In the ninth hour of the Last Battle, Sumeral, war-ring with Ethriss in ways beyond the knowledge of men, gazed upon the pitiless slaughter being wrought by the two great armies and, wearying of it, was overwhelmed with a desire to seize at one stroke His final victory.

Then He left the high vantage where His Uhriel held at bay the Guardians, and with silver sword and golden axe cut a shining path of gore to the heart of the fray where stood the mortal frame of His enemy.

For Ethriss had come to the battle unarmed, lest concern for his mortal form distract him from his greater battle with Sumeral’s dark spirit. In the whirling agony of that day, while the army of the Great Alliance battled with His demented hordes, he stood alone, ringed only by his chosen Fyordyn High Guards. An Iron Ring of his oldest and most faithful allies. The least corrupted of men, and His greatest mortal enemies.

Nine hours they had stood unwavering as His raven-ing armies had broken over them like wind-whipped waves. But they were mortal, and they wearied, and at each onslaught they were fewer, and the Iron Ring shrank inexorably. Now a terrible fear came over them as His approach was seen, bright like the morning star through the swirling mist and smoke of that awful field.

For He was a glorious and radiant sight in His beauty and power, and all knew that mortal weapons would turn from His body, armoured as it was with the Power of the Great Searing from which He had come. And all knew that His gaze alone was beyond the will of any man to withstand.

But it is said that all things create the means of their own destruction.

So it was now. For in that grim circle was one who was of His creating. Old even then. Made old by His scornful, dismissive blessing. Old beyond loves and hatreds. Old in implacable resolution that He would be thrown down this day though it destroy the world.