The dead need no sustenance.

And thus, three days since the fall of the gates, Pertheran remained the same as he was. The corrupt magic holding him together was all he needed, and naught else.

But what of...him? Was he not a being of divine life? Did he not need rest or food?

Pertheran wondered as Xenro struck down yet another Vasaen, tearing the creature from limb to limb, scattering the blackened organs so far apart across the wrecked concourse they stood upon, no form of necromancy could re-raise its remains. Many Midaelian soldiers they encountered employed the same vicious tactics, of complete destruction of their enemies' corpses.

But still there were so many, ever flooding in through the ruined gates. The enormity of the task was equal to scooping water from a drowning vessel with a spoon. Hope seemed bleak.

Xenro looked as though he'd been dragged through tar, eyes sunken and the smell of death clinging to him like blood. In his hands was a Sacred Blade, salvaged from the piles of the dead.

But when he spoke, his voice was strangely...calm. The sense of peacefulness in him scared Perth a little. A being capable of such relentless slaughter and gentleness at the same time was one to be feared.

Xenro looked back over his shoulder at him. "Step lively, now. I must get you to the safety of the palace."

Safety? Where am I ever truly safe, trapped within this corpse of a body?

"Coming," he said and followed in his footsteps nonetheless. Another firemount went off somewhere. Pertheran had stopped counting since the second night.

He did not know how much longer they would have to keep trudging on. Roads were inaccessible, barricaded in some places, others simply blown up to bits. The ramp to the upper district was broken off a third from the bottom, cutting off contact from the lower district invaded by the enemy forces. The City Watch, the Midaelian army and battlemages had put up a strong front, but were soon made to retreat to higher ground, with the rearguard taking charge of escorting the common folk out of their homes.

Word was, King Krugmann was on his way with an elite troop of four hundred Vasaeni, coming riding to watch his victory from the very front lines.

Far above, its tallest spires gleaming in the firelight stood the palace, like a warrior who refused to accept defeat. Pertheran prayed for the newly crowned queen, whom he had seen not, but heard her name chanted in the dying breaths and war cries of the Midaelians. How vast was the burden of a kingdom in shambles?

At first, Xenro had tried to establish contact with the Captain of the mercenaries. All such efforts went to vain and he could not discern a familiar face in the sea of mayhem that was the besieged city. Ravens circled overhead, ominous croaks ringing out into the air.

Byton was trapped beneath the great black shadow. The remains of my Mistress, so full of hatred that she refuses to die.

Pulling his gaze from the sky, Pertheran sped along through the path cloven by the weary god.

Ever since rising to his feet, Xenro had not slept a wink, nor touched a morsel of food. Three nights and three days, he had walked the streets, seized by the spirit of a bestial rampage, but let not fall on Pertheran a single scratch. A foolish kindness, that. My wounds will heal, but yours won't.

When Xenro had fallen to a kneel upon first setting foot within Byton, turning into a miserable wreck in lament, clutching a golden circlet and howling the same name to himself over and over-- Pertheran did not think he would ever get up. He thought that would be his final resting place, for where else did a fallen God of War belong if not in the middle of battle?

But he did get back up to his feet.

Pertheran had little means to console him except company, and so he'd simply sat beside him; a foul, reanimated corpse daring to place a comforting hand on the shoulder of a being cast from the heavens.

At long last, when his tears seemed to have run out, Xenro looked down at his scarred hands. No greater power flowed from them yet, the kind which could resolve the conflict of the Chains.

"If the Apocalypse does not come," Xenro said to him then, "I will become it. I will become the reason Father relights the Torch."

And thus he unleashed his wrath, ceaseless for the last few days.

Xenro now plunged his sword into the chest of an enemy soldier, kicked off the body to free the blade, then was onto the next opponent. Then to the next. He dripped with blood and sweat, the entrails of some unfortunate opponent smeared across his front, his grip on his sword slick with blood.

Around him, through the street which the two now passed, a path cleared, soldiers--friends and foes alike-- shrinking away from who appeared to them a crazed mercenary.

This was when they spotted the old man amidst a circle of corpses.

He sat with his back resting against the wall of a ruined home. He donned Midaelian colours, and the bodies at his feet wore the crimson and gold of Royal Guards armed with Sacred Blades. One of them still remained on one knee, shield put up in an attempt to protect the man even in their dying moments.

The man opened his eyes on sensing their approach. On his side was a deep wound that bled profusely.

"Hail, young warrior," he said. "Care to end a poor old fellow's misery?"

Xenro stood in silence. The wound was beyond help, even if he had been the best healer in all Stormvale.

The man mustered up a smile. Even at the verge of death, he had the graceful look of a high-born about him. His armour was of the finest steel, blue cape trimmed with gold.

"I thought they would do me the favour, when I marched out," he said as he gestured to the bodies which lay around him. "But behold. They died protecting me instead."

Slowly, painfully, Xenro brought his stiff limbs to fold and sat before the man. "Who...are you?"

"Not from this land, are you?" The man frowned, but his expression soon relaxed as he looked skyward. "I used to rule this kingdom of cinders--and I haven't been very good at it, if you have noticed the desolation around you." He chuckled sadly. "I can leave now with peace in my heart."

He then reached out with a shaky hand to pat Xenro on the shoulder and gave Pertheran an acknowledging nod. "Live, children. Fight, and hold onto dear life, for I promise you'll see a brighter day tomorrow. Midaelia...is in better hands."

And so for a silent while the two halted before him, partly for their own fatigue, and partly because neither could stomach the idea of enemy soldiers arriving to desecrate the king's final rest and put his head upon a pike. Life and colour slowly seeped out of him, skin turning pallid, arms falling limp at his sides and eyes glazed.

"Funny thing, life, eh?" He said, "when this battle comes to an end, they'll come to cleanse the streets of the dead. And they won't be able to tell my bones from that of another--be they my own people or the enemy. That is how I wish to go."

Then he said no more.

Xenro rose and picked up a gilded helm that sat askew some paces away and placed it on the king's head. His face drooped, chin to his chest and eyes closed. Another spout of rain came rushing from above.

The bells would no longer toll the hour, but the approach of enemies. The God simply stood there, his back to Perth and the fallen king, eyes on the broken ramp in the distance. Then he turned his burning gaze to Rhilio's fair visage, visible upon a temple of the upper district, so far the guiding star in their journey to the palace.

Then he spoke, throwing a harsh question to the skies where none answered.

"Where is the Apocalypse, Father? The grand show of destruction I wished to stop? You cast me into exile, trapped me within lifeless stone for my sin. Yet where is it now?"

The roars of the besieged city around them ceased.

Their surroundings fell unnaturally...quiet, as though in anticipation. Dull grey light filtered in as the dark shadow above seemed to recoil, converging upon a point somewhere in the upper district.

What on earth?

Pertheran shielded his eyes from the rain that poured from the heavens, painting the scene of the streets in shades of dreary, slate grey, only the spilled blood to add in colour. It cleared the gore off of Xenro as he stood tall, revealing with renewed glory the anger evident in his heaving chest as he drew harsh breaths, the slight tremble in the blade he clasped, broad shoulders that hunched beneath an invisible weight.

"Or is it that you want these people to destroy...themselves?" he cried, "is that why you are no longer keen to unleash the Apocalypse?"

...and so the heavens answered.

✦✧✦✧

Upon reaching the gates, Emric twisted in his saddle to glance over at King Krugmann. He offered a grin, wide but mirthless. "What I promised, I delivered, Sire."

The king took his helm off and looked at the blazing city before him, its fires mirrored in his greedy eyes. Another victory. A whole new land to conquer and call his own. And now that he had gotten what he'd wished for, his tone shifted.

He did not bother looking his Midaelian general's way, shrugging him off with an off-handed gesture. "Consider yourself lucky. Letting the prisoners get away vexed me enough. Had you failed at this also, it could have cost you your head."

Emric only smiled, suppressing the urge to tear out his tongue and choke him with it. He had endured this all his life. A few more hours he could tolerate. Smothering down his fury with a promise of murder, he turned his mount around to lead the elite troops through the gates of Byton. The front row consisted entirely of mages, necromancers, more specifically, to adjunct Avalyn's acts of devastation.

When he marched through the smoke and rubble, over fallen statues and torn banners, hooves of his horse squelching in the mud that mingled with blood, Emric felt nothing. Not a feeling stirred in his heart other than anticipation of a kill he'd longed for, utterly devoid of sadness at the wreckage that marred the land where he was from. The gargantuan shadow that loomed overhead caused a muffled alarm among his mages.

Emric worried not, for he knew it was none other than Avalyn letting her powers flow free, having been victorious in her mission. Soon would he reunite with her.

He barked a command at them to follow, and sped on after the king himself.

Yet the king took no notice, turning to his Drisian counsellors who rode alongside him, much too engrossed upon deciding where he should recommence extended celebrations of the Spring Fest to commemorate this victory.

Emric knew his throne, which he had built to raise him higher in the Drisian court, was already beginning to crumble.

Through the murk of rain and smoke, a man approached. Sir Troth Miveresk, brother of the Captain of the Royal Guard. His proud and dignified expression melted soon as his gaze landed upon him and King Krugmann. He dismounted his horse and bowed so low his nose almost brushed the dirt.

"Greetings, Your Majesty," he cried. "A humble servant, at your service!"

King Krugmann roared with laughter, pointing the now confused man to Emric. "So this is the fella you all were speaking of? Ah, do with him what you wish. I do not care."

Now Sir Troth looked positively offended, but masked it well. "I'm afraid I don't follow," he said, then turned to Emric. "We have held up our end of the bargain, and you should do yours. Otherwise--"

Emric cleared his throat. "Otherwise what, Sir?"

But the man was too busy looking at the Drisian soldiers who had begun to surround him on all sides.

"I have been informed by my messengers that the plans that you and your brother supplied through the hand of Alfred Henris were fabricated," said Emric. "Which is the sole reason that the palace still stands."

Troth's face drained of colour. "But-- but that can't be! It must be Henris who has betrayed you," he said. "My brother and I ensured that the secret passageway--"

"Is a death trap," finished Emric for him. "An impenetrable one at that."

"Impossible...this is madness!"

He trembled, knees shaking as the soldiers began closing in on him. But Emric put up a hand, motioning them to halt. His smile then was warm and kind.

"Despite your failures, I know you have tried your best to aid us," he said.

The man nearly fell at his feet at that, but then the general continued: "and that is why you must go, sir. For you, who betrayed your own people, would just as easily do the same to us in the foreseeable future."

Emric had never before seen a noble-born run and stumble so fast and so gracelessly through mud. He did not stop the man when he bolted, but rather turned to one of his soldiers and took their loaded crossbow in his hands.

"Been a while since I used one of these, but..." He aimed.

The quarrel hit Sir Troth between the shoulder blades before a passing Drisian carriage of supplies trampled him to the ground and smashed his skull. He did not suffer for long.

A fitting warm-up for my next act.

Upon reaching the crossroads at the foot of the ramp to the upper districts, the Drisian king's onward march was forced into a halt. The walkway had purposely been broken off, and Midaelian archers held defence at the top behind a barricade, arrows and crossbow quarrels snipping through the air every now and then.

Yet with the renewed force of the newly arrived reinforcements, scaling the walls to the higher ground was not an impossible feat. Hence, sending forth his sappers, Emric turned to King Krugmann once more.

"You must be weary," he said. "Arrangements to make camp may be commenced, if His Majesty so desires. A path won't be cleared until a good few hours."

The king, although visibly eager to level down the royal palace to the ground, agreed to the proposal.

Thus it was decided. A tenement nearby was cleared to accommodate King Krugmann and his counsellors. At the general's command, guards were posted to every door and every window. Fires were lit, kegs of mead and supplies for a kingly supper taken out.

Emric did not join in the grand feast that went down in the middle of a scene of destruction. He simply waited by the towering walls that held the upper district within a secure embrace, and watched his soldiers load up a row of firemounts to bring down the defence. He looked on as the wall crumbled, accompanied with helpless cries of the townsfolk that rang through the shimmering rain of broken glass and crockery.

There is beauty in destruction and music in the screams of the dying.

And he sought to revel some more in that beauty, once the king and his men retired inside the tenement after the feast.

Emric took a good look at the deadpan faces of the elite Vasaeni posted at the entrances, those whom he'd prepared for years especially for this moment. Excitement, barely restrained, coiled in the pit of his stomach as he uttered a single command, finger brushing across his silver ring in the highly unlikely chance that one of his undead servants might misstep.

They did not. For they all knew, he held the Chains.

They knew, the man whom they hailed as king sat on a throne of lies with an illusion of control in his hands. They were, in truth, governed by a terrible being far more powerful.

"Light the fire," Emric said.

A collective rumble sounded as all the doors and windows were slammed shut from the outside. The movement was swift, so fast and so sudden that none of the inmates had time to react. The fire left from the feast burned merrily by, and fed the many torches that dipped in it next.

The tenement, the makeshift camp for the great Drisian conqueror, Conbert Vyncent Krugmann, went up in flames.

Sweet were the muffled screams that drifted from inside, the desperate thumps on the locked doors even sweeter. Flames licked up the gabled roof of the building, blackened the lovely red bricks that lined the eaves, burned to crisp the flowering vines clinging to the walls.

Bloody knuckles punched through the glass panes of one of the windows, the king's half-burnt, desperate face howling through it. Maddened by pain, he failed to utter coherent words, only managing to let out sounds like cattle.

Truly graceless for a king, such manners.

Emric gestured, and one of his soldiers drove the shaft of a spear through the window, shoving him back into the inferno.

The hardest part was getting the corpses out before the fire charred them beyond recognition. But from the molten silks and burnt fur clinging to the flesh, he recognized the king from his counsellors, once his soldiers had arrayed the bodies before him in a neat row.

But it was not yet over for King Krugmann.

Emric called forth one of the mages from his cadre of necromancers.

"Raise him," he ordered.

When the charred and blackened corpse sparng back to life, its godforsaken sounds made even the necromancers cover their ears. The once king was no longer capable of human speech, but only guttural croaks, vocal cords damaged permanently from the fire.

Emric loomed over the hideous monstrosity of his own creation. One that had taken two entire decades to achieve.

"The wise and noble would say revenge is hollow. That there's no good in it, and neither does it heal the wound one already inflicted," said Emric. "It's true that I would never get it back-- the life full of joy that I could have led. Yet does it not soothe my aches just a little to know that I have delivered the payback on my father's stead?"

The burnt creature that had been King Krugmann groaned and whimpered at his feet, embers still sizzling in its skin, red and raw in places, blackened in others.

"Rise, Your Majesty," he crooned. "You shall live forever. I, your most loyal servant, would not let you die."

Emric stooped to pull him back up, and hoisted him on his knees so that the undead king knelt before the general.

One of the soldiers handed him the tainted crown retrieved from the burning tenement. He placed it once again upon the now hairless pate of the man who murdered his father, stole his childhood and the chance to have a life of purpose.

"Long live the King!" hailed Emric.

✦✧✦✧

Hours passed until the Drisian forces could make it over the walls onto the upper district and progress toward the point of the turmoil, from where the dark shadow rose.

As Emric had guessed, there was Avalyn.

But not in the way he pictured.

She did not stand there radiant in her dark glory, questing forth with her lethal magic. Her lifeless body lay on the ground, eyes skyward and her throat torn open. The shadow rose from within her corpse.

"No!" A wail escaped his throat as he ran to her against the many protests of the mages and pulled her in his arms. She was deathly cold and drenched in the rain, lips turned blue and bloodless.

"This isn't how it was supposed to be!" he cried.

For once in its rampage of destruction spanning the last few days, the shadow stopped raising corpses. It bent and descended around him like a curtain of silk, wisps of darkness reaching out to brush against him in a caress.

The blow was enough to steal the savage joy Emric felt from his revenge against the king.

They had both won. Yet at what cost?

They were to emerge victorious from their quests of vengeance and begin a new life. Together. Untainted by sins. But where did it all go wrong?

He snapped at the necromancer who dared to approach him with a voice of concern.

"Bring her back!" he shouted, voice gone hoarse and clutching the cold corpse in his arms. "Bring her back if you hold your life dear!"

The mage stood silent for a long moment before speaking. "Then I say you end my life, General. Because I can't."

--"What?"

A brush of fingers against silver. Chains burst forth from the earth to tug a handful of the undead who surrounded the mage, weapons raised.

The mage was frightened, yet did not relent. "I cannot do the impossible, General, even if you tear me up to pieces. Sorcery has its limits. Draedona has struck down our sorceress with the hand of her Chosen One, and cursed her so she cannot return to her mortal frame. You expect me to undo a divine curse?"

Emric growled and struck his fist to the ground, raising a spray of rainwater.

Then it hit him.

Slowly, he let her limp body slip from his grip and stood up, gazing deep into the shadow. It seemed to stare back.

"If she cannot return to her own body..." he said, swaying a little on his feet, "then I give her...mine."

He stretched his arms wide, relinquishing all ownership about himself, welcoming the darkness to reside in him.

Our sins weigh us down to the abyss, love. What's wrong with one more?

Before his soldiers could cry out, before the many mages could intervene with their sorcerous powers, the shadow closed over him.

It consumed him whole.

When the darkness dissolved, letting the pale light of the overcast sky fall upon Byton once again, there was the general, crouching on the ground with his head clutched in his hands.

"G-general Reylan?" One of the necromancers dared to step forward.

The general rose, watching with wonder his own limbs as though seeing them for the first time. Then he turned to face the men.

They all took a collective step back.

His lone eye was pitch black, skin turned white as paper. Dark veins protruded over his forehead and down his neck. His body swayed and moved grotesquely, like a marionette controlled poorly by inexperienced hands. When he spoke, two voices rose from his throat in a dreadful chorus. He wept in one voice, soothed himself with another, and then howled with crazed laughter with both.

Two souls thrust into one body, one yet alive, the other long dead.

The most terrible forms of Vasaen were not raised by necromancy at all, but of one's own will.

"What are you waiting for?" Emric and Avalyn addressed the soldiers in unison.

They stood frozen, watching their worst fears merge into one.

"Load up the Firemounts. We're headed for the palace!"

That was when the sky split open, sparing them the misery of looking at the horrendous creation of magic.

✦✧✦✧

A great flash of light, too vast and fiery to be natural, blinded the entirety of Byton. The storm clouds that had hovered above for so long, burst, erupting with a bone-rattling crash of thunder. The ground beneath quivered with fearful groans from the very core of the earth. A devastating gush of wind blew, fanning the flames where firemounts had hit.

All those who still stood, it threw them off their balance, and thus the scene of battle was thrown into complete disarray.

All except Xenro.

He was firmly upon his feet, head lowered. A dark aura surrounded him, his blood streaked blond hair come loose and rippling in the wind. He hefted his sword over one shoulder with a grunt, his stature echoing the weather-worn stone statue he had emerged from long ago.

The Torch of the Divines had been lit once more.

He looked over to see Pertheran crouching low, watching him with awestruck eyes.

There came the Apocalypse.

Punishment from above. The grand extermination of the mortals daring to defy the gods.

And yet in this massacre I see a ray of hope.

"The king has released the hold on the powers of the Gods at last, so that they may unleash the destruction in its full force, my friend," he said. "He has relinquished all restrictions, and that includes...me. I have my power back. The full extent of it."

A new strength took hold of him. His vision was ever clearer, all tiredness washed away, limbs once more strong.

With a great effort, Pertheran got to his feet. "Free me, then. Free us all from this disaster!"

Xenro made no reply, for he did not want to make false promises. But he would surely end this all, or die trying.

A great storm raged on around them. Lightning struck, trembling the ground beneath their feet like no Firemount could.

Xenro spread his arms wide, and focused his powers. He attempted to summon once again the entrance to Draedona's realm, where the root of the problem resided. He would strike it in the core, and bring an end to it all long before Rhilio could destroy the world once more at his whim.

No interruption, no stray arrows came to assail them at that moment, both sides running for their lives in the sudden and terrible lashing out of all the forces of nature.

Do not fail me now, he pleaded to his own reawakened powers as though they were a higher being. Lend me all that you have.

A hollow space formed in mid air, a doorway to another realm. It began to get larger, and larger. A familiar aura of celestial powers arose, and before him materialized a gate wrought from silver smoke.

"Watch out!" Pertheran cried.

A bolt of fire came speeding through the air, huge like a hundred firemounts going off at once, bright as though the sun had fallen and came crashing down to earth. Its trajectory was far too specific, much too well-aimed for it to be merely part of the Apocalypse. No, it was sent to destroy, to obliterate from existence only one.

It headed straight for Xenro. He looked up, a slow smile spreading across his face.

"In the end, I was the reason you brought the Apocalypse, was I not, Father?" he said, ever proud and defiant in his full glory as he remembered his humiliation in Rhilio's courtroom. Now, he stood in control of his own powers and in the middle of the chaos, long since broken out of his imprisonment.

His surroundings flared up in its light and heat, the king of the gods unleashing his own powers to wipe from the face of the earth one insignificant God. A death almost honorable.

Xenro spread his arms wide.

The sweltering heat flickered away abruptly, only to be replaced by a teeth-chattering cold.

A massive, silver creature landed heavily between Xenro and the incoming attack, spreading its giant wings, taller than the walls of the city. A roar sounded; like great glaciers breaking apart, the howl of a blizzard, the rumbling of avalanches crashing down a mountainside.

Now terrified cries rose, from both sides of the war-torn city at the sight of the creature. The great ice dragon absorbed the thrust exerted by the bolt of fire, staggered, then stood upright again.

The rain hovering in the air froze up, spreading all over the city in the shape of a giant, glassy dome of ice, encasing them all under a shield that steamed beneath the attack of all the Gods.

"Brother!" cried Xenro, terrifed and relieved at the same time.

Edis reared his enormous, reptilian head toward him, and blinked his silver eyes wordlessly. Jets of icy wind puffed out through his nostrils as he exhaled.

'Make haste, Xenro. I cannot keep the shield up for long.'

The gate to Draedona's realm was wide open now, a giant window merging the world of the living to that of the dead.

Chains writhed in the ruined plains of the Realm of the dead, like giant worms twisting and turning and coiling.

Slowly, their ends became visible upon the mortal plain too.

They were everywhere, reaching out all across the city to point the location of each Vasaen. Distant cries arose, many of the undead only seeing for the first time what bound them to this world of living.

All the Chains converged upon one point, like branches of a tree into a single, sturdy stem.

A single Chain, thick-linked, stronger than the rest, heavier than them all. And it led...

Xenro drew a sharp breath in realisation.

"Lord Xenro..." Pertheran trailed off in a broken voice, standing right behind him.

He had not the heart to face the poor young man, whom he'd fought to rescue and protect, who had done no wrong, yet whom destiny had tossed in the whirlpools of the worst kind of misery.

Xenro looked back.

There was Pertheran, tears in his eyes. Around his ankle was a large manacle. Attached to it, ran the Chain, holding him and the entirety of his kind in the mortal world where they did not belong.

He, the bearer of the first Chain, was the source of the disaster.

The one whom Xenro must destroy.