Deus Necros

He let his eyes pass across the higher branches without focusing on any one shadow. The sense of attention did not sharpen; it simply continued, patient and unhurried. Thinking. The Kingdom of the Sand had no real reason to start a war with the Empire, everything was too vague, nor did the empire itself seem too opposed to the idea of war as they straight up went face first into it. However, what reason could a non-combat Usurper have to start war?

This made Ludwig question a lot what he knew… it just didn’t make sense… or perhaps it was something he didn’t know. So he didn’t focus on it too much, no reason waste braincells on theories that would serve him no good.

He felt the old habit of building theories rise and set it down. A forest full of maybes could hide a cliff. The work in front of him was real and bleeding. He would not chase the fog behind it. Do your mission, serve your time in the army and be free for whatever else you want. Being forcefully conscripted wasn’t nice, but he wasn’t going to shy away from it.

Ludwig released his aura which he had forgotten to do due to all he was thinking and feeling at the moment, and by doing so, he immediately felt the backlash, it wasn’t exhaustion, his heart was more than capable of nullifying that, but a pressure and an ebbing pain all over his body. small and soon an echo of itself but still annoying. His blood vessels also felt strained. And this was him not going past the limitation of three minutes of Aura use. Once he goes beyond there he’ll start throwing up blood, and above five, death. And then will return to Undeath. Not something he wants to happen here in the forest guarded by a dragon of life.

The red thrum receded and left behind a grit under the skin, a faint burn along the pathways the power had taken. He flexed his fingers and watched the pulse fade from his knuckles. The heart beat steady and hard, a warning drum in his chest.

Steadiness is good.

“Oi wake up,” Ludwig said as he crouched next to the boy. “I know you’re awake. I’m not here to harm you.” Ludwig said.

He kept his hands visible and slow, palm turned outward. The boy’s lashes fluttered and settled again, a tell chewed out by fear. The blood crusting the stump of the ear had dried in starved flakes along his jaw. A breath shuddered the small chest and held.

Ludwig then removed the bindings on the boy, but still he didn’t move. Looking at the twitching of his brows, and the occasional twitch of the stub left instead of an ear, Ludwig felt some sympathy for the boy.

The ropes had left shallow welts pale against dirty skin. The boy’s shoulders remained high and tight, as if the ropes were still there in memory.

“I’m a friend of Ulesse,” Ludwig said. He let the name land like a coin placed gently on a table between them.

“Lies!” the boy immediately said, “You humans always lie!” the boy said as he opened his eyes. Looking at Ludwig with fear and panic. The words were brittle and sharp because they had been used often. He threw them the way a cornered animal shows its teeth. But behind the show, his gaze skittered and stuck, caught between the memory of the horns which were no longer there, horns similar to a demon’s. The same face the man in front of him had carried to slaughter those other humans was now in front of him. How could he trust it? For the boy, every last one of these humans was a demon in human skin.

“Look over there,” Ludwig said, “The guys who harmed you are all gone. And if I wanted to harm you I would have done so…”

Steel and blood and headless corpses were proof enough, but proof does not reach where fear sits. He did not insist. He reached into his ring and let the quiet magic do what words could not. He showed the boy something that he felt every elf in this region would recognize.

The boy’s eyes widened, “That’s the Royal Acorn, that’s lady Ulesse’s sacred treasure!”

Wonder cracked the set of his mouth. The words sacred treasure left him softer, like warm air finding frost.

“Sacred treasure?” Ludwig tilted his head. The acorn sat warm and heavy in his palm. Its grain caught what dim light made it through the canopy, showing the age in its smallness.

“That’s a seed of the Tree of Life, why does a human have that?” He said human like a sickness, and yet curiosity leaned him forward despite himself.

“She gave it to me some time ago, and told me I can use it to visit her.” Ludwig sat down next to the boy.

He put himself lower, the way one does with nervous horses and children. The earth was damp through his trousers. The acorn rested where the boy could watch it without looking at him.

The child sat up though looked very wary of Ludwig. After all, the short eared ones rarely speak truth. His hands knotted in his lap, knuckles small and white, but he did not shrink away. Distrust had been taught early and well; caution had kept him alive.

“I’m not taking you to our hidden village! Even if you have the treasure! You could have stolen it for all I know!” the boy said. It burst out of him louder than it needed to be, as if volume could be a wall.

Ludwig sighed, “You see…” Ludwig said, “If I were a bad guy… you’d be in a lot of trouble. Because you basically just signed your death sentence,” Ludwig said.

He let his tone stay even, not chiding.

The line between his brows deepened. He glanced toward the trees and then away, a child remembering a lesson and realizing how he had stepped on it.

“You finally realized it? the fact that you mentioned the hidden village, and said you won’t take me there means you know how to access it, if it was another one of those guys who heard that, I don’t think you’d be missing just an ear…” Ludwig spoke. He did not press the point. He allowed the image to arrive by itself and sit with the boy until he understood what his own words could have cost.

And every word he said made the boy’s face turn paler and paler.

Color bled from his cheeks, leaving him green-eyed and ghost-pale beneath the dirt.

“But,” Ludwig ruffled his head, “I’m not. I honestly just want you to get to a safe place…” Ludwig looked around, “Ulesse sounded like a good person when I met her last time, it’d be a shame to not help one of her people…” he turned to the boy, “Do you know of the dragon that lives here? Is it neutral?” Ludwig asked, mild interest mixing into his tone.

The boy hesitated, but perhaps the feeling of Ludwig’s gentle hand had a say in lowering his guard “It is a friend of our people, why? Have you met him?” the question was left hanging for Ludwig to answer. And there was some hope in the boy’s eyes from that question.

“Yes, he’s the one who opened the path for me, I think it was him who sent me here to save you…” Saying it aloud made the path of the last hours click into place. The memory of vast attention settled like a shadow across his shoulders.

Ludwig then looked behind him, the forest could have led him anywhere, but the path he took seemed too purposeful designed in a way to only take him toward where the boy was caught. The dragon must have had a say in this, and seemed like it didn’t want to directly interfere for reasons Ludwig couldn’t guess.

“The Sylvan Sage…Ur’Thal.” The name hung in the air with the weight of something older than the trunks around them.

“So that’s his name… I see, regardless, I still have a lot to do, I need to find where these guys are coming from and stop them. I don’t know if you can ask for his help to get you back to your village.”

He did not offer more than he could keep. The boy had had enough promises from mouths that could not deliver.

“There is no need to do that,” the boy said, “He won’t help in those matters, otherwise he’d have helped me. Ur’Thal only protects the village form outside it, once you exit the village you’re on your own. Still, I won’t need his help.” The boy said.

Pride stiffened his spine even as the stump of his ear twitched with remembered pain. The words sounded rehearsed, the creed of a people who survived by not asking for what could not be given.

“You sound very confident to navigate the forest by yourself-” Ludwig’s words cut short. He immediately realized something was amiss. He did not look up yet. The forest had gotten too careful. Even the gnats were quiet.

[You’re in a hostile environment]

The message arrived with bland cheer that would have been funny in any other moment.

His eyes looked up, there were more than several Dozen elves hidden within the trees, all with bows aimed at Ludwig along with what felt like a small sized army of them all around them.

They were where the trunks clustered, where sightlines broke and reformed. The curve of a bow here, a sliver of pale fingers on a string there, the faint oil-sheen on fletching. He felt the texture of attention shift from distant and general to close and sharp. The boy’s chin rose by a hair, relief mixing with fear.

“I guess I interfered for nothing then,” Ludwig said as he looked around, “if this many people were coming to save you, then I really just wasted my time here.”

But still Ludwig was annoyed, after all, he didn’t sense any of them, even if the notification arrived. Not a single soul had made a sound, it’s as if they were here the whole time. Ludwig’s perception needed some work.

He did not reach for a weapon. He did not stand. He turned his head with lazy care, as if counting the possibilities like birds on branches. The boy’s breath hitched, a single small sound in the hush.

Ludwig thought that the situation was about to solve itself but then he hears the worst two words you can hear in his current position.

“Kill him!”

The command fell flat and absolute, and in the instant after it, the forest loosed. Arrows lifted the air with a dry whisper, and everything that had been still moved.