Deus Necros

The sentence dropped heavily. Ludwig didn’t decorate it, didn’t plead or soften it. It was an order disguised as advice, the kind that came from someone who had already accepted a set of ugly outcomes and was trying to reduce the number of bodies in them.

“No,” the prince said, “I’ll see this to the end. I want to see the end of this river, what caused these pour souls to be stuck here.”

The refusal was immediate, stubborn in a way that had nothing to do with pride and everything to do with purpose. Even drained, even pale with fatigue, the prince’s voice held that core of command that had been forged into him since birth. He looked at the river as if it was a wound that needed to be closed, not a path to avoid.

“Your funeral,” Ludwig said as he simply called back his mace and sword into his ring and began moving forward.

Ludwig didn’t argue, and the lack of argument spoke louder than any shouting match could have. His tone carried dry resignation, a thin slice of snark that didn’t quite cover the seriousness beneath.

The trio behind him followed closely, Tull at the front, making sure that there was always enough distance between them and Ludwig. He didn’t trust the Undead, and he had all rights to do so.

The distance he kept from Ludwig was deliberate: close enough to respond, far enough that he wouldn’t be caught flat-footed if Ludwig suddenly became something else. Every few steps, Tull’s eyes flicked back, not openly, but enough to track Ludwig’s hands, his posture, the way he breathed.

He was born and raised in an Empire that made it clear that whoever used the Dark Arts must be made an example. Although even the prince was adamant on protecting Ludwig’s identity, it didn’t mean that Tull should simply trust him.

The memory of that Empire sat in Tull’s spine like a rod of iron. He’d seen what they did to necromancers, the public lessons carved into flesh so the living would remember. He’d been taught that corruption wore a thousand masks, and that kindness from the damned was still damnation.

That ideology in Ludwig’s eye never made Tull be a bad guy, only a bit stubborn and that was good when someone is loyal to their master. He could only smile as he walked ahead.

The water shimmered gold now, bright in a way that should have been beautiful, but the beauty was wrong. It was too aware. It shifted as they walked, the current subtly leaning away from Ludwig’s side like grass bending from heat. Faces formed and vanished beneath the surface, not fully seen, but felt, an impression of eyes and mouths and memory. The souls pressed toward the far bank as if Ludwig’s presence made the near side unsafe. It wasn’t hatred exactly. It was fear, and fear had its own logic.

Though he himself didn’t feel like he needed to do anything about that, his [Eternal Quest] has yet to end. And it needed to be completed at the other side of this river form what he could tell.

Ludwig didn’t flinch at the river’s reaction. He’d been feared by worse things than dead souls with too many regrets. Besides, he was not here to comfort them.

Time stretched oddly along the river. The sky remained the same bruised red threat, the air heavy with a constant undertone of magic, and the ground kept repeating itself in cracked sand and scattered bone. Steps became a rhythm. Breath became a count. Even the prince’s silence grew heavier with each mile. Then, ahead, the landscape broke its monotony. Shapes gathered. Something tall, something wrong, something anchored in place like a wound that refused to close.

There was a group of demon-kin loitering around what looked like a massive crystal.

The crystal caught the light strangely, reflecting the red skies, and the golden sickly yellow of the river at once, as if it couldn’t decide what it belonged to. Its edges were jagged, harsh enough to look like they could cut the air itself. Dozens of chains crisscrossed it, buried deep into the earth, pulled taut as if the ground was struggling to keep it from drifting away. It hovered just above the sand, not quite touching, as though the world rejected it. The chains rattled faintly with every gust of wind, making a sound like distant teeth.

The Demonlings themselves seemed out of sorts. They looked like they have lost… reason or even the will to exist.

Their posture was slack, heads tilted at odd angles, mouths hanging open as if they had forgotten what to do with breath. Their eyes lacked the usual hunger. There was no sharpness, no malice, only emptiness. They looked like puppets after the strings had been cut, still upright by accident. Even the air around them felt duller, as if their presence drained meaning from the space.

They moved in circles, with mouths opened wide, dragging their weapons along the sand.

The scraping of metal on sand was constant, a mindless rhythm that set teeth on edge. Blades carved shallow lines behind them, looping patterns like a child’s scribbles, except these hands had once slaughtered men. Their circles never widened and never tightened; they simply repeated, as though the act of moving was the only thing keeping them from collapsing.

“What’s up with them?” Redd asked, “Normally they’d come rushing at us, they didn’t even notice us while we’re this close…”

Redd lowered his voice despite the fact the Demonlings weren’t reacting at all, because something about their stillness felt like a trap. He leaned slightly forward, eyes narrowing, listening for the shift of weight, the sudden snap of attention. Nothing. That absence was unsettling. It made the fight feel already won, and that kind of ease had teeth.

“They lost their guiding factor, their master. The Envious Death who gave them purpose was now gone and along with her their sanity. Seems like they’ll be easy picking.”

Ludwig spoke with certainty, and it wasn’t a guess. He watched the Demonlings the way a man watches a machine that has lost its power source: it might still twitch, might still jerk, but it was no longer directed. He could almost taste the vacancy in them. Purpose had been their spine. Without it, they were just moving meat waiting to be put down.

“I didn’t get to do much earlier,” Redd said, “Let me sharpen my claws a bit,” he said as he retransformed into his half furred version of a werewolf.