These great, primordial creatures, too old even for simple comprehension, screamed in their final, fading moments, the ululation of their death-throes oscillating across the ears of all those who ran, like the young Denis Ardeyevich. Hauntingly, they creaked and heaved, as they, one-by-one, succumbed to the raging fires.”
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It is a world gone mad.
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A boy sits upon the imperial throne of Aravarnia, juggling to the fiddle of an immortal sorcerer. In his vision, the Continent convulses; Civil war rages in Khorat, as brother kills brother across the snowy steppes. Armies clash and shatter. Hamlets and cities burn. Pallid children starve within their charred, skeletal wrecks.
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Khorat bleeds.
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The Aravarnians march forward, fuelled by Imperial ambition. Banners held aloft, their well-trained armies cross the Ekaterin, into the war-torn fray. The Rebelling Duke, Prestor Volunoff, relents, and retaliates. His forces counter Aravarnia before the city of Dor Nassia.
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They lose. In a legendary fit of embers and smoke.
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It is a spectacular victory. Yet great moments are as dull as they get: boring, annoyingly heroic. Unabashedly exaggerated, and filled to its corpulent brim with hyperboles galore.
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This is not the story of that great victory.
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This, is the story of what came after.
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n