Deus Necros

"You go ahead," Cain said.

Ludwig had already taken one step after the fleeing figure when the words made him stop.

He turned around.

Cain stood exactly where he had been, still holding the crafted dart between two fingers. His expression carried mild interest, but not enough of it to move his feet with any urgency. The forest ahead had swallowed the runner completely, leaving only disturbed leaves, a faint human scent, and the fading trace of poison on the air.

Ludwig stared at him. "Really? You’re not even interested?"

"I am," Cain said.

"Could have fooled me."

"I do not like exerting effort when none is needed. I will follow slowly after. Just go."

Ludwig looked at him for a moment longer, then shifted his gaze toward Kaiser.

The former lich had crouched near a patch of mud and was examining a broken twig as if it had volunteered state secrets.

"Same here," Kaiser said without looking up. "Not feeling like running. You can go."

Ludwig frowned.

Thomas, perched on his shoulder, leaned closer to his ear. "Are they serious?"

"Yes."

"That feels rude."

"It is."

Cain turned his eyes toward the forest. "The shooter is not alone."

"That sounds like a reason to move faster," Tull said.

"It is a reason for you to move faster," Cain replied.

Tull opened his mouth, then closed it with a visible effort. "I hate old people."

Kaiser smiled. "good instinct."

Ludwig did not push the subject further. If Cain did not want to run, forcing him would only waste time, and if Kaiser did not want to run, arguing would cost more patience than Ludwig currently owned.

"Fine," Ludwig said.

He stepped forward, and the others followed.

Celine moved to his left, quiet and ready. Redd dropped low for a heartbeat, caught the scent again, then accelerated ahead at an angle. Tull followed with aura wrapping his legs and shoulders, the irritation on his face slowly giving way to concentration. Thomas held tight near Ludwig’s shoulder, ember wings dimmed so his light would not make them an easier target.

Behind them, Cain and Kaiser remained at the edge of the stomped trail.

Apparently, "slowly" meant exactly that.

"What’s up with them?" Thomas asked as Ludwig broke into a run.

"I guess they felt the old in their bones settle in," Ludwig said. "They’re pretty ancient."

Thomas glanced back once. "Kaiser is going to hear that."

"He hears most insults. It keeps him alive."

The forest swallowed them quickly.

The dry-living trees stood close together, branches twisted above like fingers that had forgotten how to open. The ground shifted beneath their feet between mud, roots, and patches of hard black soil. Pools of stagnant water reflected no sky. The scent of wet bark, old leaves, and something bitter clung to the air.

Then darts flew.

Three at first.

Thin shadows cutting between branches.

Ludwig tilted his head and let one pass beside his ear. Celine’s sword flicked out and knocked another aside. Tull raised his forearm, aura hardening over it, and the dart shattered against the invisible coating with a small metallic snap.

"More than one," Redd called from ahead.

No one needed the warning after that.

Shapes moved above them.

Not beasts.

Humans.

Or at least close enough in motion.

They wore layers of cloth, mud-colored wraps, and something black and organic that clung to their backs and shoulders like dried hide. Their faces were covered with strips of dark fabric, leaving only narrow gaps for the eyes. They ran across branches and the tops of thorn-infested shrubs with incredible precision, stepping on places no sane person would trust and springing to the next without so much as making the leaves rustle.

They moved like people who had grown up where the ground was optional and danger rewarded hesitation with death.

Another dart came at Ludwig’s throat.

He cut it in half midair.

"Would you look at that," Tull said, keeping pace despite his complaints, his aura pushing mud away from his boots with each step. "They’re using Aura."

Ludwig squinted.

Tull was right.

It was faint. Almost imperceptible. A film rather than a cloak. Thin traces under their feet, along their ankles, and in the wake they left when they jumped. Not the heavy, obvious aura of imperial knights, and not the polished pressure of masters trained in academies. This was leaner. Efficient. Barely enough to support their movement, soften impact, and keep their footing stable on branches that should have snapped beneath them.

"They’re trained," Ludwig said.

Another shadow leapt from one tree to another, drawing a blowdart from under its wrap.

"Alright," Ludwig said. "Pick up the pace."

He moved faster.

The forest blurred.

Mud splashed beneath his boots for half a step before he stopped needing the ground as much. Celine accelerated beside him, pale and silent, her cloak flattening behind her. Redd surged forward like a released wolf, not bothering to hide his strength now. Tull cursed once, then drove more aura into his legs and forced himself to keep up.

The figures above them reacted immediately.

They split.

Some went left. Some climbed higher. Others dropped lower and tried to vanish into the brush.

It did not matter.

Ludwig reached the closest one in seconds.

The figure twisted midair, tried to kick off a branch, and brought the blowdart up again. Ludwig’s hand closed around its wrist before it could aim. He pulled once, not hard enough to break bone, but hard enough to rip the figure from the branch and bring it down into the mud beneath him.

The body was light.

Too light.

Ludwig flipped the attacker over and froze.

Wide eyes stared up at him through a gap in the face wrap.

Young.

Far too young.

"A kid?"

The word came out before he could stop it.

Celine landed beside him, one hand gripping another captured figure by the back of the collar. She turned hers around.

Her expression hardened.

"Same here."

Tull crashed through a patch of brush a moment later, dragging another by the scruff of the neck. The boy twisted, kicked, and tried to jab him with a small bone knife, but Tull held him at arm’s length with the exhausted patience of a man restraining an angry cat.

"Same here," Tull said. "Little bastard nearly put a needle in my eye."

Redd dropped from a low branch with the fourth hanging upside down by one ankle. The boy in his grip thrashed violently, one hand clawing at Redd’s arm while the other searched beneath his wrappings for another weapon.

"Got mine," Redd said.

Three boys.

One girl.

All in their early teens, or close enough that the distinction did not improve anything.

Their faces were smeared with mud and black streaks. Their clothing had been layered for the forest, not for warmth, with hidden pockets, straps, and small tools tied beneath the wraps. Each carried darts. Each had steel somewhere on them. Not toys. Not crude village scraps. Properly made weapons scaled down for smaller hands.

The young girl under Ludwig’s grip writhed hardest.

She made sharp sounds, not words at first, but guttural yells and clipped cries that sounded like anger trying to cover fear. Her knee struck Ludwig’s side. Her elbow jabbed at his ribs. She even tried to bite through the leather near his wrist.

"Yo, chill," Ludwig said.

She thrashed harder.

"I said calm down."

The girl spat something at him in a language he did not understand.

Ludwig’s patience thinned.

"I said calm down!"

His voice sharpened, and with it came the tiniest leak of Wrath. With a small amount of pressure behind the words.

The girl went still.

Then her eyes filled with tears.

She began crying.

Not loudly at first. A small, broken sound. Then it grew, shaking through her narrow shoulders until the fury holding her together cracked into fear.

Celine’s gaze snapped to Ludwig.

"That was too much," she said quietly.

Ludwig’s jaw tightened.

Before he could answer, the boy in Redd’s grip exploded into an even more violent frenzy. His face twisted with rage, and he tried to fold himself upward despite hanging by one ankle. He kicked at Redd’s arm with his free foot, then yanked another blowdart from beneath his wrappings with frightening speed.

"Hey," Redd said.

The boy fired straight at Ludwig, and Ludwig turned his head just as the dart came toward his face, catching it between his teeth and biting down until it snapped in half, the poisoned tip resting against his tongue for half a breath before he spat it into the mud.

Silence dropped over the children.

Even the crying girl hiccuped into stillness.

Ludwig looked from one to the other. "Can any of you even speak?"

No answer.

The children stared at him as if he had just become something from the old tales.

"Fine then."

Ludwig’s forehead shifted.

Two crystalline horns grew slowly from his brow, catching the sickly forest light. They were not large, but they did not need to be. The shape alone did the work. The children’s eyes widened. Tull’s mouth opened slightly. Redd gave him a look that very clearly asked whether this was really where things were going.

Ludwig pointed at the girl.

"I’ll start by eating her," he said. "She must taste better."

"UNHAND HER!"

The boy in Redd’s grip shouted the words in rough but understandable speech.

Ludwig immediately retracted the horns.

"There you go," he said. "You can speak."

Tull stared at him. "That is one method."

"Worked."

"That is not the same as good."

Ludwig ignored him and approached the boy while carefully handing the crying girl over to Celine. Celine took her gently, though the girl flinched as if expecting claws. Once she realized Celine was not squeezing or threatening her, the girl only trembled, tears cutting pale tracks through the mud on her cheeks.

Tull leaned toward Redd and muttered, "Is it just me, or do we look like the villains here?"

Redd lowered the boy enough that he was no longer dangling completely upside down. "Don’t ask me, man. This stopped being who is right and who is wrong when they shot at us."

"That is fair."

Redd set the boy down gently enough that he did not fall, but kept one hand on his shoulder before the kid could bolt.

Ludwig crouched slightly in front of him.

"What are you guys doing here, in this place?"

The boy said nothing.

His breathing came hard through clenched teeth. His eyes darted to the girl, then to the other boys, then toward the trees. He was afraid, furious, and trying to decide whether silence would protect them better than speech.

Ludwig waited.

The forest moved around them.

Not in the normal way.

Not wind through leaves.

Something else.

The shadows under the dead-living shrubs seemed to deepen. Branches shifted without sound. The black organic wrappings on the children’s clothing suddenly made more sense. Camouflage. Not merely visual, but textured to match the forest’s strange undergrowth.

Ludwig’s irritation vanished.

A window appeared.

[You are in a hostile environment.]

"Again?" Thomas whispered.

From the nearby trees, bushes, low branches, and the many shadows tucked between roots and thorn growths, figures emerged.

Adults this time.

Taller.

Older.

Meaner.

Humans wrapped in the same layered cloth, but with better weapons and harder eyes. Blowdarts pointed from the canopy. Bows were drawn beneath branches. Spears angled out from behind trunks. Several crouched atop thorned shrubs without disturbing a single leaf, aura barely visible beneath their feet. More stood half-hidden in mud-colored cloaks that blended almost perfectly with bark and black moss.

The children went very still.

The boy beneath Redd’s hand swallowed.

Tull slowly adjusted his grip on his weapon. "Well."

Redd looked around at the many drawn weapons, then at Ludwig, then back at the forest.

"Looks like we’re in for a good house warming party," he muttered.

Celine held the crying girl carefully at her side, her blade lowered but ready.

Ludwig straightened.

Durandal rested in his hand.

He could feel Cain and Kaiser somewhere behind them now, approaching at their own leisurely pace, but not yet close enough to make the forest understand how badly it had misjudged the visitors.

The adults did not fire.

Not yet.

One stepped forward from between two dry-living trees, face wrapped in black cloth, eyes dark and sharp above it. A spear rested in one hand, its steel tip polished and poisoned faintly green.

His gaze moved from Ludwig to the children.

Then to the snapped dart in the mud.

Then to the girl still crying beside Celine.

His voice came low, accented, and dangerous.

"Release them."

Ludwig stared at him.

Then at the dozens of weapons aimed at his group.

Then at the strange forest that had hidden human children trained enough to ambush an imperial scouting party.

He sighed.

"Finally," Ludwig said. "Someone who speaks."

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