The Stewardess of Boria had elicited little fanfare upon arriving in the fortress-city of Sanc Valatir as part of the entourage of Regent Master Ai. Charged with the command of the northern near-half of the Night Mother's empire, Ai naturally received more attention upon his arrival than Stewardess Helkha, who was merely a steward of a depauperate and easily-forgotten realm far to the north. Though she was well received by the welcoming party of Sanc Valatir, the Stewardess was almost-immediately overlooked by Kalon's lackeys as they devoted their full attention to Ai in their discussions about the upcoming council meeting - a council that was to be attended only by the great archons and the greatest of the exarchs. This exclusion did not bother the Stewardess; if anything, the Stewardess was relieved to be excused from the tedium that was imperial politics. With Ai gone to all manner of meetings and councils for the past few days, Helkha found herself with many hours of idle time.

She had spent the morning wandering the lower levels and annexes of the Valatirnine Sanctum. Somewhere in the upper reaches of this great edifice, Ai, Kalon, and the archons were conversing at this very moment about some matter of great importance. While the masters of the Illyrican Empire decided on matters that would shape the course of history on Ethica, Helkha found herself browsing the extensive collections of the Sanctum's archives. Though the Valatirnine Sanctum's archives could scarcely compare with the legendary Bibliotheca of Charce nor the great libraries within the Tower of Shades in Thulthar, Exarch Kalon's collection of scrolls, tomes, and glyph-etched tablets were still far more extensive than the pitiful library that existed back home in Rasthomig.

The archive's wizened curator, unaccustomed to visitors of any sort - especially dignitaries from distant realms - was delighted to assist when Stewardess Helkha requested any maps of the lands beyond Illyrica. Gladdened by the reprieve from the monotony of cataloging and sorting documents, the wisp-bearded librarian seated Helkha at a large table that he soon set about covering with all manner of rolled parchment and scrolls. She thanked the curator for his assistance and set about digging into the maps splayed before her.

The maps of a dozen foreign dominions were splayed out before the Stewardess; distant lands that the Stewardess knew so little of. Born to a tribal lord in the remote northern reaches of Boria, Helkha's education had been rather unconventional compared against that of the nobles of the Motherlands. As such, her geographical knowledge of Ethica was somewhat lacking. She had only learned to read at the age of fifteen when Vadigar left her as Stewardess of Boria; after all, Boria had only a crude and seldom-used alphabet of runic glyphs before the realm was incorporated into the Night Mother's dominion. Helkha's upbringing in tribal Boria had a single purpose: to marry off to the son of another tribal lord in order to cement tribal alliances. But the purpose of Helkha and Vadigar's lives changed dramatically with the arrival of the Illyrican Empire into their homeland. As a young girl, Helkha could have scarcely imagined being the ruler of Boria; she never would have believed that she would travel so far as the Tiranine Mountains. She still could not believe that her brother had traveled beyond the edge of the known world. The lands that Vadigar had reached had to be known to [i]someone[/i]. Helkha hoped that someone had charted a map of those distant realms, and that hope had galvanized her to see if Exarch Kalon happened to have such a map in his more extensive archives.

The Stewardess glossed over each map, briefly seeing if the realm it depicted corresponded with Vadigar's rough whereabouts. She looked over a map titled the [i]Southwestern Reaches of Draor Chor[/i], a seemingly-vast and hilly realm far removed from Illyrica's frontiers, before sliding it away. Curiosity struck the Stewardess when she saw a map depicting an unfamiliar landmass whose shores were ringed with reeflike archipelagoes. The features of this land were scrawled in a writing style the likes of which Helkha had never seen and the only Illyrican transliteration offered was that of the title, which simply read [i]Jiaozi[/i]. She eventually set that chart aside and rifled through a few more maps.

Helkha eventually came across a map that caught her attention. The placement of such features and mountain ranges and lakes was awkward and unnatural - suggesting that much of the lay of the land was drawn based off of conjecture rather than geographic survey. It depicted a coastal realm surrounded by a chain of great mountain ranges. A great body of water stretched ever westward. Helkha's eyes widened when she read the title of this map: [i]The Sorcerer Kingdoms of the Sunset Ocean[/i]. This was the map she had been searching for, the lands against which Vadigar had spent the last ten years campaigning.

She traced her finger around the peripheral realms on the eastern side of the mountain ranges and found Hadu, Basim, and Thedaar. Helkha recalled these strange-sounding names from her final conversations with Vadigar by scrying orb. These, her brother had explained, were vassal kingdoms to an empire ruled by warlocks known as the Djaam. Vadigar would gladly recount tales of battle against Djaam mercenaries in these lands, and how the victories against them had earned him numerous allies among the vassals who were eager to overthrow their hated masters. Helkha guided her index finger northward, into the sheer mountains north of Hadu. Somewhere in those mountains, her brother had attempted to circumnavigate the fortified passes between that linked Hadu and Thedaar to the Djaam homelands. That was also the last place she had heard from Vadigar.

She squelched the fearful thoughts associated with that last conversation, and assumed her dear brother had indeed crossed the mountains. She traced her finger westward, out of the mountains, into the inner provinces of the Djaam Empire. In these coastal lands there were drawings of what appeared to be several large cities orbiting the figure of a great citadel on the coast named Zar Dratha. There was Zar Mythrad in the northeastern province labeled Ayt Sharduum, a seaside fortress in the far north called Vagora, and in the southeast was Kaldir.

Helkha thought of what these distant and exotic lands might be like, what armies their inhabitants might bring to bear against her beloved brother. It was comforting to know that these lands did indeed exist; that her brother had not simply disappeared into the farthest corner of Ethica. Vadigar, she dearly hoped, was fighting in these lands even now. And so, Helkha whispered a prayer to Mother Izalith, asking that she guide her brother through those distant and dangerous lands.
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There was no doubt now: the Night Mother was with them.

Vadigar, surrounded by his entourage of lieutenants, marched triumphantly up the spiraling causeway up to the inner citadel of Kaldir. They were halfway up to the rock-hewn summit of this mighty citadel, and from this point Vadigar and his men were already afforded a breathtaking vista of the city that they had so-effortlessly taken. From here, they could just look over the walls - more than one hundred feet high even at their lowest point - and survey the rolling hill country the comprised the breadbasket of the Djaam Empire. Kaldir's ramparts, shimmering in the late morning sun with black obsidian in some places and glowing orange-red with red lavastone in the others, were too tall to have been built up with mortar and bricks. These walls, and the rest of the city, had been [i]carved[/i], not built. Vadigar's native translators said that Kaldir was once a small volcano, whose frequent eruptions of ash enriched the surrounding hill country.  But the Djaam, in an earlier age, used their magic to silence the volcano forever. Over the course of hundreds of years, their slaves whittled the volcano into a citadel surrounded by a great wall of solid rock, leaving the impregnable citadel of Kaldir in its place.

Impregnable, perhaps, against the most numerous of armies and the greatest siege engines in Ethica. But Kaldir's fortifications were very seldom put to the test. The mammoth gates into Kaldir's walls were so heavy and cumbersome that it took nearly an hour to shut them, and so the gates were left open during the night and day, with only contingents of guards standing at the gates to control the inflow of travelers. The Djaam had no idea that Vadigar and his host had crossed the mountains, and were caught woefully unprepared when his army stormed through the open gates in the dead of night and put the Djaam's warriors to the sword.

By dawn, most of the Djaam's warriors had surrendered, save for those who had fallen back into the citadel itself to defend their masters. But it would not be long before the citadel was breached, and those few loyal warriors paid the ultimate price for defending their doomed masters. Even now, Vadigar could hear the percussive thud of the battering ram against the citadel's hardened obsidian doors. Within a reasonable time, Vadigar imagined, the doors would give way, and 1,000 of his seasoned Borians would storm through the breach.

A satisfying crack of stone breaking under strain resounded across the captured city, prompting Vadigar to look up to the citadel. The rhythmic thud of the ram continued however, giving proof that it had not been the citadel's doors being broken by the battering ram. Something else had broken, and Vadigar looked around to see what it was.

In one of the city's plazas below him, he saw the source of that noise. A cadre of his soldiers, armed with pickaxes rather than swords or spears, were scrambling away from a huge circular dais carved from obsidian. A colossus of the same glistening obsidian stood some sixty feet high upon the pedestal. The figure was a nubile goddess, nude with arms wide open. Three pairs of batlike wings spread forth from her back, and she wore a crescent-shaped crown upon her parted brow. Vadigar recognized this being as Rabal - the moon goddess worshiped by the Djaam. He could see that the colossus was now leaning forward, teetering on the pick-hewn stumps that had once been her ankles. The colossus suddenly tumbled over forward, shattering upon the plaza with a thunderous peal.

"HAIL IZALITH!" Vadigar heard shouted from the plaza. The Exarch wore a wide smile as he continued up the causeway toward the citadel.

A smaller plaza existed at the base of the citadel - a wide open space surely designed to allow the Djaam to rain their fell magic down upon attackers from the upper reaches of their citadel. Indeed, a few black scorch marks on the plaza stones gave proof that the warlocks had cast thunderbolts down on Vadigar's soldiers. But a number of archers trained on the upper windows and balconies of the spire were enough to keep the Djaam at bay, allowing the Borian shock troops to continue battering against the doors unmolested. As Vadigar and his lieutenants entered the plaza, one of the soldiers manning the iron-tipped log left his post and ran over to address him.

"Hail, Exarch!" The soldier saluted, throwing his arm around his lord's cape-clad shoulders to embrace him.

"Doremun," Vadigar exclaimed, returning the embrace. "I have heard that your performance in the attack was exemplary. Many of the Djaam's men died upon your blade; you fought well."

"Only because it was the Night Mother's will," Doremun reminded, releasing Vadigar from the embrace.

"Indeed," the Exarch affirmed. "She has been kind to us this day."

"You don't know the half of it, milord. Come, Look what these Djaam imbeciles have allowed us to have."

Vadigar directed his lieutenants to take Doremun's place on the ram before being led away from the citadel to a collection of buildings surrounding the citadel plaza. At the doors of these buildings, captured warriors of the Djaam were watched over by Vadigar's soldiers as they laid armfuls of swords and spears upon linen sheets at the feet of the occupiers.

"We can field several thousand warriors with these arms," Doremun said as they watched the plunder of the armories. "Warriors I am certain that we will easily muster from the people of Kaldir. Even in their own cities, it would seem that there is little love for the Djaam."

"Mother be praised," said Vadigar.

"Oh, but I have saved the best for last, milord."

Doremun led Vadigar away from the armories to a tall, long edifice built of lavastone brick that Vadigar guessed to be a warehouse full of grain. But the fact that the doors were some 30 feet tall and 16 feet wide, coupled with a low bestial growl emanating from within the building, suggested that this building housed something different entirely.

Doremun and Vadigar slinked through the cracked doors, and were immediately confronted with the putrid stench of confined beasts. As far as Vadigar was concerned, this building's interior looked more like a stable than anything else, except that it was built three times too large. On Vadigar's right and left were stalls much like a stable, with great iron bars. Vadigar saw nothing in these first two stalls but he could hear something breathing heavily in the next stall to his right. Something [i]big[/i].

Within the iron bars of this stall, Vadigar could see the outline of a great beast sleeping soundly upon a thick bed of straw. His eyes had not yet adjusted completely to the darker light inside this building, but Vadigar believed he could see a four-legged animal perhaps four or five times larger than a horse, whose arms and legs were chained to iron pegs planted firmly into the stable floor. A torso of leathery gray skin rose and fell with every growling snore.

"What is this beast, Doremun?" Vadigar whispered.

"The native translators tell me it is [i]vilespawn[/i]."

"Vilespawn?" Vadigar repeated incredulously. "The same vilespawn as-"

"Yes," Doremun affirmed. "The translators tell me that the vilespawn are more prevalent here in the western lands. More numerous and more varied in their form. There are vilespawn that look much like men, and there are those that are more bestial. The servants of the Djaam go into the wilderness, hunting for suitable vilespawn. Those that suit their fancy are captured and sequestered by the Djaam. As these monsters are the product of corruption, the Djaam cleverly recognized that vilespawn can be easily corrupted and manipulated. They perform wicked magics on these captive vilespawn, accentuating useful features of these beasts, while pruning away others that are less desirable. The Djaam remove the savageness and cunning of these captive vilespawn, making them docile, predictable, and subservient. The Djaam force their bodies to grow to incredible size."

Vadigar's eyes had now adjusted to the relative darkness, and he could see the beast sleeping before him with greater detail. It had a snout that resembled a crocodile, with jagged and irregular fangs protruding from its maw. Four sunken pits in the beast's skull suggested that this beast once had two pairs of eyes; knowing that numerous eyes are purported to give strength to vilespawn, Vadigar suspected that the Djaam had likely pruned its eyes away completely with their magics. A twisting pair of tusks protruded from the corners of the beast's mouth, and the beast's skull - misshapen by runaway magical corruption, poked out from the skin of its head in a spiny frill. A loud crack from outside - the sound of the battering ram fracturing the doors of the citadel - seemed to have woken the beast from its slumber. It gave a gurgling roar, seemingly irritated at being awoken.

"The translators call them [i]val shakum[/i]" Doremun declared. "Vilesteeds."

"Vilesteeds, hmm?" Vadigar repeated before turning his attention to the sound of the battering ram crashing against the doors of the citadel. His eyes scanned over the beast's clawed digits and fearsome fang-tusks, and then thought back to his tiring soldiers battering ineffectually against the citadel's door.

"Let us see if we cannot find someone among the surrendered warriors who can tell us how to fit this beast for war. I would like to show these Djaam how vile their steeds can truly be."