[center][img]http://txt-dynamic.cdn.1001fonts.net/txt/dHRmLjcyLjkyMTEwMS5RMlZ5ZVhNLC4w/sad-kropotkin-laugh.regular.png[/img][/center] The Arakkai struck before dawn, flooding silently into Zar Endal through the cracks, a seeping wound in the city walls. They marched quietly through dark alleys, spotting only the small folk, commoners that shuttered their windows rather than offering any challenge to the opposing force. These darker portions of the city where home to slaves and peasants, none of which thought to risk their necks for their overlords. The touch-and-go guerrilla warfare honed in the mountain warriors by centuries of skirmishes with Drathans and Saliszi was put to use with great effectiveness as Cerys’s force neared the center. Guards were taken down without a whisper and the inner sanctums of the Drathan rulers breached without any alarm sounding, greatly thanks to their new ally Mahaad and his knowledge of quiet ways into the city. Zar Endal’s leaders were caught sleeping, quite literally. Many were slaughtered in their beds, though four of the highest ranking were preserved and bound on Cerys’s orders. As the first light of dawn broke over the horizon, the last of these woke to smoky tendrils of shadow curling around their mouth and hands. The city had successfully been taken. There was some trouble as the morning drew on and Drathans throughout the city attempted to organize their slave soldier battalions into a fighting force without the aid of their leaders, but these were subdued quickly thanks to the quick response from Roc mounted warriors and a powerful rumor spreading like wildfire through the ranks of Zar Endal’s remaining slave soldiers: the conquerer had come to free them all. Soon even these small knots of fighting died out, their instigators slain or imprisoned. All questions from the locals were put off. They would hear from their new ruler soon enough. [center]§ § §[/center] Later that morning, Cerys stood on a platform before the central tower of Zar Endal, her darksteel armor blood and dirt splattered, her silver hair down and tangling in the wind, vengeance incarnate. The city’s citizens were gathered before her and its fallen rulers bound and gagged behind her, each one strapped kneeling to the wooden planking. The Priestess had never before seen a crowd so still, so breathless, as if the scene was held in eery suspension, all parties waiting for someone to act. It was into this silence that she called out. “Here there are no Lords!” Stepping behind the first of the Drathan lordlings, Cerys summoned a dagger of shadow and slit his throat from ear to ear. “These men and women once ruled over you. They bound your hands and feet in chains, they beat you, they starved you, they bred you.” She stepped over to the next official and carved him a new smile as well. “To them, you were chattel! You were the labor that paid for their magic, their knowledge, their appetites.” She gripped the next Drathan by her long hair, baring her neck to the dagger’s cruel bite and plunged it in. “You were the bodies that fell for their protection! You suffered, and for what? The pleasure of some sniveling lordling, some cowardly Drathan leader? Well, no longer!” With a vicious yank, the priestess opened the jugular of the last Drathan, shoving him away from her and sending his blood pouring over the platform to mingle with that of his colleagues. “Here there are no Slaves!” Cerys stepped to the front edge of her perch, spreading her arms wide as if to envelop all those amassed before her, the dagger disappearing in the harsh light of the desert sun. “Your chains have been struck and by all the gods in the Pantheon I swear to you today that they will not be bound again. You are free! Your life is yours to make of what you will, to build, to burn, to love, or to ravage. You are free! And you will serve the will of the Drathan Union no longer.” The priestess dropped her arms and pointed to the ground at her feet, her pale face flushed with fervor. “Here there is a place for you! "Here there is a place and a purpose for all those who languish beneath the rule of the Drathan Empire, a life for the weary, the scarred, the downtrodden. Here you will be lifted up, given a place and the tools needed to secure the fall of our enemies and the unity of peoples and gods. Raise up your fists and your voices, friends, for we are not only the Unbroken but also the Breakers, the shapers of a not-so-distant Future!” As the last ringing notes of her voice faded among the crowded bodies, Cerys pressed her right hand to her chest, exactly where she had pressed her blood and ichor offering a lifetime ago. “My name is Cerys Shadowborne, Voice of the Wanderer, Defender of the Unbroken! Today I offer each and every one of you a place by my side, a place in Azoth’s hope for a better tomorrow. Who will stand with me?” In the face of the silence before her, Cerys raised her right hand in a fist and called again, louder. “Who will stand with me?” The sound started as a low rumble, quickly gathering momentum as it spread throughout the ranks of the former slaves and commoners. “Who will stand with me?” All the air in Zar Endal was sound, a roar that shook the platform beneath Cerys’s feet and vibrated hearteningly in her chest. The Priestess dropped her hand and stared out at her people exultantly. “Then stand, stand Unbroken, revel in your freedom! Drink! Dance! Tell tales of the glory of years to come, for tomorrow we prepare for war!”