The world was still, save for the beating of Ensharia’s heart and the convulsing of blood vessels as they surged with oxygenated power. The Saviour was still standing still, gazing down at the abomination as it knelt before him. Show of deference seeming somehow out of place, wrong, at odds with everything. Unnatural.

Seen closer, she could gauge more detail in the undead. See the curious, hardened substance that clung to so much of its body, recognise how it thickened and sharpened around the ends of its limbs. Observe how every fractional movement left its limbs practically inflating with muscular strength as the fibres below tensed and expanded.

There was an uncanniness to the way it was shaped, something Ensharia couldn’t quite put her finger on at first. Nature created things in particular patterns, allowing natural laws to govern how and why they fitted together, limited by chance and single-generational survivability. This thing broke all of those laws, less a reanimated animal and more…A machine made of meat and bone.

Before she even knew it, Ensharia was heading for the Saviour, her feet trudging hard and clumsy along the blood-slick battlements. The air reeked of death and dying, but even that horror barely registered to her compared to the growing terror that took root as she drew nearer to the man and his pet monster.

“You created this?” She asked, glaring at him, past caring at his status, destiny or the respect it left him due. The Saviour turned his head, slowly, to glance at her, as if she were some buzzing fly in the periphery of his vision. Then nodded.

“It is how the greatest undead are made.” He explained. “One can undo the putrefaction of mere corpses and use them as material, merge them into something greater.”

The way he spoke of it, the way he explained it, the Saviour almost seemed proud to have wrought such an abomination. It made her sick, and Ensharia felt her guts squirm as the thing moved again, limbs jostling like the crushing tendrils of a kraken. There was a sharpness to the movements that made a new thought occur to Ensharia.

“It looks like it’s in agony.” She gasped, staring at the writhing thing. “Like every moment is…Torment.”

The Saviour’s eyes widened, and he stared at her.

“Thank you.” He replied, sounding genuinely, sincerely flattered. Without another word, the man turned, heading down from the battlements, leaving Ensharia alone.

She was left there, standing in a field still wet with congealing blood, nostrils assailed by the reek of necromancy. Ensharia took a few moments to fully process what had happened, what she’d seen, what it meant. And then she made her decision. She’d never been one to delay or agonise over a problem, rapid action was among the tenets of her order, it was needed when one fought against the world’s foulest horrors. She would not stand for a False Saviour, and so Ensharia headed out to make the matter right. Moving towards her King and Queen.

More quickly than she deserved, she was granted her audience.

Ensharia’s monarchs looked restored by victory, the lines upon their faces thinned, the slumping fatigue about their shoulders reduced. King Arodan’s face cracked with a smile as he saw her, eyes bright and glinting.

“I heard of your victory, Paladin.” He grinned. “It was a remarkable thing, our Saviour has certainly not failed to impress, eh?”

The look upon his face was one of such distilled happiness and relief that Ensharia hated herself for the truth she was about to unveil, feeling as though it were the desecration of something sacred.

What isn’t desecrated these days? How much more of this world is there left to be fouled?

“My King, I apologise for bringing you such grim news at a time like this, but I fear I would be neglecting my duty if I did not share it with you. It is simply too important to be ignored or delayed.”

Instantly, Arodan’s features hardened.

“What is it?” He asked, joviality melted away, replaced by a kingly seriousness. Ensharia took a moment to steel herself before telling him, and then she shared all that had happened on the wall, what she’d seen, and who she’d seen responsible. By the time she finished, her King looked far grimmer and more severe than before. But not, she realised, surprised.

“I had heard of the Saviour’s use of the Dark Arts.” He confessed, after a moment. The words sent a stab of shock through her, like a spear to the guts.

“You know?!” She croaked, mind moving slow, suddenly, uncomprehending as her king nodded.

“I did, Ensharia, I did not tell you because I imagined you would be…Distracted by the knowledge, we now have some breathing room, thanks to him, however. Which is why I would have shared it with you had you not already known.”

“But…” Ensharia blinked, fighting her own mind for clarity, trying to carve through the madness of her conversation. “But you were fine with him fighting for you? Turning the powers of evil to your ends?”

She was so wrapped up by the weight of what was being said, that it barely occurred to her how dangerously close her tone was to insubordination. How precipitously near the edge of accusation her assessments were growing.

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“He is our Saviour.” The King echoed, more forcefully now. “Whatever means he utilises to beat back the forces of darkness, I think we can agree, is tertiary to the fact that he is using them to do just that. This is not a time to be picky, Paladin. A lot of men- a lot of children- now draw breath because we weren’t.”

Ensharia’s disgust was more than she could bear, and she rose, forcing herself to make a respectful nod before taking her leave, trembling with rage. It wasn’t right, it wasn’t moral. The undead were not tools to be wielded at one’s convenience, nature could not just be disregarded as became necessary. What she’d seen last night had been a behemoth made from human corpses, corpses that never consented in life to be twisted and mangled with magic. It was an act of perversion to do so.

Outside, in the main hall, Ensharia came past a group of soldiers, four in all. They were twitching with the familiar throes of residual adrenaline, bodies using tiny, jerky little motions to burn off as much of the excess energy as it could manage after mustering everything it had for the fight. None were wounded, she could see.

“You there.” Ensharia called. “Soldier, a word.” The first among them paused, turning his gaze to her, then froze in realisation.

Paladins were not generally feared, and for good reason. They were servants of God, defenders of the innocent and, now above all times, destroyers of undead. Ensharia liked to think that they inspired hope and happiness rather than horror and fear. Despite that, it was difficult not to intimidate a man who had seen her fight. There was simply something to the world’s Talents that left them unnerving for most to behold.

She saw it now as the man tripped over his words. He probably wasn’t a fool, or even a coward. It was just difficult to string a coherent sentence together when it was aimed at a person strong enough to lift a barded warhorse over her head.

“Sir!” He managed at last, back going lance-straight, eyes going plate-wide. “An honour, sir, we- me and my boys, we saw you fight last night, the way you destroyed that Dullahan…”

Ensharia wasn’t proud of it, for the simple reason that she’d seen the Saviour’s undead servitor crush half a dozen Dullahan with one swipe of its tendril. If she’d had to fight a creature like that, could she have won? She doubted it. And a Paladin who doubted her victory against an undead was no Paladin at all.

“What did you think of the undead?” She asked the group, abruptly. “If you don’t mind my inquiring. You know the one, it came from our side of the walls and cleared the battlements out when they were overrun. Walking through volleys of arrows, crushing bodies to pulp.”

She resisted the urge to shiver at the memory.

To her surprise, and disgust, a bunch of grins lit up on the men’s faces.

“It was remarkable.” One replied, instantly. “I’ve never seen anything like it, didn’t even know things could get that big.”

“The Saviour did it, didn’t he?” Another asked. “I saw it bowing to him, he controlled it, right? He took the Dark Lord’s power and turned it against him, protected us with it.”

The others continued in much the same fashion, and Ensharia realised that it had been, perhaps, just a shade foolish of her to expect any different. When given the choice between spiritual fulfilment and their lives, people would invariably settle on the latter. Not everyone could be a Paladin, not even everyone with the Talent.

She moved on from them shortly, encountering yet more people, testing them with that same question. All seemed to cling to the same tragic misconception, that their Saviour had simply seized control over the Dark Lord’s magics to fight with. She found that, no matter how many shared the misunderstanding, she could not bring herself to tell them that he was a Necromancer in truth. Couldn’t bear to shatter that joyous delusion with a cruel truth.

And why should she want to, in any case? The more Ensharia thought about it, the more trivial and fleeting the call of honour and righteousness felt. Such things might motivate a man, might motivate a Paladin, but they did not save lives, not as directly as the Saviour had. Who was she to put something that had stopped so much death and ruination beneath her own order’s tenets?

Pride was the deadliest sin, and it came in many forms. Ensharia’s was a pride of purity, she saw that now, and she would not allow her own shortcomings to hurt others. With no small measure of reluctance, she moved to find the Saviour, finding her limbs suddenly heavy beneath her, her chest suddenly tight.

He was not difficult to find, occupying the outskirts of the city, rebuilding and clearing debris with his expression no different to when he’d watched the undead hordes torn apart by his own power. Ensharia came to stop in front of the man, waiting for him to look up and notice her. He did not. She cleared her throat, and still he kept his gaze on the books. Ensharia felt a stab of un-Paladin-like irritation at that, finally speaking.

“Saviour, might I have a word, please?” She asked. At last he lifted his gaze to affix it onto her.

“Speak.” He instructed, and Ensharia noticed for the first time how thick the man’s aura of command was. He had surely been a king in his own land, or an emperor, because conveying orders to a Paladin seemed as natural to him as breath.

She took a breath of her own, then obeyed.

“I have been having difficulties in coming to terms with your…” She looked around, confirmed they were alone, then continued. “...Powers. The Dark Arts, as it were. Necromancy chief among them. For most of today, I’ve been trying to wrap my head around your usage of such magic, or even galvanise others to reject you as Saviour and find salvation through less morally compromising means.”

Ensharia had expected such an admission to wound, or at least enrage the Saviour. For his granite features to finally shift with betrayal, anger, disgust. She did see an emotion flit across them, and found herself shocked to realise it was irritation. A rat might have chewed through one of his boots and earned the same response.

“However,” Ensharia continued, “I took some time to process what you did, as I said. And I spoke with others. I saw the hope you’ve already inspired with our- your- victory, the fear melting away from people. I heard the whispers of supply lines opening up once more now that your abomination can guard them, and I realised…This is bigger than me. Bigger than my emotions and uncertainties, bigger even than the Paladin Order’s tenets. People’s lives are at stake, and if you, our Saviour, are confident you can control such powers, then…I will trust you.”

The Saviour blinked, once, after perhaps minutes of leaving his eyes unmoved as the rest of him.

“Okay.” He replied. “If you’re finished then start helping with this debris, I estimate that you ought to be capable of hauling over a tonne from the ground based on the density of muscle fibre and magic in your body.”