Chapter 3 DARK OMEN II

The hope and valour of the resisters thereupon were very much vitiated. There were clashes of steel and the swoosh of arrows, spears and stones; arrows and spears burst into the bodies of countless beings whilst stones smote many creatures, and some forces in Lord Golrus' army flew not death.

There were cries of the killers as well as the severely wounded victims. Innumerable freemen and slaves, while running here and there mid the parlous situation, wailed like lost souls that were tortured by very strong demons in the netherworld of the evil god.

The island, alas, had become a battle ground; whereupon, before a matter of longish time and thenceforth, many parts of the island were bound to become plates of fabulously bountiful food for the living creatures that would survive on the remains of human beings and animals.

Indeed, the great battles at the different provinces of Agron were far from their respective ends. Bedlam filled Agron since the invincible army of darkness was on the verge of putting its resisters to rout by means of death and captivity.

Megalopolises, and even Darlia, the powerful metropolis, had no ray of optimism for even an iota of the scent of triumph. The good deities seemed to have greatly approved of the sombre kismet of their worshippers.

Dragons, alas, were putting manifold buildings to the torch and the people who were hit by the flames of the incendiary beasts were immolated. Sanctuaries and treasure houses were sorely despoiled of treasure and patrimony mid the grave ruination: the dire sacrilege of a kind that nae place had ever seen on the island.

Many heads were prised from their respective bodies. People were held by the winged monsters, conveyed overground, up and up, and, alas, they were made to meet mortal free fall. Numberless corpses stood bloodied here and there like carcasses on the immense butchery grounds of abattoirs.

Many buildings in all the habitations had turned luscious foods to the relish of the roaring flames, moreover, the pillars of smoke and murk of smoke, as they soared and poured heavenwards, wished that they could form clouds in the welkin.

Alas, the megalopolises of the provinces had become necropolises that were waiting for the human remains to make for themselves the graves of their own. The animate sons and daughters of the vanquished might ne'er see the liberty of their precious homeland, for they were bound to become eternal slaves to the sorcerer who had made the great calamities come out of the blue.

Innumerable Agronites were fettered and kept alive, though Agron had been a place where escape was vain. The wounded, those who were avid for the afterlife and had realized that Death was just a stone's throw away, vastly thirsted for coup de grâce; a few did get coup de grâce, whereas others expired just after they stilled.

The wind mourned. Dark clouds sorrowfully enfolded the sun. The celestial bodies of night-time veiled themselves in the ether, too woeful to emit their light. The firmament hankered to weep and let its spate of tears surge down all over Agron. The living Agronites grieved over their several dead relatives.

Every province grieved over the fall in its manhood plus the dire decrease in the number of women and children. Men had forsaken their kinsfolk, whereupon orphans, elegiac parents, motherless people, fatherless people, widowers and widows abounded. Grief hung heavy on the island. Besides, those who grieved over the dead had already been put in shackles.

Lord Golrus, sitting astride a dragon, grinned in a sullen night sky in Darlia. He was blindingly pleased with the brutality of the bestial creatures that were at his beck and call. Alas, every province on the island had lost its bliss to the warlock who had deployed his extremely evil mojo before the seemingly puny divinities.

Lord Golrus gave a supernaturally ear-splitting cackle that effectuated an incandescent flash of forked lightning which was soon followed by an ear-piercing clap of thunder that burst athwart the island. The thunderclap even caused land and the deep that girdled the island to tremble.

A biting gale began to sweep through every part of Agron. It howled and howled. Besides, there was not even one animate creature outdoors in the dreadfully violent wind.

Some plants had died and numberless plants had lost some of their parts in the face of the erstwhile hazards, moreover, plants were now beset by another hazard, a wildly strong scourge. Plants were bound to lose many flowers, leaves and fruits.

Dead leaves were frolicsome fairies in the gale. Flashes of lightning came up. Claps of thunder came up. Rolls of thunder came up as if the celestial divinities were woefully drumming overhead even as the wind seemed to be weeping a plangent song, and plants appeared to be dancing wildly to the sounds that were created by the wind and celestial divinities.

When the storm clouds opened so that rain poured down, the bad weather deteriorated; the heavens became sorely angry and thus the start of a tempest. The adversity of the plants had just doubled, whereupon rich soils were likely to go poor because of the intensity of the flood.

After the tempest had dwindled and gone away, it seemed as though the island had met its sudden end. Also, it seemed as though Agron had turned a void. Quietude, but quietude descended in Agron.