Fireflight

Chapter Seven

A light, tropical rain drifted down from the pink and orange clouds. The sunrise kissed them as it grew with the day, sending the colors playing along the cloud bases. Below lay a vast palatial fortress, perched above a small mountain. It's reinforced concrete walls topped with artillery batteries and missile platforms protected a sprawling complex of workshops, storehouses and support buildings to a grand palace built into the heart of the mountain. 

The palace's owner and master strode peacefully through the great halls, adorned with beautiful and ancient tapestries, rich carpets that covered the marble floors and plastered walls braced by exquisitely carved wood pillars. He made his way to the huge kitchens and snatched up a freshly baked doughnut, crafted that morning by the palace's bakers. A large mechanical hand reached up and slid a cybernetic mask from a snarled face, and the master took half the treat in one bite. 

He continued through the main hall, taking in its vaulted ceilings and stained glass. Massive marble pillars inlaid with gold and silver patterns of flowers with large bright jewels inlaid in their centers shone in the early morning light like thousands of stars. Although he had lived here for much of his life, he never ceased to be amazed by the brilliant artistry. Passing his ornate throne on a stepped dais, he passed through the open great doors that led into the entry hall. 

Finishing the doughnut with another bite, and replacing his mask, he left the palace and entered the beautiful and sprawling grounds. Taking a left, he made his way to a large tower; the observatory. The shadow of a sky bridge hung over him, and though he could have taken the shorter route from his quarters to the tower via the bridge, he preferred the long way in the mornings. 

He entered the first floor of the tower and took the steps two at a time, with the spry energy that betrayed his age. Finally he reached his destination, the top of the tower, covered by a carved, conical roof and left open on all sides to the elements. The warm rain dripped from the unique and well designed gutter system and down in spirals along stained copper hoppers. From there the tiny drips would fall down the side of the mountain and into the base of the small rivers and streams that ran out through the huge city that circled the mountain. 

His golden eyes swept out across the urban sprawl before him. Great skyscrapers soared thousands of feed into the sky, forming a far flung forest that curved up the coastline of the great lake of Kaniatario. Shorter buildings spread from the ridge of towers, decreasing in height as they went further out. This was the city of Tarenketer, capital of the Silver Legion. The master of the palace was its leader, the great Chancellor Byransk Brezstag. 

The massive hellhound looked out at his holdings, just a insignificant fraction of his empire, his cybernetic limbs and chest plate accentuating his armored cloak. The Chancellor ruled over an empire spanning larger than the once Soviet Union in the world of the living, an empire home to nearly 675 million people. The Silver Legion rivaled even the territory held by the Magne's, although it held less territory and had a lower populace. 

Chancellor Byransk leaned over the stone crenellations of the tower and sighed. For  forty nine years he had ruled over the Silver Legion, bringing sweeping change and development to the now superpower. As a child, he had been born to one of the kingdoms that ruled the western reaches of the now empire, and as a man he had finally united all of the regions between the Infernal Mountains and the Beurnanenland. Now, after a ten year war and the four decades of peace that stretched between it, Byransk found himself on the brink of another war. Knowing he would have to leave his overlook to the boring, scene-less briefing rooms built deep into the mountain, the hellhound grumbled and swung around the leave. If he'd have it his way, they would have met here where he could look out at the beauty of his empire.