Chapter 2 DARK OMEN

The night stood moonless, and perhaps the moon was under the sway of an enchantment so that it silvered not any part of Agron with its light, or possibly the night was one of those numberless times when the moon was utterly cloaked in its garment of invisibility so that the eyes of whatever living being expected not to behold it.

The stars were not different from the moon, for not even the brightest one amongst them was powerful enough to go against the grimness of the overcast sky. The pitch-dark clouds were scudding southwards.

Indeed, the violent wind, as though a rare tempest was about to come, howled round the hills, fields, habitations and more besides, rendering manifold leaves and weak branches adrift.

Not even one person that dwelt in any of the habitations of the island stayed outdoors mid the minatory weather, for the night was fast going pitch-black, frigid and more bizarre, moreover, outside the habitations, as long as a person still had breath, they would make haste to fly the coming scourge.

The blackness of the night had already engulfed the hills, mountains and woodlands, but the habitations were starry skies owing to the countless lamps al fresco.

There came the frightening roar of an unseen beast. Lord Golrus, sitting astride a dragon that was standing on the ground, narrowed his grey eyes as he contorted his hirsute face unpleasantly in the witching hour. A callous light stayed steady in his eyes.

His dark dreadlocks well bespoke sheen, flowing down over his large shoulders. His red surcoat stood over the back of his suit of golden armour whose breastplate had a grisly emblem which was a serpent in its coil. The innumerable torches that were shining before his eyes made the suit of gold armour glister.

A burly seven-footer, Lord Golrus was. And again, he possessed a muscular build. A broadsword, which was reposing in a golden scabbard and seeking for blood, was at his studded leather belt. The scabbard glistered in the effulgent torchlight.

The sorcerer did not desire a helmet here and thus was wearing not one. Each of his sandalled feet was in a brazen ring that hung down on either side of the leather seat through which he was sitting on the dragon, and the pair of brazen rings was the simulacrum of a pair of stirrups. The dragon gave a roar.

Lord Golrus looked from right to left at the vast army of rebels, giants, zombies, dragons and griffins that stood before him. The villainous forces were numberless on the immense grassed plateau where he had mustered them.

Here there seemed to be no herald of a tempest despite the firmament was moonless and devoid of stars. The serried forces, in corps and corps, formed an unsurpassed army that stood ready to cause holocausts.

As they were under Lord Golrus' command, they were craving to cut down countless people and wreck habitations. They had the hankering to devastate fortresses and desecrate temples.

The giants, zombies and rebels had with them hatchets, swords of several sorts, battleaxes, quivers that were full of poisonous arrows, sledgehammers, spears, shields, longbows, crossbows, poisonous bolts, daggers, slings, clubs, stones, maces and tridents.

Also, in their midst were horses, chariots, battering rams, gargantuan catapults and scores of heavy stones, for they were hell-bent on sundering great walls and extinguishing portals.

The dragons were very desirous to immolate their foes and emit great flames that would consume manifold properties. They were the enemies of their ruler's enemies.

All the baneful forces that had been mustered on the plateau through grossly dark magic were the foes of Lord Golrus' foes, for they strongly had faith in Lord Golrus with regard to victory.

Their suits of armour were built with iron, and their breastplates bore the same emblem which was on Lord Golrus' breastplate. They had helmeted heads, and the emblem that stood on their breastplates was blazoned on their shields.

Lord Golrus lifted his right fist overhead. The foul creatures, just after they beheld Lord Golrus' uplifted fist, bowed their heads with obeisance to the would-be supreme ruler of Agron, from whom they would gladly accept commands; hereupon, with their voices as vibrant as thunderclaps did they shriek feelingly, again and again. Lightning started to appear in the sullen heavens.

The pillars of their ruler's black courses, they had been designed to be. Mighty destroyers to the islanders who were avid for everlasting easement, they hankered to become. The destroyers of comfort and togetherness and liberty, they yearned to become.

Their bloodlust was heightening; there was the craving to spill their foes' blood from cockcrow through sunset, and from sunset through cockcrow, hitherto the moment when the island would be heaving with dead bodies and captives and forced homages to Lord Golrus.

Lord Golrus anon glared round at the darkling skies. He was desirous to unseat the rulers, annex all the provinces of Agron and make every living being, whether supernatural or otherwise, acknowledge him as the supreme ruler of the island.

To the destroyers had he given commands to slay countless creatures, set habitations in ruins, bring the spoils to him, render numberless people captive, and instigate other brutalities of war according to the will of their own and on behalf of Arzalon.

So it came about that the leviathans of sorcery cut a swathe through the borders of the provinces, storming every habitation and battering down walls and portals of strongholds. Furthermore, beachheads worked to their advantage.

The baneful forces were going at their enemies fatally. Even dauntless sentinels were falling mid the defence of their homeland, and the doom stood inevitable. They made catapults power heavy stones towards castles.