"Unified by their mutual hatred of the Light,
And love of their dark master and his foul purpose,
The dark and demonic host thrust itself upon the dwindling allies,
Rending flesh and spilling blood with unholy delight,
The focus of their shadowed will the death of all."
- From an excerpt of The Shadow Cycle, a verbal history of the First Alliance's war against the Kaal Eran
Ga'Tung, Chancellor of the Kaal Eran Dominion, and Mouthpiece of the Deceiver's Will on Ramnor, frowned as he let the report scroll through the glimmering space above the crystalline communication lattice built into the heavy stone table. The numbers were grim: of the invasion force launched across the Sea of Polua with the intent of establishing a demon beach head north of Earthforge, on the shores of the Bay of Gorgons, nothing remained.
It was a total loss; the Piceans and their magic proved brutally effective against the dark fleet that passed over their watery kingdom in the depths of Ramnor's southern seas. Unaffected by the fall of first the First Alliance then the so-called Cadremoor Alliance thousands of cycles later, the fish folk had retained a great amount of their lore and magic from the days of their creation, when they were potent enough to face the demons invading their realm with their full strength.
The Chancellor let his black eyes drift from the report to the table and the councillors waiting silently around it. The failure to hold the sa'anish Weapon of Power known as the Earth Sword from its Wielder had combined with the failure against the Piceans to severely thin their ranks. In the unrelenting Abyss success's lack was rewarded with death.
But their failure wasn't absolute. Two of the three Wielders had recently fallen to the power of their masters at the ruined fortress of Gorgon's Dagger. Transformed from human to animal by the might of their dark masters' magic, the Wielders no longer had the ability to draw on the power of their ancient sa'anish weapons. And that removed them as a threat. The Chancellor's eyes narrowed. Removed at least for now; these humans had astounding resilience in the face of overwhelming force. He didn't doubt the Wielders would somehow alleviate their condition and return to potency in time to resist the demonic invasion of Reutha, the final destination of the Return.
Not that resistance was restricted solely to the Wielders, with the Piceans illustrating that fact with perfect resonance. No, the attempt to land a force on the island continent of Uepolua had also met with failure, partially due to the Wielder of the Star Sword, but also due in great part to the efforts of the local elves who, despite having lost a great part of their ancient strength, were still bold enough to attempt to face Kaal Eran in open battle.
Again the failure wasn't absolute. Even as the Chancellor was executing the commanders responsible for engineering the failed invasion, the human magic user Bren stepped forward with alternative plans. With his current knowledge of Ramnor and its various peoples, along with their states of preparedness against the Return, he confirmed why the dark masters were allowing him to live as he managed to draw up plans sufficient to see them establish a base on an island south of the Uepolua mainland.
Additionally the foot soldiers developed by Bren's long-dead empire were proving useful as cannon fodder against entrenched enemy positions on Reutha, as illustrated by their diversionary strike against the Wielder of the Earth Sword at Gorgon's Dagger. They had distracted the young human long enough for stealth shock troops to gate in close without being detected, thus preventing the Wielder from gating to safety and facilitating his capture by the dark masters. That they managed to capture the Wielder of the Star Sword as well when he came to rescue his fallen sibling was an added bonus.
That left only one Wielder free and unimpeded, loose somewhere on Ramnor's face. Unfortunately that Wielder was still an unknown, no Kaal Eran having faced him in battle and returning to give report. His Weapon of Power, however, was a different matter. Records left by the demons surviving the close of the Demon's Gate described the battle of the sa'anish capital Jair Kalial, the last sa'anish city to survive the second demonic invasion of reality after their conclave foolishly reopened the portal the Maker Himself had closed in His infinite arrogance.
According to those records, the weapon known as the Tree Staff was used by its last Wielder to close the portal connecting the twin worlds of Ramnor and Rimnor to prevent the demons from crossing over and destroying the sa'anish home world. In doing so, the tear in Reutha's face the locals called the Rift was created, and the weapon was trapped in the space between dimensions. Despite that, the weapon retained the ability to reach into reality and empower its Wielder. That is, if any of the reports concerning the turmoil currently engulfing the forest known as the Gyren in eastern Reutha could be believed.
A shift of black-gloved fingers brought up the most recent reports from their operatives in the shadowed forest of the Reuthan Hammer Peninsula. And his eyes narrowed as they scanned over the numbers. They were fragmentary at best, the Wielder of the Star Sword disrupting a good number of their communications with the introduction of his elven expeditionary force into the conflict there. However, sifting through the fragmentary information yielded a number of troubling events.
First were the reports of the expeditionary force swiftly retaking a human fortress close to the mountains, slaughtering the tjor'riin left to guard it. In that victory's shadow they then crushed three small but key breeding pits nearby before being joined by a well trained but poorly supplied human force out of the west. Before the council's surprise at the first reports could fade, more arrived bearing tales of how the humans, reinvigorated by elven supplies, transformed the expeditionary force into an even harder hitting army. It instantly became a well-organized and determined force that now left breeding pit after fortified breeding pit in ruins, despite fighting without a Wielder's assistance and without regard to any efforts Bren's underlings made to reinforce the precious pits.
If he had been human, the Chancellor would've felt a surge of frustration at reading that, even as his finger tip traced several angular characters in the Kaal Eran script, as harsh and uncompromising as the creatures that spoke it. And that frustration would've only grown as he scanned a second set of reports from their forward Uepoluan base that spoke of a second expeditionary force arriving on the island continent's southern shore to build up the defences there. What had begun as a mere token effort by these so-called 'Redeemed' to re-stabilize the Gyren and defend Uepolua had become a concerted push to counteract the Tjor'riin assault and free the human lands from Shadow domination. Abruptly their plans to plunge the human kingdoms of Reutha into chaos, initiated by the human Bren, faced serious jeopardy.
The Chancellor knew they would test the improved defences on Uepolua in their own due time. For now, however, their efforts had to focus on solving the dilemma that now faced them in the Hammer Peninsula. Attempts to hold the hybrid force back, to this point, had proven futile. Now several key positions were under siege by determined elves, all four branches of that ancient race including the one created by the Crimson Empire for their own nefarious purposes, involving themselves in the attack. Add to that their human allies and strength was only building strength; pits were falling swiftly.
Grimly the Chancellor stifled a surge of too mortal irritation. The meddlesome fleshlings were proving more difficult to deal with than first anticipated. Either Bren's efforts to leave the humans in chaos prior to the Return's arrival on Reutha's shores were proving ineffectual or the humans weren't as weak as the old sorcerer originally suggested. His black upon black eyes narrowed in consideration. Perhaps it was the old sorcerer's minions that were weak. After all, weren't Tjor'riin responsible for building the secondary portal at Earthforge? A portal that despite giving them whatever materials needed to complete the task, had yet to be finished? Unable to negotiate the Picean blockade, or use the Earthforge gate, their efforts to establish a beach head on Reuthan soil remained thwarted.
By no means was this frustration limited to the Chancellor and his council. Prevented from striking at Reutha directly and unaware of the location of the third Weapon of Power, many of the Kaal Eran had begun questioning their dark masters' wisdom in choosing their current course of action. And that, of course, led to purges.
"Your command, Lord Chancellor?" one of the handful of surviving councillors asked from her place near the table's far end, her flat question pulling the Chancellor from his momentary reverie.
The reports vanished at a gesture to let Ga'Tung spear her with a hard look.
"Redouble your efforts," he flatly replied, expression and emotion both banished from his chiseled features. Both were mortal things, embraced when the Heretics sheathed their dark energy cores in flesh and blood to accomplish their assault on the Stewards. They had no place on a demon's face.
"For our masters' wishes are quite clear: take advantage of the Wielders' capture to press the mortals into engaging in combat. Without the aid of the Weapons of Power, our magic and weaponry will be more than a match for those who oppose us and our great purpose." The black on black orbs swung onto another councillor, a beaten looking male. He was the only survivor of his entire clan, nearly 5 million in number, wiped out when a female of the clan allowed the Wielder of the Earth Sword to wrest the weapon from its draconic keeper and escape Earthforge with it in his possession. That clan's purge had also claimed two of the council's most powerful members, leaving this poor fool in its wake as a symbol for any who would contemplate failure in the future.
"We still hold Earthforge. Ra'Khan, take a full company of engineers to the volcano and bring the portal online. It must be operational within five days. Make sure it is, whatever the price you must pay."
"It will be done, Lord Chancellor." The addressed Kaal Eran bowed his head in acknowledgement, knowing his name was already on their dark masters' death rolls. Failure simply was a word he must purge from his foul essence, just as the masters had purged those of his line.
Ga'Tung nodded in momentary satisfaction before he moved his attention to others. The commands were sharp and succinct: do whatever was needed to hasten the masters' great plan to completion. When he was done, the surviving councillors swiftly excused themselves to hurry to their tasks. They would do as they were commanded. Do it, or die.
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