? I’ll have to hold you to that, I hope you know. I would so love to listen to you squirm.”
“Damn,” her staff groaned. “Of course you only get here for that part…”
The thundering of footsteps tore down the street as Johan burst around the corner, his spear Vita at the ready. Right behind him came Lorenzo and that Rodina lady, both of them fully prepared for a fight.
“Lorenzo!” she gasped in relief. “Thank the Goddess you’re here!”
“You’re quite welcome my dear,” Rosalina’s smile turned indulgent as she took in the new arrivals calmly, utterly unbothered by her new allies. Though she paused on Johan, squinting at him. But then she shook her head, waving whatever thought she’d had aside. “But I’m afraid I had little to do with bringing these four here tonight.”
“That’s not—” she bit her tongue, not willing to argue semantics with a mad woman.
“Palmira!” Lorenzo wheezed as they stumbled to a stop next to her. “We saw the fire from three blocks over! What’s going on, are you okay?”
“Uh, yes—I mean, no, I mean—”
“That woman over there is attacking us,” Morte cut her ramblings off. “She’s a crazy priestess who wants to burn us to death.”
“Hm?” Vita hummed. “But isn’t that…?”
“Yes. It is. Stay wary, she’s more powerful than the lot of you combined.”
“You.”
“Oh my, is that you, Aethric?” the spear asked, sounding more amused than anything. “Copying my style, are you? How far the mighty fall.”
The Lich-King didn’t take kindly to that remark. “I should have destroyed you when I had the chance, you wretched mongrel.”
“You could have tried. And you would have failed~ That’s the issue with you necromancers, you see—all your power is stolen from others, which leaves you forever at the mercy of those too strong to steal from.”
“Vita!” Johan snapped, the half-elf interrupting his spear. “Do you know these people?”
“Oh, yes, I do.”
“…Well, who are they!?”
Palmira leaned over. “That’s the Lich-King. And Rosalina the Priestess.”
“That’s who—!?”
“That spear.”
Both of them froze, looking away from the staff to the woman wielding it. Behind them the others shifted, the smell of new growth mixing with the warmth of divinity.
Rosalina did not even pretend to notice. Her eyes were locked firmly on Vita.
“I had not noticed before, so distracted I was by friends new and old alike, but I know that weapon. I know of its power, of the bloody fate which clings to it like a ruinous cloak. But I also thought it long lost—how in the world did you come across it, child?”
“You mean Vita?” Johan asked, hefting the spear. It seemed to glow brighter, though what shined from it was not light. He gave her a look, which she responded with a gesture to keep her talking. “She… she chose me, I suppose. When I was at my lowest, I heard her voice. She guided me to where she was hidden, and I’ve carried her with me ever since.”
“My, when you describe it like that I sound downright heroic. Continue to do so, please.”
“I see…” the Priestess trailed off, some unknown thoughts running through her mind. “So she chose you…”
She seemed to be considering something, glancing between Morte and Vita. It was impossible to tell what she was thinking behind those dark pits she called eyes, but in the past few minutes it had become clear that anything was better than whatever madness she’d come up with.
Rosalina opened her mouth. Perhaps to praise them, perhaps to damn them.
But before she could—
She froze, whole body locking up at once. Her expression turned thunderous, even as for a moment she seemed to be somewhere far away. She mouthed a word, one that was completely unfamiliar.
All of them tensed in turn, preparing to fight for their lives. Palmira herself frantically raised Morte in the desperate hope she could not only protect herself but all of the others from the flames she knew was coming. Yet despair filled her heart with the knowledge that she could do nothing to stop it.
Then, Rosalina did something that none of them were expecting.
She turned around.
“Unfortunately, my dears, something has come up,” she smiled back at them, placating and empty. “It appears I’m needed elsewhere. But don’t you worry—we’ll have time to finish this conversation another time. And don’t you worry, my teacher, I’ll be sure to show you the righteousness of my cause soon, I promise!”
“What!?” the Lich-King roared, sheer rage erupting from the staff. “You cannot be serious! They won’t be convinced of anything, especially not with those two working together again—!”
“Shh…” she stroked the spine lovingly, her fingers gently running up and down it’s length. “It’s true that they aren’t perfect, but such is the nature of men—that we must ever struggle to better ourselves. Let the girl learn from the mistakes she made today. And if she doesn’t, then she was never a threat at all.”
“But…” the staff seemed to shudder, even that single word difficult for it to force out.
“Don’t lose yourself in the past, Aethric,” she whispered, even as she walked away from them. Calmly and slowly, her burning hair a beacon that refused to leave their sight even as she faded into the distance. “Not when the future is so very near at hand.”
And then they were gone. Leaving three charred corpses, three confused mages, and one very relieved Palmira in her wake.
“Goddess,” she gasped, falling to her knees. The word felt strange to say, after the interaction she’d just had with the Priestess. “I thought I was going to die.”
“Well, I have no idea what just happened,” Lorenzo hummed, leaning down to grab her shoulder reassuringly. “But you aren’t out of the woods just yet.”
Palmira blinked. “Huh?”
The gentle grab turned quite a bit more forceful. “You ran off ahead, remember?” He smiled sharply at her, razor teeth shining against the darkness. “After we specifically told you not to do that.”
Shit, she had done that, hadn’t she?
“Oh.”
“Oh is right,” he snapped, before sighing. Loosening his grip, he instead pulled her back to her feet. “Well, you didn’t die, which is the important part. ósma can tear you a new one for it later—for now, let’s just get back to the guild to rest. Lady knows you look like you need it.”
“Right…” Palmira blinked, her eyelids heavy. As all of the adrenaline left her system, all she felt in its wake what tired. “Yeah, I’d like that.”
With that they left the alleyway, Lorenzo practically dragging her away. And though she knew that a punishment would be coming, all she could think of was one thing.
Dodékatos.
It had been long enough. Glancing down at Morte, she made a promise to herself.
She’d have her answers. Soon.
unpleasant. Hopefully it gets fixed soon so that I don’t have to deal with this anymore.