The news of Blackfang Peak's utter annihilation struck the Obsidian Citadel not as a ripple, but as a seismic shockwave, cracking the foundations of Warlord Vorlag's brutal confidence and sending tremors of fear through the ranks of his most hardened commanders. General Borok's earlier, fractured report of a "blue storm-demon" had been unsettling. This… this was a declaration of war, a brutal, unambiguous statement of power that defied all their understanding of warfare in the Unheavens.
Vorlag sat upon his throne of jagged obsidian and fused iron, his massive frame radiating a barely suppressed fury that made the very air in the War Blight crackle with a dangerous energy. The unfortunate messenger who had brought the detailed account of Blackfang's fall – a terrified, ash-covered scout who had witnessed the slaughter from a hidden crevice – now lay in a broken, twitching heap at the foot of the throne, his neck snapped by a single, contemptuous backhand from the Warlord. Gore spattered the polished black stone, a stark testament to Vorlag's mood.
"One being?" Vorlag's voice was a low, guttural roar, each word dripping with incredulous rage. He glared at his assembled inner circle: Malakor, the Blood Sorcerer, a silent, hooded enigma; Lyraka, the Serpent-Priestess, her golden eyes wide with a mixture of fear and a strange, predatory excitement; and Grak, the Beastmaster, whose usual bluster was replaced by a pale, sweaty apprehension, his three-eyed Vargr hound whining pitifully at his feet. "You tell me one sky-fallen human, this 'Herald,' led a band of outcasts and freaks, and in a matter of hours, reduced Blackfang Peak – a fortress garrisoned by five hundred of my finest warriors, defended by siege engines and blood-pylons – to a smoking charnel house?"
Malakor, his bone mask impassive, inclined his hooded head. "The reports, Warlord, however… embellished by terror… appear to be consistent. The Herald's speed is… beyond conventional measure. His power, this 'Speed Force,' allows him to phase through solid matter, to deliver blows with catastrophic kinetic energy. And his… allies… the so-called Stormguard… they wield a diverse and potent array of abilities that overwhelmed our defenses with terrifying efficiency. The pyrokinetic, Ignis, alone accounted for the incineration of three battalions."
"Incineration?" Lyraka hissed, a flicker of something akin to professional jealousy in her slitted golden eyes. "His fire… it burned hotter than the forges of the Deepslag Pits?"
"It melted stone, Priestess," Malakor rasped. "And the Herald himself… he possesses a technique… a vibrational disruption… that can unmake matter at a molecular level. Two of my Whispering Blades fell to this… ability. They were not merely killed; they were… erased." A faint tremor, almost imperceptible, ran through the sorcerer's skeletal fingers. Even he, a master of dark and forbidden arts, seemed unsettled by the implications of such power.
Grak, the Beastmaster, finally found his voice, though it was a shaky, uncertain rumble. "My scouts… those who survived… they speak of a blue whirlwind that tore men limb from limb before they could even raise their axes. Of shadows that bled from the walls and slit throats with obsidian knives. Of winged demons that plucked warriors from the battlements and dropped them into Ignis's fire-pits. It was… a slaughter, Warlord. Not a battle."
Vorlag slammed his gauntleted fist onto the armrest of his throne, the obsidian cracking under the impact. "Enough! I will not be cowed by tales of a human whelp and his circus of freaks! Blackfang was a setback, yes. A painful one. But it was a lesson. We underestimated this… Herald. We underestimated his rage. We will not make that mistake again."
He rose from his throne, his massive frame casting a long, menacing shadow across the War Blight. He paced before his commanders, his fury a palpable force, his mind already churning, seeking a new path to victory, a new way to crush this upstart power.
"Malakor," Vorlag's voice was a low, dangerous growl. "Your Whispering Blades failed. Your despair-seed at Kyanos was shattered. This Herald… he is a direct affront to your arts, to the entities you serve. What say you now, Sorcerer? Do your dark gods offer any solutions? Or do they merely hunger for more souls, regardless of who provides them?"
Malakor remained silent for a long moment, the crimson light within his orb pulsing with a slow, deliberate rhythm. The air around him grew colder, the shadows in the chamber seeming to deepen, to writhe with unseen presences. When he finally spoke, his voice was a dry, sibilant whisper, like the slithering of a serpent over ancient bones.
"The Herald's power, Warlord, is indeed… vexing. It is not of the Weave, nor of any conventional magic. It is… primal. Chaotic. And it seems to possess an inherent resistance to the energies of the void, to the despair that so effectively broke Kyanos. A direct confrontation with our… more subtle arts… may prove… inefficient."
"Inefficient?" Vorlag roared. "Your assassins were unmade, Sorcerer! Your greatest weapon against the Technocrats was shattered! I would call that more than inefficient!"
"Patience, Warlord," Malakor rasped, unperturbed by Vorlag's fury. "The entities I serve are ancient, their wisdom vast. They have faced storms before. And they know that even the most violent tempest has an eye. A weakness. The Herald, for all his power, is still… human. He feels. He bleeds. And," the bone mask seemed to tilt, a grotesque parody of a thoughtful frown, "he loves."
Lyraka's golden eyes glinted with a sudden, cruel understanding. "The elf-woman. Kaelen. The one he snatched back from death's embrace. The one my Whispering Blades were sent to… silence."
"Precisely, Priestess," Malakor confirmed. "Our initial gambit was… crude. A direct assault. We underestimated their bond, the Herald's… protective fury. But the principle remains sound. His heart, as I have said, is his greatest vulnerability. If we cannot break his storm, perhaps we can… redirect it. Turn its fury inward. Or," a new, even colder note entered his rasping whisper, "corrupt its source."
Vorlag paused in his pacing, his obsidian eyes narrowing. "Corrupt? How, Sorcerer? She is Silvanesti, attuned to the Weave, now touched by his own life-giving energy. She would be warded against your usual… blandishments."
Malakor's hooded head lowered slightly, as if in deep contemplation. "There are… other paths, Warlord. More insidious. The Weave itself, in the blighted lands, is sickened, vulnerable. And the bond between the Herald and the Warden… it is a conduit. A two-way street. His energy flows into her, yes. But what if… what if something else could flow back? A whisper of doubt. A seed of jealousy. A sliver of the void's cold despair, tailored not to break her spirit, but to… taint it. To turn her love into a weapon against him."
A slow, cruel smile spread across Vorlag's scarred face. This… this he understood. Not the raw, unpredictable power of the Herald, but the subtle, corrosive poison of betrayal, of broken trust. "And how do you propose to plant this… seed, Sorcerer? Kyanos is now a fortress, bristling with unpredictable powers."
"The Krystos Empire has sent envoys to Kyanos, have they not?" Malakor's voice was a soft, insidious hiss. *"And the Technocrats. The city of Stormfront is no longer an isolated anomaly; it is a nexus of competing interests, of fragile alliances. Such places… they are fertile ground for intrigue, for mistrust. A carefully placed rumor, a fabricated piece of intelligence, a… gift… from an 'unknown admirer' to the Warden Kaelen, something that carries a subtle, lingering trace of the void's touch, something that preys on her deepest fears for the Herald's soul, for the darkness she undoubtedly senses within his storm…" *
He paused, letting the implications hang in the air. "Love, Warlord, can be a powerful shield. But it can also be a devastatingly effective poison, if administered correctly. Let the Herald believe his beloved is threatened, not by us, but by his own allies, by the very powers that now flock to his banner. Let him consume himself with suspicion, with paranoia. Let his storm turn inward, and devour the foundations of his own fledgling empire."
Vorlag considered this, his brutal mind slowly grasping the serpentine cunning of Malakor's plan. It was not the direct, bloody conquest he craved, but it was… elegant. Devious. And it preyed on the very human emotions that the Sorcerer had identified as the Herald's greatest weakness.
"And while the Herald is… distracted," Malakor continued, his voice dropping to a near-inaudible whisper, "while his Stormguard is fractured by internal suspicion, then, Warlord, then we strike. Not with a frontal assault, perhaps. But with precision. With surgical brutality. We remove not the Herald himself, but the pillars that support his fragile reign. The psionic, Lyra Snow. The pyrokinetic, Ignis. The shadowmancer, Sylas. One by one. Weaken his council, isolate him, and then, when he is truly alone, when his storm is a raging, undirected tempest of grief and paranoia… then we offer him a choice. Submission, or utter annihilation."
A low, guttural chuckle rumbled in Vorlag's chest. He liked this plan. It was cruel. It was insidious. And it had the potential to not just destroy Kyanos, but to break the Herald's spirit, to turn his own power, his own emotions, against him.
"Do it, Sorcerer," Vorlag commanded, his eyes gleaming with a renewed, predatory light. "Unleash your whispers, your shadows, your subtle poisons. Let the Serpent's Coil tighten around their precious Stormfront. Let them choke on their own suspicions, their own fears." He bared his teeth in a savage grin. "And prepare the Hordes. When the time is right, when their city is rotten from within, we will march. And this time," his voice dropped to a chilling promise, "there will be no survivors. Only ashes. And the silence of a broken storm."
The Obsidian Throne had indeed been shaken. But from that shaking, a new, more insidious strategy had emerged. The war for the Unheavens was about to enter a new, darker phase, a phase of unseen battles, of whispered betrayals, of a psychological warfare designed to cripple the Stormguard from within, before the final, brutal hammer blow fell. Malakor's machinations were in motion. And the Serpent's Coil was slowly, inexorably, beginning to tighten around the unsuspecting heart of Kyanos.