Deus Necros

“Who dares spread such rumors!” Hiro barked, looking at Ludwig’s companions as if for a culprit. They were all wearing defensive gestures, hands up, stances angled, which read to the riders as reluctance to fight the church.

“Rumors?” Ludwig smiled wider. “I was there to witness it, now show me what you got, Coward of the Holy Order!”

“You motherfucker!” the hero howled and charged toward Ludwig, sword raised high. Holy light flared along the blade, bright enough to sting the eyes; it thrummed with power, the kind meant to cow crowds and sanctify theater, and he brought it down in a gleaming arc.

A brutish, animalistic slash, without form or posture, without any ounce of martial prowess. It was nothing but a brute slash. For someone who had years to train, this was an embarrassment to witness.

It carried power, sure. Ludwig could see it, taste the way the light burned in the air. But it was not even a fraction of the force the Wrathful Death had behind its swings. Not the measured terror of something that had learned to kill without wasting a step.

Ludwig’s lips curled down, disappointment clear on his face. As the blade fell, he simply unsummoned Oathcarver. The crystal edge winked out like a snuffed star. Not even worth using Oathcarver one, was the thought that crossed Ludwig’s mind.

“STUPID IDIOT YOU DON’T EVEN HAVE A WEAPON TO BLOCK NOW!” Hiro roared. His sword was about to split Ludwig in two.

However, a simple raised hand, and a powerful grip, stopped the sword in mid-swing. Ludwig’s fingers clamped the fullered steel like a vice; the weapon shuddered and stilled. The holy energy washed harmlessly over him, fluttered through his hair, and spilled onto the snow with a hiss that went nowhere.

“This is the extent of your so-called hero power? After being summoned here, with five years to practice and train, all you got is this?” Ludwig asked, voice flat with a patience already thinning.

“UNHAND THE HERO!” one of the church members shouted, panic cracking his tone.

“DO NOT INTERRUPT ME!” Ludwig howled back, and for a second his aura, unbeknownst to him, let loose like a tidal wave of pure wrath.

The soundless pressure slammed outward. The dire wolves, almost a majority of them, immediately fell unconscious, eyes rolling, froth bubbling at the mouth. Two of the biggest and oldest stiffened, whined, and let their bodies betray them, hot streams hissing against the snow. The clerics staggered where they stood, nausea flickering across faces; a veteran paladin’s knees went loose as if his bones had softened into wet, soggy noodles.

A surge of mana flared to Ludwig’s right, sharp, frantic. The red-robed mage stared with dilated eyes and tried to shape a spell, fingers skittering through signs like a man drowning and clawing for purchase.

All Ludwig needed to do was point his free arm. “Graviol.”

Immediately the boy’s arms and legs punched straight down through the snow and packed crust, driven like stakes, leaving nothing but his head above the surface. He yelped and choked on flying powder. “Bounds of Latvia,” Ludwig called, and ethereal chains blossomed from the ice, wrapping under the mage’s jaw and across his mouth, locking the words in his throat before they could become anything.

“Now,” Ludwig said, turning back as if the interruption had been a fly to swat. “Back to our conversation… Tell me? How does it feel?”

“LET GO OF MY SWORD!” Hiro howled, face flushed, veins standing out at his neck.

“Sure,” Ludwig said, and did as told. The sudden release pitched Hiro forward. Ludwig sidestepped; Hiro’s momentum carried him past, and Ludwig’s boot appeared precisely where the hero’s ankle wanted to be. Hiro stumbled and went down hard, face first into the snow with a muffled curse.

“You fucker! I’m gonna fuck you up,” Hiro spat as he pushed up on his palms and turned his face to Ludwig, only to find a fist rushing toward it.

The impact was loud enough that it echoed through the mountains of Solania, a crisp crack that sent ravens winging from a distant copse.

“You know,” Ludwig said, voice level over the ring in the air, “I was a bit stressed, with all the fighting I had to do and all.” He reached down, grabbed the hero by a plate seam and hauled him up by the armor. His other hand rose and fell, wrathful punches piling into Hiro’s cheek and brow in metronomic rhythm.

“Five years, do you know how long that is?” Ludwig said as he struck again. “Five fucking years of being on the edge of life and death, every mistake would cost me my life.” Another punch. Snow spattered pink.

“While you, oh so-called hero, had the leisure of hiding behind the shield of the church, not even moving a muscle when it mattered. Oh hero,” he snarled, dragging Hiro a step through the drift, “how many have you saved!” This text is hosted at novel~fire~net

“FUCKER!” the hero said through blood and spit. “You think you’ll get away with.”

“Stop with the cliché patterns!” Ludwig cut him off, knuckles slamming home once more. Blood sprayed in a fine mist over the ice. “Now, yes, hero, what purpose do you serve? What is your calling? To save the world from some demon? Or some evil horror?”

“What would a nobody like you know!”

“Oh I know,” Ludwig said, and this time his fist hammered sideways, catching the mouth. Something gave; a tooth clicked free and arced into the snow. “Your so-called hero’s journey: the gathering of companions, power, defeat, recovery, and then victory. I can already tell how it’s going to go. But what if I just end you right here?” He leaned closer, breath fogging between them. “Wouldn’t it be better? If there is no hero, there has no need for evil to exist. At least worst case, they’ll summon another one, one that would probably not run away when danger presents itself in front of it.”

Ludwig struck him again. Hiro’s head snapped back, eyes unfocused.

“S-stop… please.”

“Oh, begging already. I actually had higher expectations for you. At least you should take a couple more hits!” Ludwig struck again, the blow dull and heavy against the golden helm’s cheek-plate.

“For fuck sake, MOT! STOP WATCHING AND DO SOMETHING!”

Immediately, right next to Ludwig, Mot’s young hand, larger now, the bones stretched, the child’s roundness thinned into a youthful young man more than the thirteen-year-old of before, came into view. He didn’t touch Ludwig, merely stepped into his periphery. His smile was warm, almost gentle; his eyes were cold as the ice itself. The chill of his presence felt like a bucket of water upended on a summer night, killing the heat in an instant. “That should be enough now, Davon… or should I call you Ludwig now?”

Ludwig’s fist paused over Hiro’s bruised cheek. He let the hero sag back into the snow and rose, turning to Mot. “I see,” he said, straightening to meet the gaze. No flinch, no smile. “No wonder your Hope wasn’t fleeting… you had backup.”

They stood there, eye to eye, the ring of riders hushed, wolves whining low. The cold wind moved through them, carrying iron and frost and the after-scent of holy light burned thin in the air.