Waaa - Blog Posts

Guyssss I’m turning 18 next week which means that I’ll officially be older than Saiki in the show Saiki K 😩

I don’t wannaaaaaa gnnnnn

( /✨^✨) /

Cold Hands, Warm Heart.

Chapter 25 - Friction.

Loss will affect you, whether you realise it or not. It can make you angry. It can make you bitter. Words are traded when wounds are prodded, and they'll come back to haunt you when it's most inconvenient.

There are billions of grains of ash blanketing the Gilded Arena, layer heaped upon layer of dead cells, deep enough for you to drown in, if the particles weren’t condensed so solidly, interlocking like sand on a beach to keep your weight distributed. To have accumulated this much, the place must be ancient, far older than humanity, far older than Earth even. So old that it might have existed for as long as the Universe has known the concept of death.

Thousands of grains – history in each and every one - hiss through the gaps between your spread fingers as you teeter forwards, hands rising from the ash to catch yourself on the colossal skull in front of you when you start sinking down to your knees.

It’s hard not to think about how you’re surrounded by the remnants of people right now, that you have been since you first entered the realm.

And now here’s another one, another death to add to an unending multitude.

One of your palms has landed on the lustreless crystal jammed inside Gnashor’s cranium, while the fingers of your other hand curl with an unexpected fervour into the edge of an empty eye socket, as dark as it is deep. So deep that you could fit your entire fist inside the cavity, though the prospect causes your stomach to fill with bile.

You know it’s utterly illogical to try and search for any traces of those vivid, green lights that had, mere seconds ago, been burning down at you with inscrutable intent.

For God’s sake, the skull has been completely severed. It lays a few feet from the top of Gnashor’s spine where the rest of its titanic body has fallen, already breaking apart at the joints and allowing the smallest of those borrowed bones to sink back into the ground, where they too will one day become ash.

“Gnashor?” you croak at the skull anyway, wincing when the name stings at your throat and reminds you of the aching lines that have been crushed intermittently into the skin around your neck.

Jesus, you’ll be feeling those for a while…

You don’t know exactly why you call its name. Perhaps it’s the uncertainty of how this realm operates that leaves you wondering if there’s a part of the creature that might yet live and hear you. How do you know the dead here truly die, after all? Does decapitation work the same as it would on any living thing when Gnashor had already borrowed most of its other bones from the skeletons around it?

Then again, perhaps you’re just feeling guilty, and saying the name aloud is all you can think to do in the moment.

Because you could have done something.

… Couldn’t you?

Because the Champion, for reasons you can’t yet begin to fathom, just saved your life.

Whatever the case, you suppose you get an answer to your unspoken question when Gnashor remains perfectly still and wholly silent, a husk in the ash. Dead as any other corpse scattered inside this wretched arena.

It’s…. sad.

You’re sad, and you can’t immediately pinpoint why.

Somewhere nearby, there's the muted thud of boots hitting the ground.

“You killed him,” comes your tepid voice, curling your hand into a fist over Gnashor’s crystal.

Silent footsteps trace around the skull and slip close to your side, a dark shadow falling across your face and blotting out some of the morning light.

“Well,” Death’s throaty timbre sounds too far away in your ears, as if he isn’t standing right next to you, looming like a spectre at its favourite haunt, “That was the goal of our being here.”

A ‘shink’ of metal draws your bloodshot eyes to the Horseman, and you observe bleakly whilst he throws his scythes back into their straps on each hip.

“… He didn’t attack me,” you draw out in a daze, your eyebrows crawling together as you stare at Death’s curving blades.

“Yes, I endeavoured to make sure that was the case,” he quips bluntly, bending down to slip a hand underneath your arm, “Regardless, it seemed very inclined to attack me.”

His callused fingers feel even colder than usual as his grip tightens and he hauls you up off your knees too quickly, too roughly. The sudden movement jars your dizzy head and betrays the Horseman’s agitation, not to mention his urgency.

If it weren’t for the hand still keeping your bicep trapped in its iron grip, your legs might buckle and send you toppling straight down onto your backside again.

Ash hisses into the indents left by your weight.

Death has his forefinger tucked beneath your chin before your brain has a chance to stop teetering.

“Mmf,” you grunt softly as he pushes your head up, giving him a good view of your neck. Squeezing your eyes shut to try and alleviate the headache building at the base of your skull, you start to speak even with the Horseman silently twisting your head from side to side. “I think it was because of your scythes,” you tell him, “Ostegoth warned me not to raise a weapon against Gnashor. A-and Karn’s sword is still up there, in the stands.”

Death doesn’t speak for several beats, and when he finally does – voice pitched so low you can feel it in your teeth – he growls, “When I get my hands on that wretched nothus-!” Hesitating, he flicks his eyes up to meet your gaze and gruffly amends, “Do not repeat that word.”

Frowning back up at him, you wrench your head from his fingertips and huff, “Are you even listening to me?”

His arm remains suspended in the air for a moment, poised as if to reach out and gather your chin in his palm once more, but then the Horseman’s eyes harden behind his mask and a muscle jumps in his jaw – what little you can see of it. With a dull thwack, he lets his hand flop back down to his side. The other, still wrapped around your bicep, gradually slides away and joins its twin on Death’s opposite flank.

“What?” he sighs out. His gaze has already returned to your throat.

It’s the impatience in his tone that strikes a nerve, and suddenly, it isn’t sad.

It’s funny.

‘How stupid,’ you think, ‘to assume I could have stopped Death from killing.’

Why, it’s so funny you want to rip your hair out and laugh until you stop breathing altogether.

But that would hurt too much.

So you don’t.

“I’m telling you; Gnashor didn’t want to fight,” you declare, raising a hand and jabbing your forefinger at the Horseman’s mask whilst the other digits carve crescent moons into your palms, “He didn’t attack until you pulled a weapon on him!”

It’s curt and accusatory, and it gets Death bristling.

“If you’re trying to make a point, then make it,” he sneers, eyes flashing like an amber warning sign, “Because if I hadn’t pulled a weapon on it, you might have been killed!”

“Gnashor didn’t have to die.”

There. That’s your point.

A crack in your vocal chords disrupts you on the final word, a break in your own aching throat as you squeeze it out. It hurts, you’re reminded quite unfairly.

Quieter this time, but still with fierce conviction, you glower up at the Horseman and bite out, “I don’t think he wanted to fight. But he probably didn’t think he had a choice.”

Death’s chest lurches with a ludicrous scoff. “Even if your theory holds any merit, what would you have had me do instead? Hm?” Throwing an arm up to indicate the arena as a whole, he barks, “We came here to collect its skull. Or did you forget that that’s the only way to get an audience with the Dead King?”

At that, your brows manage to beetle together into such a deep, solid line, you’d swear you could make them touch.

There have been many instances where you’ve let his condescending tone roll off your shoulders.

This isn’t one of them.

“No, I didn’t forget,” you snap, irritated by the way each word squeezes painfully past your gullet, like you’ve swallowed something too large, and it’s wedged itself in the middle of your neck.

There’s a tiny voice at the back of your head asking why you give so much of a damn about this that you’re willing to stand here and argue with Death while your temples throb excruciatingly with every heartbeat and the ghosts of powerful fingers are still curled around your neck.

Another part of you even suggests that your reasons are borderline shallow. That if Gnashor hadn’t pulled you out from underneath that falling pillar, you probably wouldn’t be making this much of a fuss. But whatever the case may be, the fact remains that the Champion had, in the span of a few seconds, gone from a mere obstacle to a sapient creature who recognised you weren’t a threat and made an active choice to save you.

It was easier when you thought Death was only putting down a feral, bloodthirsty beast.

Now, after what Gnashor did, you can’t pretend that’s still the case.

Worse still, it was a death that could have been avoided. Just like-

A flash of white beard, strands stained scarlet as the deluge of a storm cascades across the vale, a mighty chest growing quiet and still beneath your hands…

Exhaling sharply, you give your head a shake to dislodge Eideard’s wizened face from your mind’s eye. And although it feels like the ultimate disservice to banish his memory so brusquely, you can’t think of him now, not here, not when the body laying in the ash nearby is so nearly the same size as a maker’s.

Wetting your lips, you try to take a breath, in through the nose, out through a tight jaw. “I just mean, couldn’t we have… - Shit, I don’t know - found another way?”

Sometimes you feel as though you sound more and more like a child with values still drenched in idealism, trying to appeal to the most real, unavoidable truth of the Universe.

“And wasted even more time trying to find the Well of Souls?” the Horseman retorts, taking a single step away and cocking his head back, peering at you down the hollow ridge of his mask’s nose.

You can’t ignore the guilty twinge your guts give at his question. It rankles you, fuels the aggravation where pain is already fanning sparks into open flames. The urge to claw at your hair returns.

“If the Well’s as old as I think it is, it’s not going anywhere,” you argue tightly, “Why are you suddenly so concerned about wasting time?”

Unnoticed by you, Death’s hands spring into closed fists as he snaps his head down again to level you with a blistering glare that’s one part offence and three parts disbelief.

Have you forgotten why he wants to find the Well in the first place? Have you forgotten who’s name he’s trying to clear? Has your foolish and misguided compassion for an undead monster blinded you to the bigger picture?!

Or did Brumox knock some sense out of you after he dropped you into the Gilded arena?

Grinding his teeth, Death finds himself further taken aback by the unexpected squirm of disappointment that rears its head.

Its presence is unwelcome. ‘Because,’ he realises with a pang in his dried up guts, ‘it means her opinion - her verdict – matters.’

It matters to him, more than he realised it did. More than it should. He wouldn’t be disappointed if it didn’t.

The revelation is… foreboding, to say the least.

When did it start to matter?

“Maybe,” he bridles, defensive in the face of his own realisation, “I wouldn’t be so concerned about time if I hadn’t already lost so much of it watching somebody else’s back.”

He doesn’t notice that he’s drawn himself up, a towering, prickling spectre that looms over you, all burning eyes and bitter acid rising into his gorge.

He doesn’t notice…. until your expression bursts open as if his words had just struck you across the cheek.

Pinched brows spring apart, and your eyes widen exponentially, then blink. Your mouth falls open – whether to gasp or retaliate, Death doesn’t find out, because before he can even register that he’s just planted his boot right over an invisible line, the sudden slap of footsteps on ancient stone begins to echo through the arena, drawing his gaze from yours and turning it to the railings overhead.

A figure, tall and decaying and entirely too familiar, all but slams into the barrier at full speed, careening to a halt only when his hands catch the bars.

Wild green eyes blaze vividly from inside the darkness of the newcomer’s hood. Frantic, they dart across the pit as he leans over the railings, his shoulders heaving beneath a tattered cloak and the weight of several broken swords.

“Lady Y/n!” he pants raggedly, finding you within seconds and locking you in his sights.

Momentarily startled by his unexpected arrival, you do a double-take, letting your jaw fall open for a second before you manage to sputter out, “Draven?”

“Oh, oh thank God,” the undead rasps, his rigid hands going slack on the bars when he sees you looking back at him, “Thank God… Stay right there! I’m coming down!”

Then, as briskly as he’d arrived, he’s gone, shoving himself off the railings and whirling around, disappearing from view.

Brows raised, you return your focus to Death, only to find the Horseman is already staring back at you with an unreadable expression. Upon meeting his gaze, your eyebrows instantly snap into a scowl, and you grace him with a heated glare for another moment before turning sharply away from him, crossing your arms over your chest and hoping he hadn’t been looking too closely at the wetness teetering perilously close to the edge of your lashes.

It’s… never an easy thing to have an ugly truth ripped up from the grave you buried it in and held in front of your face, forcing you to look at it for the first time.

Several years ago, you ignored a warning light on your car for three months before the vehicle sputtered to a halt five miles from home. You knew the problem was there… it was just easier to pretend it wasn’t. Until you couldn’t… Until something else broke on the back of it.

You know you rely too heavily on his protection, even if – until now – the fact had remained largely unspoken. You know that if it weren’t for you, Death would be miles ahead of where he is. You know it, but it still hurts to hear it aloud from the Horseman’s mouth.

And it hurts because you believe it.

You believe him.

You care about what he thinks of you.

The sudden clanking of heavy chains snaps you from your ruminations, tearing your gaze from the Horseman and turning it to the side of the arena, where a narrow portcullis is built into the wall not far from where Gnashor had fallen.

Beyond the dark, iron bars, you spot the familiar Blademaster, furiously hauling at a winch with all his might.

His hood has drooped down to conceal much of his face, but you can still make out the sinewy strands of his jaw tightening and falling slack again as he grits his exposed teeth around arduous grunts of effort, raising the portcullis up off the ground.

He barely gets it halfway open before he evidently decides that he’s raised it far enough.

Jamming a lever into the winch to lock the chains in place, he ducks beneath the jutting spokes with a flourish of his cloak, shaking his hood back so he can peer underneath the lip of it as he strides towards you, his viridescent eyes riveted doggedly in your direction.

“There you are,” he gushes out, suggesting a breathlessness that shouldn’t be biologically possible.

“Draven-” you begin, only to have the wind knocked out of you when the undead reaches you and, without warning, throws his hands out to grasp you by the arms, anchoring you in place as his eyes scour you from head to toe – presumably hunting for injuries.

“I came to find you at my quarters,” he says stiffly, “When I saw you gone, I… I admit I feared the worst.”

A chilly presence brushes close to your back. You don’t have to look to know who’s standing there, couldn’t even if you wanted to. Draven is dominating your focus, drawing one of his bony hands up to catch your chin and tilt it back in much the same way Death had, inspecting the bruises around your neck.

A rough hiss slips between his bared teeth.

“… The merchant told me you were challenging Gnashor for an audience with the King,” he utters in a dangerous lilt, tearing his eyes off your throat to toss a glare at Death over the top of your head, “What were you thinking? Bringing her to the battle!?”

“I’m afraid it’s a little more complicated than-,” you begin, only to choke on the words when an ice-cold hand snatches the back of your shirt and you’re unceremoniously ripped out of Draven’s grasp and flung backwards behind Death, who immediately surges forth to take the spot you’d just been standing in.

Staggering to an unsteady halt in the ash, you press your fingertips tenderly to your neck and aim a grumble at the back of his head, tugging your shirt back into its proper place. The damn thing is sure to wrinkle if he keeps that up.

Towering at least a foot over the incensed undead, he jabs a finger in Draven’s rotting face, shoulders all quivering and ruffled as he barks, “Perhaps, Blademaster, if you spent less time fretting over her, and more time focusing on your recruits, she wouldn’t be down here in the first place!”

“The Hell’re you on about?” Draven snarls back, irritably smacking Death’s hand away from his face, “What have my recruits to do with your follies?”

But you see it there, in his eyes – that tiny narrowing of the flaky lids, the way the pale lights flick to the left, as if something brief and sudden has just occurred to him.

As if he knows something…

“My follies!?” Death’s outrage comes through palpably, thickening the air with the necrotic stench of rot, “One of your men followed us here and saw fit to toss the girl straight over those bars-!” Flinging an arm out, he gestures wildly at the iron spokes ringing the arena overhead. “No doubt-” he continues, spitting vehemently, “- in the hopes that Gnashor would finish us both off! That-! is what your recruits have to do with my follies.”

Draven’s lips curl downwards at the admonishment, but when he peers around Death’s shoulder to catch your eye, the hard line of his jaw eases, and he grows rather urgent, brushing past the Horseman to reclaim his position in front of you once again.

“Fair Lady, I trust your word in all of this-“

“-But not my own?” Death barks incredulously from the rear.

Ignoring his indignation, Draven reaches down and scoops up your hand, clasping it firmly but ever so carefully between his enormous palms. Bewildered, you blink up into the shadows of his hood as he peers back down at you, the ridges of his brow furrowed to leave a crevice in the paper-thin flesh between his sunken eye sockets.

“Was it Brumox?” he whispers hoarsely, leaning closer to your face, “Was it he who laid his hands on you?”

“Brumox?” you echo, eyes narrowing. You never said his name.

Subconsciously, you give your hand a tug, feeling his grip tighten in response. “Draven… Did you know he’d do this?”

“No,” he declares so firmly that you jump, his voice like unwavering steel. Then, heaving a sigh, he lowers his gaze to your hands grasped between his own, and winces at the bone gleaming through tears in his flesh. “No…” he continues, a note quieter, “Believe me, If I had known what he was planning, I’d’ve…”

Gruffly clearing his throat, he finally lets you go, taking a step back and glaring hard at the ash around his boots. “Of all my recruits….” he begins to explain, “Brumox has been the most opposed to your being here, my lady.”

“You knew this,” Death spits, “And yet you allowed him to remain a threat to my-…! To her!?”

“I knew he had no love for the living,” Draven argues, twisting his head towards a shoulder and addressing the Horseman, “I knew his feathers were ruffled by her arrival in the Eternal Throne. I did not, however, think that even he could be capable of this treachery.”

Throwing an arm out in your direction, Death continues on his tirade. “And because of your oversight, she was almost killed - would have been, had I not saved her life.”

“Uh, Gnashor saved my life,” you interject petulantly, irked to be spoken about you as if you aren’t even here.

“Gnashor?” Draven’s skeletal face goes slack as he shoots several glances between you and the skull laying nearby. All it takes is one more look at the branded fingers sweeping around your neck before he presses his teeth together and lets a sigh slip between the miniscule gaps. “Ah, perhaps you can regale me with the story later,” he amends, “You need rest, and those bruises must be tended to.”

Before you can open your mouth to argue that you’ll be all right, that you’ve been through worse, Death cuts in. “And Brumox? What do you intend to do about him? Because believe you me, Blademaster, when I get my hands on –“

“-You leave Brumox to me,” Draven interrupts darkly, “His transgression was done by a man under my watch. I’ll be the one to deal with it.”

And with that said, the Blademaster moves to stand beside you and raises a long, sinewy arm, letting it hover mere millimetres from your back.

You know when you’re being steered, and you’re not averse to it here. Draven doesn’t push or pull or use his strength to move you where he wants you to go. He simply waits, content to let you take the first step.

Offering the undead a tired smile, you begin to trudge slowly towards the portcullis, wiping a hand down the length of your face and feeling coarse grains of ash scrape gently over your cheeks. Draven easily keeps in step with you, taking a single stride for every two of your own.

The pair of you breeze past Death, paying the Horseman no mind even as he twists to follow you with his eyes, glaring caustically at the arm Draven has snuck around the back of your shoulders.

Gnashing his teeth together hard, his jaw springs open again and he snaps testily after your retreating forms, “And I suppose I’m to lug this skull back by myself, am I?”

Your stride doesn’t even falter, though Draven’s hood turns slightly towards you, as if he’s prepared and ready to receive an instruction at the drop of a hat, so long as it comes from you.

Striking a sharp look over your shoulder, you lock eyes with the Horseman and primly retort, “You killed him, you carry him.”

You don’t give yourself time to see the expression shift underneath that pale, mask of bone. You’re too sore from the insecurity he’d just pried open with those cold, calloused fingers, laying it bare for you to acknowledge properly for the first time. So, you turn away without another word, leaning heavily against the undead at your side, weary enough to let yourself rely on his sturdiness to keep you moving forwards.

Draven, in his most private opinion, is only too pleased to be used as a makeshift crutch. The warmth of a flesh-and-blood woman under his arm seeps through his flaking skin and fills him with a vigour he hasn’t known since those bygone days, when he was a young man himself, alive and striking, with a lover on his arm and a burst of affection in his chest. He can almost remember it so clearly in the hollow cavity that used to house his heart. It’s intoxicating to be allowed to feel it again, and he finds his appreciation for your presence in the Dead Plains is beginning to grow tenfold.

He is, however, less than pleased to see the injuries you’ve sustained, and there’s a rage rapidly building in his long-decayed guts that insists upon finding retribution for the crimes committed against you here today.

What Brumox did was nothing less than an egregious betrayal. And Draven won’t abide by traitors under his command, even if it isn’t directly himself that they’ve betrayed.

There’s a sudden, phantom twinge in the middle of his back, between the notches of his spine that reminds him of his own fate. The face of a coward rises from the depths of his memory, and he has to clamp his jaw shut to conceal the growl that almost slips out.

It won’t do to frighten the object of his sudden yearning. Right now, there’s only one order of business, and that’s to return you to the relative safety of the Eternal Throne.

He distracts himself from thoughts of bloody, searing vengeance by braving the last few iotas of space between your skin and his, pressing his forearm across the breadth of your shoulder blades and trying not to shudder at the warmth spreading through his limb.

It’s like feeling the first touch of sunlight after an eternity spent embraced by a cold, dark grave...

----------

Ancient, wooden doors fly open with a resounding ‘wham’ that sends a jolt of momentary alarm through the undead milling about the Eternal Throne’s courtyard.

Dozens of heads whip towards the source of the sound – the courtyard’s main entrance – and every eye in the place grows wide upon spotting the Blademaster himself prowling out into the sunlight, an unfamiliar yet easily recognisable figure sheltered underneath the weight of one of his outstretched arms.

Draven ignores the stares. His eyes are on the hunt, flicking from left to right as he glares poisonously at each undead in search of one particular face.

His arm - the one without an array of rusted blades sprouting from his mouldering flesh – is loosely slung around your shoulders, keeping you close against his side, though he hopes not so close that you’re able to pick up on the faint stench of rot that perpetually clings to his remains.

He hasn’t said a word since he pulled you from the Gilded Arena and left Death in the proverbial dust, mindful that with his thoughts circling Brumox like a bird of prey, nothing that leaves his lips would be suited for a lady’s ears.

Not that you’re in any particular mood to converse either, too preoccupied by the very plausible worry of running into Brumox again. You’ve been chewing a fresh ulcer into the inside of your cheek for the last five minutes, fretting over how he’ll react when he sees you alive. Will he deny ever being in the Arena? It’s your word – and Death’s – against his. Are you about to find yourself caught up in the Dead Plain’s judicial system?

Is there a judicial system here?

The unanswered questions cause your stomach to roll miserably like a ball of lead has dropped down inside it, and you curl an arm across your abdomen, grimacing at nothing in particular as your other hand idly squeezes the grip of Karn’s sword.

It’s an unbelievable relief to have the weapon back in your grasp where it belongs. The scabbard, however, hadn’t fared so well. Its leather was snapped just in front the buckle when it was torn so unceremoniously from your hip, leaving you with no way to secure it around you anymore.

Your crestfallen expression was enough to send Draven scrambling to offer reassurance. “We got plenty of those back at the Barracks,” he’d told you as you took the broken leather in hand and gazed down at it with a quivering lip, “I’ll take you there myself after your business with the King’s in order.”

It was kind and thoughtful, and you told him as much, earning yourself several sputtered sentences and stilted chuckles in response. Still, you don’t know to explain to him, without sounding like a fool, that it just won’t be the same. This is Karn’s scabbard. It, and the sword he forged, are the only parts of the young maker that could follow you into this strange, new world, and to be without even one of them feels…

“Bastard’s not ‘ere,” Draven grumbles to himself, pulling your gaze off the toes of your boots as you shuffle along next to him. Casting him a sideways glance, you’re just in time to catch the wince that warps his expression before he spares you a sheepish look. “Er, Brumox isn’t here, I mean.”

There’s a tiny shift of the leaden weight in your guts.

“Oh, good,” you sigh, returning your eyes to the courtyard and sweeping them towards the stairs.

All at once, you perk up significantly when you see the large, woollen figure standing near the undercroft, a spiralling trail of soft, purple smoke drifting lazily from the pipe between his lips.

He’s in the midst of waving off a wiry undead and feeding several glinting coins into one of the pouches on his side when he glances up, his movements coming to an abrupt halt once he catches sight of you halfway across the courtyard.

Beside you, Draven has lifted his gaze to the rickety ramparts above, a snarl pulling the skin around his mouth even further from his crooked teeth. “Don’t worry,” he tells you in a low growl, “I’ll track ‘im down… He won’t get away with what he did…”

The decisive nature of his remark prompts you to put a voice to one of your fears. “… What if he doesn’t admit to it?”

“Oh, he’ll get a chance to say his piece,” Draven amends, albeit darkly, “But those bruises don’t lie. Gnashor ain’t the stranglin’ type. And I’ll bet the Horseman’d rather cut his own legs off than put a mark on you.”

He says it so matter-of-factly that your concern is knocked slightly askew, and you wonder what in the world had given him that impression. He barely knows Death.

“Whatever the outcome though,” he continues, hesitating for just a moment before he plucks up the courage to give your shoulders a consoling squeeze, “I don’t intend to let this happen again.”

Before you can ask him what exactly he’s planning to do to, Draven roves his head up once more and tosses his chin forwards, calling out across the courtyard. “Ostegoth, ‘ve got a favour to ask.”

The Capracus has already taken several steps towards your unlikely duo, meeting you both right in front of the staircase, ripping the pipe from his mouth. 

Concern, painfully genuine, has been etched deeply into the lines between his brows.

“Lamb,” he squeezes out, nostrils puffing quietly at the air. His strange, yellow eyes dart back and forth between the bruises on your neck and your solemn expression. “What happened to-?”

“-Gnashor,” you cut him off, shaking your head, “You were right.”

Blinking back visible bewilderment, he lifts one of his lengthy arms up to take you by the elbow, pulling you gently away from Draven, who lets you go with a soft pat to your back.

“Stay with the Old one,” the undead tells you, earning a harrumph from Ostegoth, but Draven has already tugged the lip of his cowl forwards to cover his eyes and turned on a heel, letting his cloak swish regally behind him as he stalks his way across the courtyard on a dead-set path towards the recruits still training diligently in their circle.

“Where are you going?” you call after him, straining through discomfort to raise your voice enough to be heard.

Without turning back, Draven raises an arm and jabs his thumb at you over his shoulder, loudly declaring, “To find the bastard who gave you those.”

You can only assume he means the bruises.

A large, spindly appendage lands on your shoulder and draws your attention back to Ostegoth, who is gazing down at you through wide, searching eyes. You don’t miss how they flick to your neck and back again.

“Oh,” he croaks hoarsely, “Gnashor… did he do…?”

“He didn’t hurt me,” you’re quick to reassure him, giving him a probing squint of your own, “He… actually, he saved me, Ostegoth.”

The Capracus’s hand slackens by a fraction, and his expression, once taut with concern, loses some of its rigidity. “You did not raise your sword against him….” he breathes, gazing down at you in astonishment.

Pressing your lips together, you hesitate for a moment, scuffing the toe of your boot against the ground.  “Well... I didn’t,” you stress at last, twisting to shoot a glance over your shoulder, directing Ostegoth’s gaze to the doors at the far end of the courtyard. “But…”

As if on cue, there’s an almighty ruckus as the doors are battered open, cracking off the stone foundations surrounding them.

From the darkness of the corridor, twin flashes of burning, golden fire precede the rest of the Horseman as he prowls into the pale light, his knees stooped to bear the awkward weight of Gnashor’s skull upon his back.

The whole courtyard seems to stop and hold its breath. Undead milling about the outskirts pause to stare, and even you find yourself freezing, goosebumps raising along your arms when you feel that luminous glare sweep over you.

 At your back, Ostegoth shifts, and his hand slides slowly from your arm. “Ah,” he utters, the relief gone from his voice, “I see.”

“I’m sorry,” you immediately turn back to him, “I tried-“

But he merely raises a hand to stop you, his horned head bowed, understanding.

 “What’s done is done,” he says, ears flicking back, “To secure your audience with the Lord of Bones, a sacrifice must be made."

'Sacrifice?' you blink, silently wondering at the term.

"It is…” Trailing off, the merchant hums to himself, then heaves a sigh that causes his entire frame to sag, like all the wind has been taken from his sails. “He will be all right.”

You don’t know how anyone could be ‘all right’ after decapitation, but before you can try to gently broach the topic, the percolating chill that rolls of Death finally reaches you, raising the hairs on the nape of your neck.

A glance to your left reveals the Horseman in profile, paused at the foot of the wooden staircase that leads up to the upper balcony and the adjoining throne room. His mask has tilted towards you, an impassive stare catching yours and holding it for the breadth of a second.

You exhale softly.

While you're still sore about his comment in the Arena, it would be a lie to say that your frustration with him hasn’t already started to wane, leaving a kernel of guilt to lodge itself between your ribs. You open your mouth, prepared to extend the proverbial olive branch and offer a stilted and awkward apology for leaving him to carry Gnashor’s skull all the way here, but just then, he speaks, cutting you off.

“Will you be joining me now?”

And okay, perhaps that was deserved, but you let it roll of your shoulders. He’s said more hurtful things before, and if he was truly angry, you’d wager he wouldn’t be inviting you back to his side.

Perhaps you're not the only one with designs on making peace.

Bolstered by this revelation, you find it in you to offer him a sheepish grin and a nod. “Yeah,” you say, timidly adding, “If that’s okay.”

And Death, for as adept as he is at maintaining an air of emotional vacancy, allows himself a blink, the hard creases around his eyes smoothing over as his face relaxes beneath the mask.

“Of course,” he returns, appraising you as you give Ostegoth a murmured farewell.

Eyeing the Horseman through a narrow gaze, the Capracus waits until you’ve sidled away from him before he suddenly pipes up, “Shall I tell the Blademaster where you’ve gone?”

Death has already begun his ascent, but you hold back just long enough to knock two fingers off your forehead in a quick salute. “Please, and thanks, Ostegoth.”

He grumbles something as he waves you off, flapping a wrist at you until you turn and fall into step behind the Horseman, traipsing along in his shadow.

At the top of the stairs, the pair of guards posted outside the throne room promptly snap to attention, crossing their weapons over one another to bar any attempt at entry. Death, however, readily ignores them. They’re not his quarry. Not quite yet, anyway.

Instead, he makes a beeline for the Chancellor, who reels away from the balcony and squawks out in shock when he sees the two of you coming, his jaw is hanging so far from the roof of his mouth that it looks as if it might pop off and tumble to the ground at any second. The undead starts to sputter something, and you can’t help but take some childish glee in his floundering as you lean around the Horseman and catch a glimpse of those pale, green eyes bulging with unmitigated alarm.

Then, with all the collected poise of a diplomat but none of the gentility, Death hoists Gnashor’s skull over his shoulder and drops it discourteously to the ground.

It lands just in front of the Chancellor’s robes with a ‘crack’ that has you cringing sympathetically, and the undead stumbling back until his spine hits the railings behind him.

“Your Champion,” Death drawls, pleased to see him squirm, “As requested.”

The Chancellor’s mouth flaps open and closed before he eventually locks his jaw, gaze darting down to you, as if you might offer him an explanation more concise than Death abruptly dumping a skull at his feet.  

Instead, all he gets from you is a nonchalant shrug.

At that, his eyes fly back to Death, and he manages to squeeze out a tight, “Impossible!”

You wonder what he’d been expecting. And then you start to wonder how many people he’s sent to Gnashor who hadn’t returned. Enough to apparently warrant such shock.

Your lip curls disdainfully.

“I believe your King will see us now,” Death continues with a cock of his hips, draping one hand over his belt.

Once again, the Chancellor looks to you, apparently still hoping that you can talk some sense into the Horseman. Several terse seconds pass, one of which he even seems to spend noticing the marks around your neck, but whatever he thinks, he neglects to mention them at all.

At long last, his lip starts to twist into a nasty frown as he senses that he’s only delaying the inevitable.

You brace yourself, ready to for him to refuse you entry yet again or come up with some other bad excuse as to why you can’t see his Lord.

But then, to his credit…

“I… cannot deny you,” he realises softly, and gestures with a slow wave of his arm towards the guards at the door.

You and Death turn to them, and it’s almost comical to see how readily the two, hulking undead stand to attention and uncross their weapons. One of them reaches back and raps his knuckles soundly four times against the petrified wood, and with a shudder and a groan of their hinges, the doors start to swing inwards, letting a gust of stale air rush out through the gap and waft across your face.

"Watch your tongue around my Lord," the Chancellor hisses at the back of your heads, "You'll find he is not so forgiving as I..." 

Swallowing thickly, you take a single step forward, only to find a hand pulling you up short. Glancing at the pale appendage curled around your shoulder, you follow the arm up to Death’s mask, and his narrowed eyes floating in the dark sockets. He’s peering ahead, straight through the open doors and into the throne room.

You catch his drift without needing to hear a word.

He’ll be going first then.

“After you,” you concede, leaning onto your back foot and letting him move ahead.

Straightening his shoulders, the Horseman moves purposefully through the open doors whilst you follow along in his wake, whispering a quiet ‘thanks,’ to the undead who tips his helmet at you as you pass.

Just as you set your first foot inside, something dark and feathery shoots over your head without warning, zooming into the room ahead of you and Death.

“Dust!” you exclaim, startled yet pleased to see the crow, “Where the Hell have you been!?”

“He has a habit of turning up when the hard work is finished,” Death remarks coolly, watching with a bored expression as the bird flaps his way towards the tall throne at the far end of the room, perching daintily on top of it and cocking his head down to beadily eye the figure slouched in the seat below him.

“Aw, I missed him.”

“Speak for yourself.”

"Alright, hardman." 

Trailing over the threshold properly, Dust’s emergence is soon forgotten. You can’t keep your eyes from drinking in the sombre architecture all around you.

There are two more guards posted up inside the entrance, and another pair standing at the top of some stone steps on the other side of the room, both clasping their respective halberds as they glower you and the Horseman down.

The air is stale in here despite the high, curved ceilings and gaping holes in the walls that let daylight spill inside. It reeks of old stone, like the cold, sepulchral church you’d sought refuge in all those days ago… But beneath the must and stagnant dust, there’s another smell, something earthy like compost. It reminds you of Draven, though it’s far stronger in here than it is on him.

And then, as Death moves forwards and slows his pace, allowing you a glimpse of what’s ahead, you spot the likely source of the smell.

Instinct keeps you holding onto your words whilst you slip into place behind the Horseman, edging out to peek around him at the corpse slumped over in the throne ahead of you. A reverent breath slides past your lips as you take it in.

There’s no life inside it. Not even the bastardisation of life the rest of the undead you’ve met seem animated by. It... No... He sits as stiffly as a long-dead carcass in the throne, shadowed by the high backrest that’s been inlaid with skulls in a gruesome depiction of power. Even in his elevated position on the dais, he looks tall. Taller than Death, perhaps in the same league as Ostegoth, but nowhere near as soft and approachable.

You’re not expecting it at all when, all of a sudden, the cadaver moves.

A sharp yelp jumps out of you before you can catch it as a pair of blank, green eyes spring open, lighting up the sunken sockets of a drawn, skeletal face. Lips as dry as ash crackle and flake at their edges, turned down into a grimace, and without warning, the head jerks up with a visceral ‘snap.'

Raising a hand to cover your mouth, you realise with a dawning sense of horror that you’re watching rigor mortis in motion.

Ancient bones that probably haven’t moved for a long, long time start to wake up. They creak like tree limbs as he wrenches his shoulders back.

‘Snap!’

And tugs at the limbs draped over the arms of his throne.

‘Crack!’

Every little movement looks painful and stilted, and even the crown of bones perched on top of his skull seems too heavy as he pushes his body forwards in the seat, hands spasming into fists when his terrible gaze takes in his new visitors.

When he speaks however, you’re taken aback by the rich, if gravelly voice that thrums from his half-decomposed throat, hidden partially by thin strands of a wispy, white beard which has somehow managed to cling to what little scraps of leathery flesh still remain along his jawline.

“Horseman,” the Lord of Bones sneers, and you can’t help but stare at the puff of dust that flies out from between his crooked teeth, “You stink of the living….”

With an accusing glance down over his shoulder at you, Death lets out a soft little ‘hmph.’

Offended, you furrow your brows right back at him and mouth, ‘dick.’  

There’s no way you’ve made him smell like you…. If anything, you’re probably the one who smells like him.

Your little stare-down is cut short when there’s another crack of bones from the figurehead before you.

In a far more violent motion, the King surges forwards as far as his spine will allow, curls of fetid, green smoke rising from his shoulders like a miasma. Eyes ablaze, he locks the Horseman in his sights, peels blackened lips back over his teeth and snarls, “You are not welcome here.”

“Pity,” Death remarks, casual as can be, “I was starting to enjoy the atmosphere.”

The Lord of Bones sneers derisively, leaning back and sitting tall with another crack of his spine, leering down the length of his nasal ridge at Death. “Then you have not been here long.”

You’re growing bolder, inching further from the Horseman’s side to stare unabashedly up at the King on his throne.

He could have been human once, you marvel, old as the Earth’s core, a giant among men, now wizened and haggard but no less an imposing figure with his regalia made from bone and a face so sunken and cruel, it makes your palms sweat just to look at it.

But it’s as you find yourself taking that first step out into the open, mouth slightly ajar and eyes on stalks, the King finally takes note of your presence.

You know precisely when he meets your gaze because you’re suddenly frozen solid. A bolt of ice lances up your spine, anchoring you in place like a beetle pinned to a corkboard.

It occurs to you then, that accompanying Death in here might have been a terrible idea. Officially, you’ve met exactly three undead. One had welcomed you warmly into the realm. Another met you with scorn and derision. And the third had tried to kill you.

So, how will you be received here by the Lord of this realm?

You suppress a shudder, averting your gaze at once.

“So… the whispers were true,” the old undead finally rasps, breaking the suffocating hush that had drifted into the room.

You hear him lean forwards, flinching when sharp, splintered fingernails curl over the throne’s armrests and scrape audibly against the bone as they tighten their grip.

“One survived after all.”