Deus Necros

“Okay,” Melisande said as she wrapped the final piece of gauze around Redd’s arm, fingers moving with the practiced precision of someone who had tended to wounds too often to count. Her voice was calm, but a tightness lingered beneath it a restraint masking the quiet frustration of working in low light, under uncertain skies, with blood that still seeped from barely closed flesh. The strip of linen, once a pale cream, was now marbled in red, soaked through from the wound that refused to settle.

“What a waste of time,” Gorak muttered from nearby, arms crossed like a statue carved in disapproval, his tone as rough and gravelly as ever. He stood over them like a sentinel, eyes fixed on Redd “He heals naturally.”

Melisande didn’t even flinch at the remark. She pulled the gauze tighter, smoothing it with the heel of her palm, then gave the barbarian a curt glance over her shoulder. “For a barbarian that’s used to injury,” she said, “you sure don’t understand the human body.”

Her words were sharp, but not cruel. There was exhaustion laced into them, a weariness from long triage that had no end in sight. The scent of sweat and dried blood lingered thick in the air, mixing with the earthy rot of churned mud and broken pine from the wreckage around them.

Ludwig, crouched nearby, spoke before the tension could swell. “His healing factor could be his worst enemy,” he said, his voice low and thoughtful. “A break like that, if it heals wrong, it’ll twist the bone inward. He’d need to have it shattered again, reset properly. Otherwise, he’ll never hold a weapon right again. Or anything else for that matter.”

Melisande looked at him, surprised, though she tried not to show it too plainly. Her hands, now resting on her knees, stilled. “Oh? You know about that?” she asked, not accusingly, but with a curiosity tinged in faint skepticism. “Taken medicinal classes? Or are nobles just born savvy about everything?”

Ludwig didn’t smile. He never really did. His pale gaze shifted from her to the sleeping, or dying, bandit laid out before them, lips tightening slightly. “That’s basic stuff,” he said. “And no. I’m not that kind of noble.”

She hummed softly under her breath, and turned back to her work. There was no retort. Only a slight nod of respect.

“Do you think he’ll wake up soon?” Ludwig asked after a pause, his voice quiet but not uncertain.

Melisande leaned back, resting on her haunches, and wiped her brow with the back of her wrist. “Hard to tell,” she replied. “He lost too much blood. We kept it from killing him, but whether the damage was already done…” She didn’t finish the thought. Her eyes flicked briefly to the half-lidded stare of the unconscious man. “One should just hope that if he wakes, he isn’t fully gone in the head.”

Ludwig’s silence held weight. He knew, better than most, what blood loss could do, what it could steal from a man. His gaze lingered on the edges of Redd’s lips, the dryness of his skin, the unnatural stillness of his limbs. Oxygen-starved brains didn’t just sleep. Sometimes they didn’t return.

Around them, the forest grew darker. The canopy above was thinning, revealing a sky thick with nightfall. Crimson-streaked clouds crawled across the heavens, windless and slow, heavy with a strange tension that made the branches ache with silence.

No other bandits were around. No signs of horses but dead ones, no supporting forces, no other survivors, Just a burned out cart, shattered splinters of iron and leather. and bodies mangled and torn apart.

This was a stranger sight to see, after all, what is red doing here, this forest It wasn’t the one Ludwig recalled seeing Redd and his gang haunt, this was farther east. Literally the other side of Rima city.

But there were no answers from the unconscious man. Only shallow breathing and the wet rasp of air struggling through his nose. So Ludwig turned his attention to Thomas, whose fluttering, spectral form was darting just beyond the firelight’s reach, slowly circling the Skinwalker.

The spiritual creature had not moved much since they arrived, arms curled tightly around Redd’s chest, her nails digging into the dirt leaving no marks, protective and eerily silent. Her long, tangled hair draped over his shoulder, her frame shivering occasionally, but her eyes never blinking. If she had any thoughts of running, fighting, or devouring, she gave no sign of it.

Thomas drifted closer, dimly glowing like a fading ember, casting long, translucent shadows against the tree trunks. “Don’t get eaten,” Ludwig warned him silently, the words passed with a mental flicker.

“I’m already dead,” came Thomas’s cheeky reply. “Don’t worry.”

With that, the pixie-sized phantom hovered within a foot of the Skinwalker’s face. She did not snarl or snap. She merely stared, teeth slightly bared, eyes wide and golden like a beast caught mid-hunt. Her breathing was shallow, but steady. Coiled restraint.

Thomas hovered, then dipped a little closer, voice soft and even. “What happened to him?” he asked.

The Skinwalker tilted her head, a slow and unnerving motion. Her beauty, if it could be called that, was savage, raw, not built for admiration but for awe. Her face was like something sculpted from instinct and hunger, not kindness. And yet, she did not attack. She answered.

Sort of.

A growl. A hiss. A low guttural sound deep from her chest. To Ludwig, it meant nothing. Animalistic. Harsh. Indecipherable.

But Thomas… nodded. He rubbed his chin, brows furrowed, thoughtful. Another grunt from the Skinwalker. A click of her tongue. A slow blink. Then silence.

When Thomas returned, he was visibly unsettled, though trying not to show it. “Looks like they were attacked by something hunting Redd,” he said. “Also looks like… he was the only survivor from his camp. The Imperials caught him. Took him alive. But then…” Thomas exhaled. “Something with overly sharp claws tore the patrol apart.”

Ludwig blinked. “And you understood all that from grunts and hisses?”

Thomas shrugged, his form flickering for a second. “I guess? Might’ve not been just sound. Could’ve been… intent. Instinct. Like she poured it into me.” He hesitated. “Also, she’s saying something else now.”

He turned, wings buzzing faster. “Yeah, whatever attacked them, it hasn’t left the region.”

Ludwig turned fully then, slowly rising to his feet and adjusting his coat. His voice was low, but it cut through the forest like steel. “Everyone,” he said.

The others looked up, pausing mid-task.

“Seems like we’ll have company tonight,” Ludwig added grimly.

He gestured with a slight nod toward the far end of the clearing, where the firelight did not quite reach. A shadow loomed there, faint, almost imperceptible. But what caught the eye was not the darkness. It was what the darkness couldn’t hide.

A footprint. Massive. Deep. Sunken into the churned soil. Not hooves. Not a boot.

A paw. Six digits. Clawed. The impression alone could’ve swallowed a man’s head whole.

“Shit,” Timur was the first to speak, his voice tightening as his body straightened.

He took two steps forward, then three more, kneeling near the edge of the print. His face paled.

“I didn’t notice it at first,” he muttered, voice just above a whisper. “Too much wreckage. Blood. Smoke. But this…” He pointed, fingers trembling slightly. “That’s a Bearowl handprint.”

“A what?” Ludwig asked, eyes narrowing.

“Like the name suggests,” Robin piped up, his voice dry. “Half bear. Half owl. Nasty little buggers. They hunt in pairs, sometimes groups, but this one… this print’s too big, isn’t it, Gorak?”

The barbarian approached with a grim nod. He hunched beside the print and let his fingers trail lightly across its edge. The soil crumbled beneath his touch. “Even alpha females don’t get this big,” he said. “This one’s… old. Or something else entirely.”

“But why only one print?” Ludwig asked. “No others nearby. No trail?”

Gorak stood slowly. “Because they don’t leave trails,” he said. “They leap. From stone to stone. Stick to hard surfaces. They clean their paths. If this was left behind… it was either careless, or interrupted.”

Ludwig stared at the imprint, then at the shadows creeping further into the trees. “A bear that cleans up after itself,” he muttered. “That’s a first.”

“Bearowl,” Gorak corrected. His voice was low, grim. “Don’t forget the owl part. They’re not stupid.”

Ludwig looked to the sky again. The clouds were bleeding into black now, blotting the stars, and the wind that began to stir through the trees carried no songbirds. Just silence.

“You’re right,” he said. “If it’s still here… we’re probably already being watched.”

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