Deus Necros

Chapter 741: Fleeting Hope

“I can probably handle one or two at a time at most,” Damra said.

Damra didn’t boast. He didn’t inflate it to sound impressive. One or two was honest, and honesty was rare in war councils because everyone liked to pretend they were stronger than they were. Ludwig respected Damra more for that.

“We’ll hope that we don’t have to deal with fully capable red orcs, but that’s decent news,” Ludwig said, eyes narrowing as his mind ran through the implications, “the rest of the orcs don’t ever fight alone.”

A few orcs immediately made faces as if he’d insulted their ancestors. Orc culture loved the idea of a lone warrior earning glory. Ludwig needed them alive more than he needed them glorious.

“But no glory in fighting together!”

The protest came fast, half offended, half confused, like Ludwig was asking them to spit on their own god.

“You think the Red Orcs are looking for glory,” Ludwig asked.

He didn’t raise his voice. He simply stared at them long enough that the question sank under their tusks. A red orc didn’t kill to be remembered. It killed to add another body to the Red King’s numbers. Glory didn’t matter to something that was turning other races into Red Orcs by force-feeding hearts.

The orcs didn’t reply.

Their silence wasn’t agreement yet. It was them searching for an answer and finding none that didn’t embarrass them. Ludwig pressed in immediately while their pride was exposed and pliable.

“Glory and honor are only worth chasing when the battlefield is balanced. You’re not fighting for glory, you’re fighting for survival.” He turned to the orcs and stood up, “If you went to seek your glory and die, what do you leave for those behind you? Oppression, enslavement, and no chance for them to ever seek glory. You want to go meet the Orc God in battle, would he take you in after he realizes you left your brothers to die a dog’s death?”

He kept his tone hard and practical, not preachy. The question wasn’t spiritual. It was social engineering. Orcs cared about doctrine more than logic.

So Ludwig used their doctrine like a leash, pulled it tight until it guided them where he wanted.

He watched their faces shift as the picture formed: a “glorious” lone death, followed by their brothers being harvested, branded, fed hearts until they became red. No afterlife honor in that. Just failure wearing a heroic mask.

The orcs were not the smartest, thankfully, and flipping their own doctrines against them was the best way to make them behave.

“Chieftain is right,” one of the Orcs said, “No glory in leaving others behind. Fight to survive, then fight again for glory!”

The acceptance came from the right kind of voice, a warrior’s voice, someone others listened to. Ludwig saw several other orcs nod immediately, relief spreading through them because now they could obey without feeling like cowards.

“Good thinking,” Ludwig said, “now follow me, everyone, let’s kick some red orc ass.”

He didn’t grin. He didn’t swagger. He simply started moving again, and the army moved with him, the decision solidifying into footsteps and clinking weapons.

Damra walked at Ludwig’s side, Dedal a step behind, goblins slipping into the edges of the group where shadows and brush would help them later, lizardmen keeping close to the river’s direction as if already tasting water in the air.

The walk down the mountain was incredibly peaceful, so peaceful in fact that it was almost worrying.

The daylight stripped the mountain of its usual menace. The fog thinned into wisps, and the blue torches that had felt like lifelines at night looked almost ordinary now, just odd-colored flames hanging against stone.

Birds still didn’t sing here, Ludwig noticed that absence as a constant, but the ground no longer felt like it wanted to swallow them.

Their footsteps were louder than they should’ve been, and Ludwig didn’t like that either. Loud footsteps meant you couldn’t hear something stalking you until it was already close.

“No soothsayers?” Ludwig asked.

He kept his voice low, but it carried. The question wasn’t curiosity. It was him checking if the mountain’s main defense had vanished at the exact moment they needed it most.

“Not during the day, and when there is no shade or shadow. They hate light.” Damra replied.

Ludwig’s eyes drifted instinctively to the treeline and to the angles of the slope, places where shade gathered, where a cloud passing overhead could create the kind of dimness the soothsayers might love. The answer made sense. It also complicated everything.

“This changes things a bit,” Ludwig replied.

His mind restructured the plan immediately. Daylight was safety, yes, but it also meant their final trap wasn’t awake yet. The mountain’s teeth slept in the sun. If the Red King arrived too early, they’d have to bleed him without relying on the soothsayers to finish the job.

“How come?” Damra asked.

“Now we’re obligated to hold off the red orcs until nighttime. We have to use the Soothsayers as a weapon. If we withdraw early, that will allow the Red Orcs to chase after us through safe grounds. We need them to suffer as much as possible trying that, and the soothsayers are basically our last line of defense.”

Ludwig spoke while watching the terrain ahead: where the river widened, where the banks narrowed, where rocks formed natural choke points. Holding them until night wasn’t just “endure.” It was shaping up where the fight happened when darkness finally returned.

If they retreated too cleanly, the Red King’s army would regroup and press again, maybe even find a way around. They needed to make the enemy pay for every step toward the mountain, so that when night fell, the army would be tired, thirsty, confused, and already bleeding before the soothsayers began feeding.

“We should be able to handle things before dusk, I hope,” Damra said.

Ludwig glanced at Damra, catching the word hope like it was a weakness trying to sneak into the plan. Hope was what many of Ludwig’s enemies had clung to before Ludwig fed them despair. He was never one to cling to the taste of Hope. After all, Hope is fleeting.

“There is no longer any option left for us to hope; it is to do, or to die trying. I see the tree line, let’s move.”

He pointed forward, and the pace increased. The river’s presence became louder in the air, cooler wind, damp earth, the faint smell of algae and stone.

Ludwig’s grip tightened on Durandal’s hilt, not because he wanted to swing it yet, but because he could feel the moment approaching when talking ended and only decisions remained.