Chapter 11: Aftermath
The Baron's body was heavier than it looked.
Lucian managed to drag it to the deeper end of the alley with considerable effort. A pile of refuse had accumulated there, age and origin impossible to guess. The smell of rot came off it in waves. Flies hummed above it in a dense, dark cloud, catching the light.
Lucian dragged the body alongside the pile, stepped back a few paces, and assessed.
Not enough.
This was not enough.
He needed the body damaged to the point where Tier 5 Faith-Based Magic [Resurrection] could no longer be cast on it. Lower-tier resurrection magic required an intact corpse. Degrade it far enough and Baron Livian stayed dead.
Though that raised a question: did the Kingdom currently have any faith-based clerics who had reached the Realm of Heroes?
Lucian searched his memory of the original work. Blue Roses' Lakyus, his own sister, had only entered that realm later. At this point in the timeline, a cleric anywhere in the Kingdom who was capable of Tier 5 magic probably didn't exist.
But Eight Fingers and the noble faction could conceivably bring one in from another country. He couldn't rule that out.
Lucian's gaze dropped to the scattered traces around the refuse pile: rat droppings, wild dog pawprints, the scrape marks of small animals picking through the debris.
That thought had barely finished forming when a rustling sound came from deeper in the alley.
Lucian didn't move.
He stood where he was, steadied his breathing, and looked toward the sound.
Eyes in the shadows. Cloudy, hungry. Animal eyes.
Wild dogs.
Several of them. Thin enough that every rib showed through their coats, their fur so filthy the original color was impossible to tell. One was missing half an ear, the pink scar exposed. They were crouched low, a low whine coming from their throats, watching the body on the ground with wariness and hunger both, or rather, watching the smell of blood coming off it.
Lucian held their gaze for a second.
Then he stepped back. One step. Two. Three. All the way to where the light fell at the alley mouth.
The dogs didn't move.
Lucian turned, walked a few paces, and pressed himself into a shallow recess in the wall beside the entrance.
He waited.
The whining stopped.
Then came small footsteps, careful and testing, inching closer.
Lucian leaned out from the recess and watched. The thinnest dog reached the Baron's body first. It sniffed at it, then lifted its head and looked around, a flicker of uncertainty in those clouded eyes.
But it was too hungry.
Too hungry to stay uncertain.
It lowered its head and began to feed. The sounds of tearing carried through the alley, dull and wet, mixed with the sharp crack of bone. The other dogs moved in, pressing close, fighting over the flesh.
Lucian watched them work over what had been Baron Livian's face. That fat, self-satisfied face, becoming something unrecognizable.
A fitting end for that kind of filth.
The noise of the market drifted in from outside, steady and unchanged. No one out there knew what was happening in this dark alley.
Lucian drew a breath and took the knife from inside his coat.
The blood on the blade had dried. Dark red patches, crusted into the metal.
Now for his own part.
A noble's death would draw investigation from multiple directions in a way a commoner's never would. There was no concealing it.
Since concealment was off the table, Lucian decided to get ahead of the narrative himself.
Strip everything else away and what he needed to manage came down to two things: the etiquette of noble circles, and Eight Fingers' pride.
The Livian family's own strength was beside the point.
Lucian gripped the knife and looked down at his left hand.
A six-year-old's hand. Soft, smooth, a faint trace of fine hair across the back. A noble's hand. One that had never done rough work.
He needed to use it to produce evidence of a serious struggle.
The tip of the blade met his forearm.
Cold against skin. A faint sting. One more degree of pressure and the blade would part skin and vessel both, and blood would follow.
Lucian didn't hesitate.
The blade drew down.
First cut.
Along the inside of the left forearm. Not deep, but long. Blood welled up, warm, running down his arm and dripping onto the ground. It hurt. Sharp, clear pain shot up from the wound straight to the top of his skull. Lucian's brow tightened, his jaw set, but he made no sound.
Second cut.
Same arm, closer to the back of the hand. Deeper this time. Blood came faster.
Third cut. Fourth cut.
Four wounds in total: two on the left arm, one on the right shoulder, one at the left side of his waist. None fatal. Every one visible enough to stop someone cold. Blood soaked through his clothing, pressing the fabric against his skin, warm and sticky.
It hurt.
More than he had imagined it would.
Lucian leaned against the alley wall, breathing, and looked down at himself: torn clothes, covered in blood, looking exactly like a child who had barely escaped from a serious fight.
Was that enough?
Not yet.
He set his teeth, raised the blade, and added a shallow cut at the corner of his forehead. Blood ran down along his brow and blurred the vision in his left eye.
Now it was enough.
He wiped the knife carefully, removing every trace of his grip, and dropped it beside the body. The dogs jerked their heads up at the movement, muzzles red, watching him with a low growl.
Lucian ignored them.
He turned and walked out of the alley.
The sunlight was sharp.
Lucian squinted against it and let it fall straight on him. He could feel the blood still moving, warm and damp, pressing his clothes to his skin. Every step pulled at the wounds. The pain put cold sweat down his back.
He walked with a stumbling gait toward the busiest part of the market.
The noise of people grew.
The cloth stalls, the ironware stalls, the grain sellers, all of it exactly as before, though the crowd was a little thinner than it had been in the morning.
The moment Lucian appeared at the market entrance, the voices around him went briefly quiet.
Then a wave of noise.
"That child—!"
"Good gods, covered in blood!"
"Someone get the temple healers! Quickly!"
"Those wounds, did he run into someone?"
The corner of Lucian's mouth turned up, very slightly. He pressed it back down.
Now.
He let himself stumble, and went down on one knee. Blood struck the stone paving and spread in a small dark patch.
The people around him gasped and moved forward, then stopped, uncertain, and formed a loose ring, watching him with expressions he couldn't quite read.
Lucian raised his head.
Sunlight came down from above and lit his face clearly: pale, the cut at his forehead still bleeding, and in those half-open eyes, exactly the right degree of exhaustion.
"Baron Livian has lost his mind..." Lucian murmured, barely above a whisper, as if he were speaking only to himself. "He... he..."
He didn't finish.
His body folded forward, eyes closing, consciousness sinking into dark.
The last thing he heard was the crowd breaking into voices all around him.