The shrill cry of a bird ripped through the quiet night, and brought Farren out of her trance, the God's words finally seeping in.

"You ask me, an insignificant, mere mortal to free you from your own shrine?" she said.

Shrine? This is but a prison.

Prison. Was that all he thought of the statue she had loved for the past seven years?

This blessed waterfall in the woods was his abode, a place where folk could reach out and feel his presence, an echo of his existence upon the mortal plane.

Lord Rhilio had countless such shrines in almost every other intersection of the capital city. Priests of Rhilio, enchanted statues raised in his name, justified the truth of testimonies in the Council's courtrooms.

Mother Draedona's presence graced each cemetery. From the vampires, she'd heard tales of sorcerous ice-sculptures of Edis in his dragon form in Valston city up north. Even Lord Atruer had altars dedicated to him in the darkest corners of Silver Knife, forbidden as they were.

In Farren's belief, what was a shrine but a claim of power over the mortal worshippers?

Yet the Unnamed was trapped in his.

The God cleared his throat now, as though urging her to continue. Well? May I count on your help?

Farren hadn't a clue how to respond to this absurd request. Usually it was the job of a God or Goddess to bestow a blessing, or a curse-- or dubious deals that seemed tempting at first and eventually became a pain in the arse.

"Er..." she said, "where do I start then?"

A hint of annoyance crept into the voice of the Unnamed. Had I known that, mortal, I would have found my way out long past, would I not?

He did have a point. Being trapped in a rock for centuries did not seem the most enjoyable thing, if it really was that way and the God was not exaggerating in his despair, by calling the extraordinarily beautiful sculpture a prison.

You...think I am being dramatic?

Farren jumped. Of course, if he could sense even the... unorthodox condition of her soul, he might sense her thoughts as well. Although, there wasn't much he could do to her, could he? He was the one who needed her help.

Sure, go ahead. Be arrogant all you want, demean me-- like everybody else. My hands are bound, as they always have been. Even Dresius, he promised he would come back, but--

The immortal soul in her seemed to let out an exasperated sigh and rolled its eyes-- if that was something possible for an orb of energy to do.

"With due respect," said Farren, "yes, you are indeed being dramatic, Lord. since you are not of much help, it'd be helpful if you'd just sit still."

I shall. Been doing this since...ah, I've lost count of the days.

His pleasant voice now sounded indignant, like a huffy child who'd been grounded. A crooked grin spread across Farren's face. She could gain something out of this; heavens knew she could use some divine help, with those Council Mages coming after her.

"Let's get to it, then." She rubbed her hands together. "What say you, Dresius dear?"

The immortal soul, whose faint presence had been no more than a pile of crackling embers for all these years, rose to a blazing fire. The God's voice had breathed new life in it.

Goosebumps erupted on her arms. From the way the Unnamed addressed Dresius, it appeared he had been someone who commanded the Chosen Warriors in the Great War.

Despite all, she still had no idea how to free a deity from his own statue.

"I could break the statue apart, you know? With a pickaxe or something. But it'll take time, lord."

What? No! Why is that the first thing that comes to your mind, mortal? That could be disastrous.

He was right. She would upset the whole village. An angry mob with pitchforks chasing her would just be the perfect rotten icing atop the rancid pie that was her life.

Now her immortal friend-- Dresius, had better ideas, it turned out.

A sudden tug jerked her sideways, nearly landing her in the lap of the skeleton.

"What the--?" She tried to scurry away at once, but the immortal soul seemed to gain power over her, enough to resist her movements. Another yank pulled her nose-to-nose with the skeleton's bony, helmed head.

She stopped struggling. Dresius was trying to communicate.

What did he imply, pulling her toward this centuries-old remnant of a tragic demise?

Farren stared into those hollow pits of the skeleton's eyes-- searching for any answer they could offer. The worrying thing was-- the spider nested there was nowhere to be seen; she found it hard to concentrate. She took a deep breath in.

A musty smell of mould rode the air. The scent of decay.

One by one, she took in the details arrayed before her. The scraps of tattered leather that hung on its bony shoulders. Leather armor.

The mould-ridden bear pelt wrapped around the back. A cloak, of the sort commonly used by North Midaelian warriors of the tundra plains.

Strapped to a belt around the waist was an empty wooden scabbard, snapped in half. The antlered helmet spoke for itself.

A loud flapping noise filled her ears as a night-bird took flight outside-- blocking out the ray of moonlight for a fleeting moment, and realization hit her like a savage punch in the gut.

━━━━━━⚔︎━━━━━━

Visions flooded her mind; long-lost memories that were not hers, but of a young commander of the Chosen Warriors.

All around her, the Autumnwind plains swarmed with ranks upon ranks of soldiers. Yet she knew she hadn't moved an inch from the cave behind the waterfall. This was but a faded memory of the warrior whose corpse now rested in solitude, hidden away in this cavern behind the shrine of a nameless deity. She was seeing through the eyes of the ancient warrior.

The sky above swirled with dark clouds, the blood-tainted wind glacial. Dresius was in the lead, high on his horse in a sea of horned helms. A bear-pelt cloak rode his broad shoulders.

"For Midaelia!" he roared, sword unsheathed and held high. His blade was no ordinary one. Green veins glimmered within its transparent shaft, just like the crystal dagger. All of Dresius' soldiers wielded crystal bladed weaponry.

"FOR MIDAELIA!"

From the other side of the plains came bestial roars. Among the ranks of the green-clad soldiers the Drisian flag rippled. The reek of sorcery emanating from them choked the air. And Farren recognized the magic.

She had sensed it when she fought the Vasaen in the woods. These Drisians she was seeing now were the same, numbering in hundreds of thousands.

Despite the war-cries rising from his army, she knew-- Dresius knew, this was but a losing battle. Yet he needed to survive.

Someone needed his help, badly. Someone he deeply loved.

In his hand, he clutched a bright blue gemstone. A sapphire, imbued with magic unlike any other.

Images of a battle raging across a vast plain hovered before her eyes. Blades slamming into shields, the sickening squelch of arrows and swords tearing through flesh.
Blood spilled, both black and red-- but mostly red. The air was laden with the stench of blood and bile and sorcery.

Dresius had fought valiantly in the Great War, despite his men dying on all sides. Comrades fell. Battle-cries dwindled into dying screams.

A spike-studded mace swung heavily into her-- nay, Dresius' chest, sending him toppling from his horse. Naught but memory it was, but Farren felt it rattle in her bones.

For Midaelia...was heard no more.

Hands clasping a crushed chest, the warrior was next seen staggering through snowy woods, the sapphire still clutched in his hand.

The final image in her mind was of his face, as he lay gasping in this very cave. Even in his dying moments, his lips had curled into a sad smile. Blood seeping from the corners of his lips, snowflakes caught in his tangled hair, he looked beautiful. His copper hair was a blood smeared mess. His helmet hung askew on its tattered straps.

"Me? I'm fine. It's just a flesh wound. Nothing a healer can't handle," said Dresius between gasps.

He was speaking to the statue through the crack in the rocks, much like Farren had been doing moments ago.

Your heartbeat...it fades, Dresius. Rang the Unnamed God's voice, filled with worry.

"I have to go, Xenro. My... comrades call me," he said, "but I'll be back soon, and free you from this place. I promise."

Xenro. The god had a name, once.

Free me now, Dresius. Let me see to your wounds.

Alas, he was in no shape for that.

A single tear rolled down the warrior's cheek as his tired eyes closed in an eternal sleep.

His youthful face decayed before her eyes-- skin peeled away, flesh and blood gone, leaving nothing but pale bones in its wake.

But his soul, it never passed on, for it was stolen.

A hooded figure closed its pale, blue-veined hands around it and then, darkness. The cold touch of a dark God. Then many centuries later, the God of Despair bestowed the immortal soul to a girl. A girl who desperately wished to be strong.

"Do we have a deal, dear mortal?"

"Aye," said the sixteen-year-old Farren.

━━━━━━⚔︎━━━━━━

With a loud gasp, Farren snapped back to the present, back to the cave. The sound of the gushing waterfall filled her ears once again. The immortal soul released its hold.

"Dresius..."

Her hand came to rest upon the cracked sternum of the skeleton before her, her touch gentle-- as though afeard she'd hurt the wound now that it was too late. Tears blurred her vision.

This was Dresius.

This cavern where she now crouched had been the warrior's final resting place.

"He...promised he'd come back to you, didn't he?" Farren said to the God, a leaden weight settling in her chest, an ache clenching her throat.

"He kept his word, Lord Xenro. I'm here."

✦✧✦✧

Farren reached for the skeleton's hand, one that was clenched into a fist. Bones crumbled to dust as she pried the fingers open, and a blue gemstone clattered across the stone floor.

It glowed abright, like the runes on the statue.

Her heart hammering, she made the climb down to the hollow in the rock, then wriggled out of the crack she'd come in through, and stepped out into the night.

The air whispering through the leaves was calm, the sky cloudless, unlike the rest of the day. Moonlight glinted off the snow and glittered in the stream, and swathed the giant statue in an ethereal glow.

She raised her eyes to the face of the God who was Unnamed no longer. The sapphire was the key and she was yet to find the slot where it went.

As though Dresius's soul had merged with hers, the answer came almost immediately.

High, high up there, the circlet adorning the God's head was missing its jewel.

Farren stared up at the three-storey tall sculpture with a wry grin. "Draedona take my soul, you don't mean I have to climb all the way up there?"

If souls could form expressions, she was pretty sure Dresius was shrugging, as though trying to say, what other way is there?

"Aye," said Farren, "it's no wonder you chose death over this steep a climb. I mean, I'd do too."

Her hand shot up of its own accord and smacked her on her head.

"Hey!" said Farren, "I let you stay in my soul for seven years. Show some respect, damn you!"

Now in Xenro's presence, Dresius had grown much more alive, and bold-- enough to take control of her body at times.

Arguing no more, she climbed, teeth clenched against her protesting limbs. Once she'd stepped closer to the structure, it somehow seemed easier. The creepers and vines gave enough purchase. Boots hooked into one crack to another, fingers clasping one jutting edge, to the next, Farren climbed, the starry sky coming closer within her reach with each step she took.

The forest cheered her on with its rustling branches, insects chirped. Farren longed to be back in the mess hall of the camp, beside a roaring fire and surrounded by her squad-- not in the middle of the woods, where a single misstep could send her tumbling to her death. She would even listen to Linder's cynical jokes, if it meant she could go back.

Dresius's face swam in her vision. The god's pleading voice rang in her ears.

Farren climbed.

Leg propped up against the sword hilt, her front draped against the giant statue-head she reached out with the gem, struggling to get within the reach of the circlet. Her finger trembled from exertion. For a moment it seemed the jewel would slip from her grasp--

"Almost...there..."

The sapphire clicked into place onto the empty slot above the circlet. Jets of bright blue light emanated from the gemstone and the runes, merging into a single ray. The statue trembled and shook.

And Farren's grip slipped.

✦✧✦✧

"Stay awake, damn you! Don't you dare close your eyes, you hear me, lad?" Eliora snapped, clamping her wrinkled hands on both sides of Sergeant Linder's bloodless face. His eyes drooped, lips forming incoherent words as he began to slip into unconsciousness yet again.

Foxward's hands were slick with warm blood as he pressed down on the wound, knowing it was a lost cause. How were they supposed to save a man who had been ripped apart from within? Even sorcery had its limits.

While blood ran incessantly from the wound in his stomach, the ones on his back had fallen victim to sepsis already, with the rusty links of chainmail lodged inside them. Linder was running a fever as infection spread faster than fire through him.

"What kind of maniac rages into battle knowing an assassin is out to get him, just to prove a point?" yelled the young healer.

"Yet that was the only thing that made you oafs believe! Got the facts through your thick skulls," said Eliora, enraged, "else you folks would still dance with that hired killer upon your shoulders! Never mind that, bring the rune-gloves. We start intensive healing, now. What of the blood-elixirs?"

"I've sent Dorin to the partoller's quarters to get them. He'll be back in no time," said Foxward, rinsing the blood off his hands and grabbing two sets of gloves, instead of one.

One pair he gave to his mentor, the other he slipped on himself.

"Not even a week since you've started training in intensive healing." Eliora's expression was stoney. "This is suicide."

The lamp of the infirmary flickered, casting wavering shadows on the screens they'd pulled around Linder's bed.

Foxward smiled, and simply said what he'd heard his mentor say countless times.

"Nobody dies on my watch."

The young healer quested forward, pulled forth from the core of his soul all the magic he could manage.

Both healer's powers conjoined, the wound began to close up.

But Foxward could do it no longer than a few moments. His vision began to blur, head swam, then-- he lurched away from the bedside, kneeling before the basin.

His stomach gave a twist, and the next moment, blood spewed from his mouth.

"Nevan Foxward! Take off those damned gloves, this instant!"

"No." Knees shaking, Foxward got to his feet, wiping his lips on a washcloth, and strode to the bedside again, despite Eliora's curses.

Healing would never be this difficult, had there been a patron God whose powers they could call on. Nevermind that. He pressed his hands against the wound, staunching the blood flow and calling forth his magic.

And for the first time, a God answered.

A new God, whose divine presence he'd never felt before. Who was this deity, come to bless the mortal plains with their grace?

"Rhilio's mercy!" He heard Eliora curse, and met her eyes. She could sense the presence too.

The runes on the gloves glowed a bright blue, followed by a gushing surge of healing magic, celestial and soothing, unlike any other.

✦✧✦✧

Legs tangled in vines, Farren grasped for the nearest ledge and pushed herself upright.

"Are you the one who has set me free, mortal?" came a voice from below, near the pedestal where the villagers placed their tributes.

In her hurry to climb down, Farren went staggering, landing in a heap at the stranger's feet before she had a chance to look at his face.

He offered her a hand, a soft smile gracing his lips. "Apologies for the inconvenience."

"Aye, much needed," Farren blurted out before thinking, "I nearly broke my neck up there."

His eyebrow twitched, but then he nodded. "I thank you, mortal."

It felt strange. His was the face she'd been looking longingly at every time she'd passed by the shrine for the last seven years, but he seemed unfamiliar somehow. The very same features hewn from stone were now before her, only more human, yet ethereal at the same time.

His eyes were the same hue of the glittering sapphire adoring the gold circlet around his head. His long, flowing, blond hair rippled in a gentle breeze.

In terms of clothing, he was rather plain; a simple blue chlamys, fastened with a gold brooch thrown over a silken white tunic, with leather straps across his front-- holding the scabbard on his back. The jeweled hilt of his two-handed sword jutted out from it.

The immortal soul in her stirred, more alive than ever before as she gazed into his eyes.

A rush of Dresius's ancient memories washed over her, of shared starry nights on a tundra plain, gazing up at the northern lights, of sitting huddled up next to each other in a humble cottage, reading in candlelight, of a final, tear-stained parting kiss-- followed by a losing battle.

Yet nothing had been able to part the warrior and the God, not the Great War, nor death, nor the hundreds of years that had passed since then.

Her heart fluttered, but she did not know whether it was her own emotion, or an echo of what Dresius felt. Were they one and the same?

Yet when Farren finally reached out and took his hand, Xenro withdrew with a jolt, his gentle expression twisting into a scowl.

"No..." He reared back, something like a realisation dawning on his face. "This...can't be."

"Lord Xenro?" Farren did not understand what she had done wrong.

From his scabbard, he unsheathed a grand, two-handed sword. The blade was the same as the crystal dagger, only massive in size.

"You have become what you were sworn to kill, Dresius," said Xenro, his grip trembling on the sword, terror written all over his face, "an immortal soul in a mortal body. A... Vasaen." It seemed to pain the God to pronounce the last words.

The fire in her immortal soul vanished, leaving nothing but ashes in its wake. Reunited after centuries, and all his eyes held were terror and hatred.

At this point, she did not care what life threw at her, be it being marked as an outlaw, or staring down the blade of a God she'd just risked her life rescuing.

A wave of exhaustion took over her, and she reared back as well, taking a seat on a flat-topped rock with a sigh.

Just what had she landed herself into? She was on the verge of losing track of who she really was. A valiant warrior or a cowardly soldier? Lover to a God, or a monster raised by sorcery?

Taut silence ruled between them, questions unanswered.

"You know, there's this old saying--" she said at last, a sad smile on her face, "-- 'Cursed is the land where many Gods tread, and doomed is the mortal man whom they meet.' Because there can be but only one outcome. Chaos."

Xenro remained on his guard, sharp eyes fixed on her in a cruel gaze, as though she were a dangerous beast to be wary of.

"But me?" said Farren with a hollow laugh.

"I don't need divine intervention to screw up my life, Lord Xenro. My own actions are enough."

Thus concludes the first tale Of Gods and Warriors, Deities and Daggers.