Rebirth: Necromancer's Ascenscion-Chapter 85: The Tide Before A Storm

The taverns of Esgard breathed with new odd life.

Smoke coiled heavy in the rafters of the Broken Anvil, mingling with the sour tang of old ale and sweat.

The hearths burned low, offering long shadows against battered walls and cracked stone floors.

Peasants, merchants, mercenaries — all pressed shoulder to shoulder, clenching tankards in dirt-stained hands, whispering rumors like prayers.

It had been months since the trial. Months since the Council had fallen to stunned silence before the impossible.

And the city still had not decided if it was grateful... or terrified.

"...I’m tellin’ you," said a stout man with a crooked nose, slamming his mug on the table. "They dropped every charge. Not ’cause she argued it. Not ’cause she begged for it. All because of him."

The others at the table leaned closer.

"Ian Night," the man whispered, his breath thick with ale. "The Demonblade."

Around the tavern, heads turned. It was not a name spoken lightly these days.

A younger man — face thin and hungry, clothes patched and worn — shook his head.

"I still don’t understand. How can a man accused of demonhood... save a noble?"

The crooked-nosed man laughed, short and sharp.

"Because the gods themselves vouched for him, boy! That oath he swore... the Oath of the Blooded Blade... ain’t no small thing."

Another, an old cooper with a back bent like a bow, leaned in. "Not just anyone can swear it. The gods test your blood when you make the vow. If you’re unworthy or weak — or if there’s even a hint of demon taint — you die where you stand. Your soul rended apart."

The boy paled.

"And yet," the crooked man said, voice growing low, reverent, "he lived."

"He was accepted."

Murmurs rippled through the tavern like an incoming tide.

Someone at another table spat. "Bah. Talk all you want about oaths and gods. I’m sick of the politics. It’s been months since we had a decent arena match! When’s the bloodsport coming back, eh?"

A thin, sharp-faced woman snorted into her mug.

"Haven’t you heard? The arena’s not dead. It’s being reborn."

"Reborn?"

"Aye. Word is, all the noise ’bout the trial spread across the Empire. Across beyond the Empire." She leaned back, savoring the weight of her words. "Now, fighters come from all corners. Mercenaries, duellists, mages, even warriors from the old bloodlines — those ancient factions we hear in stories."

The crooked-nosed man barked a laugh. "You think those prancing relics can match our own? Match the champions we raised right here in Esgard?"

The woman’s eyes glinted over the rim of her cup.

"I heard one of ’em took down three of our former champions. Alone. In private noble viewed spar."

The boy whistled low.

A grizzled mercenary in blood-spattered leather barked a laugh from the next table. "Doesn’t matter how many new dogs they throw in the pit." He drained his mug and wiped his mouth with a dirty sleeve. "None of ’em will match the Demonblade."

Silence fell like a hammer.

For a moment, all that could be heard was the crackle of the hearth and the distant drip of rain from the eaves.

"But..." said a voice from a dark corner, slow and careful.

"...we don’t know if he’s coming back."

The boy turned. "What d’you mean?"

The speaker emerged slightly from the gloom — an older man, his face lined with the scars of too many battles. His cloak was heavy with road-dust.

His eyes... were old, knowing.

"The first reach of the Hellscape," he said softly. "That’s where he’s gone. Where every oath-bound subjugator must go."

Someone crossed themselves. Another spat to ward off bad luck.

"The Hellscape," the old man said again, voice barely above a whisper. "The place where monsters crawl from nightmares and the very air is poison. Where the ground drinks blood and the trees whisper madness."

"And you think he..." the boy swallowed, "you think he won’t return?"

The old man shrugged, slow and grim. "Few ever do. And even fewer... return whole."

The crooked-nosed man grunted. "Bah. He’s not like others. He’s the gods’ own vengeance given form. He’ll survive."

"But have you heard the rumors?" the old man asked, voice dropping lower still. The tavern leaned in.

"Rumors?" the boy asked, breathless.

The old man nodded, eyes glittering in the half-light.

"They say there’s a man at the edges of the Hellscape. A man who slays without mercy. Who leaves fields of corpses in his wake. A man who commands beasts and shadows alike."

The boy’s mouth hung open.

"They call him..." the old man whispered, "the Prophet of Death."

"Do you think that’s him? The demon blade?"

No one answered.

The fire guttered low.

And none spoke again for a long, long while.

---

Far away, beyond the city’s walls or any kingdom even, beyond the reach of its lights and comforts and drunken songs...

The world bled.

A field of slaughter stretched to the horizon.

Bodies — broken, shattered, torn asunder — littered the torn soil. Blood soaked into the soil until it shone black in the dying light.

And in the center of that carnage, a sword stood planted into the ground — a blade of bone and void-black steel, pulsing faintly as if breathing with the death around it.

Before it, crouched a man.

His cloak was tattered and soaked in blood, hanging off a body made of whipcord muscle and old scars.

His hair was long, tangled, matted to his forehead.

His eyes were grey — not the grey of smoke or cloud, but the hollow, colorless grey of a graveyard left forgotten.

At his back, twin daggers were strapped tight — crafted from the bones of a beast few men had named aloud.

Around him, the dead whispered in silence.

And among the corpses, shadows shifted.

Purple-black figures, born from ash and hatred, slithered and stalked, forming ranks behind him.

Some were monstrous — beasts with gnashing teeth and hollow eyes. Others were human in shape, yet moved with an unnatural grace, armor gleaming darkly under the blood-red sky.

One of the shadows stepped forward — a man-shaped figure whose form shimmered and bled mist from the edges.

"My liege," the shadow said, voice reverent and rough.

"More come. A full company of the holy rite. They bring banners and zealots alike. They number many. What do you command?"

The man said nothing at first.

He only stared at the hilt of the black sword before him.

A deep breath rattled from his chest.

Slowly, deliberately, he rose to his feet.

He gripped the sword’s hilt with a hand wrapped in old, cracked leather.

Blood — not his own — dripped from his fingers.

He pulled the blade free with a slow rasping sound, as if the earth itself protested.

He turned his hollow gaze toward the oncoming figures in the distance — white-robed zealots, armored paladins, holy banners snapping in the wind.

Hundreds.

A tide of sanctified death, rolling toward him.

His shadow army stood silent behind him, awaiting his will.

"My command?" he said at last, his voice a low, dead growl.

The shadow nodded once, bowing its mist-shrouded head.

The man lifted his sword, the blade drinking the light around it, casting a long, hungry black.

He smiled then — a smile with no warmth, no humanity.

Only inevitability.

"Kill them all," he said.

"As you wish."

And the Prophet of Death led his army to war.