Sons of Ironstorm - Book 4: Griffon's Stand

Chapter 2: A Dark Subterfuge

"As part of the Empire as dark magic and evil,

subterfuge, deception, and misdirection played a central part

in keeping the subjugated races under the Empire's boot.

Yet, as often as it was used against those ruled,

such ploys were used on those that ruled by the emperor."

- from a treatise on the Crimson Empire, Seventh Expansive Period,

the Cadremoor Alliance

Cloak held tightly around its body, the solitary figure paused on the threshold between Reality and the Abyss to examine the organized chaos that thronged around the long, sloping ramp leading from the gateway's mouth. Everywhere the eye fell Kaal Eran soldiery in their characteristic black armour mixed with dark soldiers bred on this world; tjor'riin, trolls, Wendigo and Nahkiwin, each hurrying along with assigned tasks in hand or, in the case of the Wendigo, bearing burdens for their overlords and taskmasters. The robed humans that had allied themselves to the Kaal Eran, calling themselves 'sorcerers', if the figure wasn't mistaken in its terminology, joined the dark soldiers on occasion. They swept along in tight knots, heads together as they discussed one thing or another, always plotting and scheming.

The figure shifted slightly then was forced to step aside to allow a massive cargo carrier by, the great lozenge of black metal carried by the negative energies propelling it over and lifting it from the ground. It slid past with a low hum, the powerful spells giving it life reaching into the figure's body to rattle its bones despite personal magic fields for protection and defense. It was quickly followed by a handful of its fellows, the carriers descending the ramp to push into the throng beyond, the crowd parting to let them pass before closing back in behind.

In turn marching columns of warriors, their polished black armour gleaming in the dull sunlight that managed to leak through the heavy clouds overhead as they strode in unison, followed the carriers. An officer led each phalanx, rank emblazoned in red lacquer on its shoulder in the violent and abrupt characters of the demonic tongue spoken in the Abyss.

Again the figure kept to the side to let the soldiers march by, unnoticed by the empty eyes staring out of hundreds upon hundreds of visor slits. The eyes that watched them from darkness within the deep cowl were anything but empty, however. They were filled with a dark intelligence, ancient even before Ramnor was born; eyes that had seen the rise and the fall of the Kaal Eran dominion in the emptiness of the Abyss. An intelligence that felt nothing but derision for these empty creatures that resembled the proud beings it had known long ago. Of course they had worn a different name then, a name changed by the ones banished to their realm by the maker of Reality, who had recruited them in a war against their fellow demigods. Then the demons that would become the Kaal Eran made space and time tremble with their might. Then they were truly powerful, not weak and useless like these pale imitations that dared to call themselves.

The cloak somehow hiding the figure from the eyes that swept from countless faces over the hole in space that was the Demon's Gate, the lean form started from its place on the threshold, its observations and musings apparently done. It stepped down the ramp to quickly vanish into the seething throng.

Twice the size of any sa'anish city during the height of their expansion over Ramnor's continents in the brief nirvana preceding the blight of the War of Shadow, the Kaal Eran base far to the south on the twisted continent of K'Tallus clawed upward into the frigid air from its place at the mouth of K'Tallus' greatest natural harbour. Long dead sa'anish explorers had named it the Bay of Xer'Tanith, after a great mage in their history. But with the opening of the Demon's Gate by the Sa'anish Conclave, it hastily took on a new name: Maedorin, the Bay of Shadows.