Deus Necros

Chapter 532: Departure

“Sir Ludwig, follow me” he heard as soon as he came out of the elevator shaft. The platform sealed itself behind him with the soft fold of living wood, and the air in the root-hall smelled faintly of wet bark. The person was the same who had attacked Ludwig earlier when he was with the boy, her expressions were slightly embarrassed as she had realized she attacked a guest of the Princess, but pride and honor kept her from apologizing. Her jaw was set a touch too hard, color resting high on her cheeks, eyes refusing to linger on his for more than a heartbeat. The bow at her back sat perfectly strung, fletchings combed straight, every buckle and strap tightened as if posture itself could erase the earlier mistake.

“Seems like someone’s in a bad mood,” Ludwig replied as he followed the elf. His voice stayed mild, the edge of amusement so thin it could be ignored. The amulet at his throat held its cool against his skin, muting the Heart’s eager throb and letting his attention spread wide across stair, scent, and footfall.

“I’m not,” she replied, “I’m just doing my job,” she said as she walked ahead of Ludwig, leading him back to the same entrance they came from. Her stride was brisk and ground-eating, not hurried, the pace of a runner who knew exactly how much distance remained. She touched a carved post in passing and the wood opened along a line as neat as a seam, granting them a straight path without a word to any guard.

Ludwig followed her through the city, the same scenery occurred again, of people taking interest in the human led by an elf. Ludwig simply took in the view. Realizing how calm and peaceful this place was. Unlike the many cities of the empire he went through, their bustle and hustle was nowhere to be seen here. Sure there were markets and the vendors here, but there was no shouting or loudness to be heard or spoken. The trade lanes were woven like roots, stalls nestled in the crooks where branch met trunk, scales balanced with small weights that clicked softly. Children moved in pairs along railings grown from the same wood as the walkways, palms sliding over smooth grain. Laughter came and went in short breaths. Even the hammering of a distant smithy struck true and then fell silent, the sound swallowed by leaf and fiber as if the tree had decided how much noise to allow.

Everything was serene to an unnatural degree even. The calm threaded so deep that footsteps lost their echo, conversations folded inward to the tone of confidence rather than claim. The leaves overhead shifted, scattering light in patterns that drifted across faces and floors like slow water.

A part of Ludwig, perhaps the human part felt that it was too… monotonous, lacking emotion even. But the other part, the more pragmatic, and Undead perhaps, felt that this calmness of theirs was simply their nature. They rarely sought conflict and it shows in their behaviors. He let the thought settle without judgment. Quiet was not absence here. It was an agreement, kept so long it had become instinct. The heart within his chest pressed once, impatient to be tested, and then stilled again under the amulet’s hush.

Besides the guard elves, everyone else looks and acts like a meek little lamb, no wonder the emperor sought out their treasures, they feel like someone you can bully and take whatever you want from them. Vendors looked up when he passed and then down at their scales again. Old men paused in their carving and resumed with the same measured pressure. The temptation to plunder a place like this would have been a simple thought in a conqueror’s mind. He could see how quickly such quiet might be mistaken for permission.

The people never kept their gazes locked onto Ludwig, whenever he locked eyes with someone they’ll always drop their sights first, as if caught with their hands in a jar of cookies. Sometimes passivity… no, most of the times passivity eggs on aggressiveness. He did not hold their gaze in challenge. He accepted the look and the drop of it, filed the pattern away as one more reason their rulers had been targeted. The guard’s shoulders tightened by a hair when a pair of elders turned aside; pride was a spine in her that fatigue would not soften.

The two of them reached the exit, the same pathway and through a new tree, the guard walked in first, followed by Ludwig. The bark parted around them with the low murmur of fiber giving way, and the scent shifted from green and damp to the drier spice of pine and dew-drenched leaf. Once they left the area, the guard said, “I’ve been told to accompany you to the campsite of the Sand dwellers. I hope you’re fast on your feet,” she said. There was a lift at the end of the line, a spark that did not quite become a smile. Challenge lived there, wrapped tidy in courtesy.

’Trying to test me,’ Ludwig smiled. The thought sat light. He rolled his shoulders once, feeling the Heart answer and settle, the amulet’s cool evening it out. The forest before them opened in long aisles between trunks, the ground springy with years of needles, birdcalls spaced wide like watchmen’s whistles.

“Sure thing, go ahead, lead the way, I’ll follow you,” Ludwig said. He gave the smallest gesture with two fingers, half permission, half invitation.

Immediately the elf sprinted forward, with speed enough to leave a mortal in the dust. The thoughts going on in her head were simple, make him get exhausted before they reach the camp, and she’ll take care of the camp herself, take credit and fix the mess she caused with the princess. Once she tells the princess that her ’hero’ was too exhausted to fight, and she protected him from the sand dwellers her standing with her will go higher. And she won’t punish her for messing with this human. She found the line between roots, let the land’s give and lift carry her, breath set to a rhythm meant for hours. Twigs flicked past her calves. An owl hooted once from the tree perches above and then the forest took the sound and folded it into its hush.