Deus Necros

Ludwig grabbed the food from the table, and for a moment, his instincts took over, munching and crunching on bone and meat alike.

The hut smelled like grease and smoke soaked into wood, old warmth that clung to everything, even the air. The table was rough beneath his palms, scarred by knives and mugs and years of use.

He didn’t even sit properly. He just leaned in and ate like the body demanded it, jaw working too hard, teeth cracking through cartilage and bone as if that was normal. The taste was… wrong for his memory of taste. Too rich. Too satisfying. It wasn’t refined or subtle. It was immediate, animal-simple, and it hit his stomach like a fist closing around hunger and squeezing it quiet.

He hated how quickly it happened, how the urge didn’t ask permission, how it just took over. Ludwig had lived too long being in control, even when he was forced to die for that control. This felt like being dragged by a leash he hadn’t agreed to wear. Still, his hands kept moving, tearing, shoving, swallowing, until the plate was stripped down to nothing but smeared grease and splinters of bone.

He hated how it felt to fall prey to one’s instincts.

Not because eating was shameful. Because it was proof the body had its own voice, and that voice didn’t care about plans, kings, or Pride. It cared about fuel. It cared about rest. It cared about being alive in a way Ludwig had forgotten.

And once he was done, he went to a nearby bed and closed his eyes.

The bed creaked when he sat, straw shifting under him. The blanket smelled like sweat and fur and the faint sourness of old sleep. Ludwig lay back anyway. The moment his head hit the pillow, the hut’s sounds softened, the settlement outside turning into muffled noise through wood, the bonfire’s crackle reduced to a distant pulse.

One hour he wanted, just one hour of sleep is all he needed, before he would need to wake up to a real fight.

He counted it in his head like a timer. One hour. Not a night. Not indulgence. A tactical pause. His fingers loosened. His breathing slowed. He felt his mind trying to stay vigilant, trying to keep one eye open even in darkness, then the orc body dragged him down harder than he expected, heavy and immediate, like someone pulling a curtain.

But, unlike what Ludwig expected, one Hour was not enough for his orcish body. Not nearly, enough and the Ogres knew of it.

Outside, time kept moving without him. The mountain didn’t pause because the king needed sleep. The Red King didn’t wait. The ward didn’t strengthen itself out of courtesy. Ludwig’s request, one hour, was a human demand placed on an orc body, and the body ignored it with the cold certainty of biology.

“Damra, what are we doing?” Dedal asked.

Damra stood at the edge of the settlement, near the ripple-gate’s hidden seam, watching the tree line like it might blink and let something through. The night air outside the ward perimeter was damp and wrong, fog sitting low and thick, and the blue torches around the boundary flickered as if the flames themselves were uneasy.

“We’ll head to the mountain peak, it’s about time we got rid of those creatures, or at least chase them away.”

Damra’s voice carried urgency, but not panic. The plan was harsh and simple: remove the pressure from the top of the ward, reclaim the center, give Ludwig something functional to work with when he woke. If they waited, they’d spend the morning reacting instead of acting.

“You got the Death Whistle?”

The name alone made a few of the nearby ogres shift their weight. Tools like that weren’t made for comfort.

“I do,” Damra said as he pulled a small object that was carved from what looked like a horn.

It was small enough to fit in a fist, but it looked older than the fist holding it, scratches and faint markings worked into the curve, the kind made by someone who believed sound could be shaped into a weapon. Even under blue torchlight, it had a dull sheen, as if it had absorbed too many nights.

“Who here wants to help us? We need to clear the mountain peak before the chieftain wakes up.”

Damra didn’t say “king.” He said “chieftain,” like the title still fit Ludwig better in his mouth. Or like calling Ludwig “king” out loud still felt unfamiliar. It didn’t matter. The call itself did.

Several orcs and ogres nodded in agreement; they wanted to help and be of help.

They didn’t want to sit and wait while someone else carried the weight. Ludwig’s speech had done something dangerous: it had given them purpose again. Purpose made people restless when they weren’t moving. It made them want to earn

what they’d agreed to.

Ludwig promised them a path forward, away from this endlessly repeating cycle. It wasn’t a life worth living after spending so many cycles doing the same thing.

Even the ones who loved the feast knew the truth: joy without change became rot. The same songs, the same fights, the same reset. Eventually, “safe” started feeling like a cage with better food.

Comfort and routine becomes one’s worst nightmare if indulged in too much.

So they followed Damra. Not because he commanded them. Because they didn’t want to be useless anymore.

Several ogres and orcs followed behind Damra, and the group headed as rapidly as they could outside the settlement.

The ripple gate opened with that watery shiver, and they slipped through into the mountain’s cold breath.

The fog hugged their legs. The ground beyond the torches felt wrong beneath their boots, like the earth resented being stepped on. The laughter Ludwig had heard earlier wasn’t present now, but the absence didn’t comfort. It felt like the mountain was holding its breath.

***

Some time later, Ludwig’s eyes snapped open. He felt it in his bones that he was too late; he slept too much, he looked at the window and realized that it was the break of dawn.

He didn’t wake gently. He woke like something yanked him upward by the spine. His heart kicked once, hard, and the first thing he felt was the cold, dew in the air; fog pressed against the hut like a damp cloth. The light slicing through the cracks wasn’t torchlight. It was morning. Pale, reluctant, real.

Dawn.

His mind ran the math instantly. One hour had turned into more than one hour. The orc’s body had taken what it needed and ignored what he wanted. Outside, the world had kept moving.

The mountain was cold, and had dew and fog spread all over it, and the faint light of morning that crept and broke past the trees was enough to tell him he overslept.

The air smelled wet and sharp, like stone after rain. The hut’s interior felt stale with sleep, the kind of stale that made Ludwig angry because it meant time had passed while he was unconscious.

“Shit,” Ludwig said as he stood up.

The word came out rough, his voice still thick with the heaviness of sleep. He flexed his hands, feeling the slight delay in his fingers, a living body’s sluggish wakefulness. It irritated him immediately.

Gale immediately opened the door of the hut after Ludwig woke up.

The door swung inward, letting cold morning air wash over Ludwig’s face. Gale stood there in orc form, posture straight, Oathcarver’s presence implied even if it wasn’t drawn. His expression was calm, but Ludwig could see the faint… satisfaction. Not at Ludwig’s discomfort. At being awake, at being ready.

“You didn’t wake me?” Ludwig said as he pulled Durandal out, strapping it to his side.

Steel clicked against leather. The familiar weight steadied him. He moved fast because moving fast made him feel like he was catching up to the time he’d lost.

“There was no need to,” Gale said, “Even I have woken just now. I’ve forgotten the bliss of sleep.”

Gale’s tone held something almost human for a second, surprise at how pleasant sleep could be when your body was alive again. Ludwig didn’t share the sentiment. Sleep felt like theft right now.

“Can’t blame you for that, but I hope this moment of rest doesn’t cost us much. Where is Damra? I need to head to the mountain peak.”

He was already stepping toward the door, already scanning outside for movement, for messengers, for proof that the Red King’s army had arrived early.

“Sir Damra has already gone there,” the voice was that of the elder. “He has already gone to clear out the Soothsayers.”

The elder stood just outside, her hunched shape cutting a hard line against the dawn fog. Her single horn caught faint light. Her eyes were sharp as ever, as if sleep wasn’t a concept she respected.

“Why did he do that? Why did he risk his life? I wanted him to wait for me.”

Ludwig’s irritation flared, part anger, part guilt. Damra wasn’t a disposable subordinate. He was a pillar holding this shaky alliance upright. Ludwig hadn’t wanted him thrown into the mountain’s teeth without Ludwig there to control the situation.

“You don’t fully understand what it is to rule,” the woman said.

Her voice wasn’t scolding. It was an instruction, blunt and unavoidable.

“Explain?” Ludwig asked.

His jaw tightened, not at her, but at the idea that he’d missed something obvious.

“It is not to do everything yourself, but to be a figure that others would want to willingly do things for you. And you achieved it, without intending to. You’re an honest person. But you must learn not to carry the world on your shoulders alone. You have friends, companions, and subordinates; use them,” she said as she left the room.