Rosenrot — Roleplayer Guild

{{Infinite thanks to @Torack and @LordOfTheNightfor your critiques!!}}

Metal parts clanked heavily against each other as the strange object rolled along the wooden tabletop. When it stopped, absolute silence hung throughout the sprawling command tent. It drifted between the occupants like some unseen, unsettling smoke. So palpable was it, that the superstitious present wondered if some specter of their absent warlord had manifested, his fierce eyes still critiquing their every action and inaction from beyond an unknown grave. Three years had passed while the Black Throne of the Dol'Vrah sat empty, but a much more pressing issue had brought the counsel together that day. 

An expression of deep confusion came to the features of the woman standing at the head of the table. Her armor reflected flickering light from dozens of candles illuminating the tent. “What in the names of all the gods is that?” Adelaide asked, picking up the strange object. It was heavier than she expected and required both of her hands to hold. The contraption was so impossibly complex that even the few rudimentary rifles she'd seen were utterly crude by comparison. Her confused scowl became a look of fascination. No weapon she'd ever seen was so intricate. Her ice-blue eyes inspected dozens of moving parts, all exquisitely fitted and perfectly oiled. Strange threads hung from one end. Each one had a metal core, copper if she wasn't mistaken, wrapped in a rubbery coating. 

“An arm.” General Drefen answered. The sallow-faced mage stood at Adelaide's right hand, as always. She was tall, but he was taller, as were all the inhuman Dol'Vrah. Other officers crowded around the sides of the table. As long as the warlord was still missing, all of them were of equal rank. All knew that time was drawing to an end, however. The battle between them would soon begin as cries for a new warlord had long been growing louder across the empire. Some already suspected that an alliance had been made between Drefen and the red-headed human, and that the pair were merely biding their time. All schemes had been paused, though, as a threat from without had grown large enough to eclipse even worries of a looming civil war.  

“An arm?” Adelaide parroted his answer with disbelief. She hadn't personally witnessed the battle against these strange beings, or machines, or whatever they were; she'd only heard the resulting tale of horror. The troops that had encountered a small squadron of the metal men had been victorious, but at a high price. The casualty rate was almost double the average losses. No survivor had escaped unharmed, with the luckiest among them bearing only severe burns. Others had lost whole limbs and one of the deceased was completely missing a quarter of his skull. 

All other eyes laid on the de-facto leader of the empire, while hers stared at the great seat some distance from the opposite head of the table. She had been closest to the Black Throne when it was occupied, but the empty chair offered her no answers from its shadowed resting place. Would the warlord, her old friend, know what to do against this new enemy? Adelaide tossed the steel limb onto the tabletop. It didn't matter much what he did or didn't know, did it? She was already ruling the empire, more or less, with Drefen as her willing front. The troops would revolt if they knew they were being commanded by a human. The Dol'Vrah soldiers had barely accepted Adelaide as a general, and that was the sole reason she still tolerated such a lowly title.

The other generals all flinched away as the strange arm clattered against wood again, an unusually fearful reaction for a group of battled-hardened commanders. She didn't have to voice the question in her eyes before Drefen spoke again. “They fire a kind of projectile. It appears like magic of some sort, but still melts through enchanted armor and weapons.” He explained. Adelaide's mind was swirling. The appearance of the metal men could not have come at a worse time. Their metallic maw gnawed away at the eastern wilderness while usurpers plotted in the Dol'Vrah homeland. 

Where was the Warlord Siegfried? 

The question burned in nearly every member of the empire, but it was heaviest on Adelaide's mind. Her eyes slowly moved from the strange object on the table to the slight form standing near the tent's exit. The fair-skinned slave girl shivered under Adelaide's gaze. Nothing good ever came of the general's attention. Seeing an opportunity to vent some frustration, Adelaide made her way towards her slave, and the exit, with the metallic arm tucked under her own. “Come along, Princess. It is time to die.” She said without even pausing to glance at the condemned woman. 

The slave's delicate features were horrified. She couldn't make her withered legs move. Vius, the largest of the generals and master of the imperial smiths, placed a huge hand on the slave's shaved head and moved her to follow Adelaide. There was nothing the frail captive could do to resist.

Minutes later, she was tied securely to a post that towered several feet over her small frame. She was sobbing with such force that her tiny shoulders still heaved despite her bonds. Adelaide took her slave's tiny chin in her hand and forced her to look into her grinning face. “I thought you'd be happy to return to your precious knight.” She said and the enslaved princess began to cry even more. Was this really how her life was going to end? She'd never truly lost hope, not entirely, despite spending so long as the favored plaything of wicked Adelaide. 

Surely, any second now, her salvation would arrive at last. Time passed at an impossibly slow pace for the princess as Adelaide fumbled with the unfamiliar technology, but each moment was another chance at rescue. The redhead tugged at the weird strands that dangled from the torn steel shoulder. By pure chance, she actually managed to fire a blast. It hit the well-trampled ground, penetrating the packed dirt and launching turf in every direction. A stray rock whizzed towards Adelaide's face and she turned just fast enough to catch it with the edge of her cheek, rather than her eye. Blood trickled from the cut and the rivulet curved to travel over her rounded, smiling cheek. 

She aimed the thing as best she could while the princess turned her watering eyes upward to the sky, sending her last iota of hope to her gods. 

Divine mercy came in the form of a plasma bolt. 

“I want to see these... 'metal men' for myself.”

Not many in the horde were adept at stealth, but those who accompanied Adelaide through that still night were the best. The dark-clad group moved quickly despite their near-complete silence. They ducked low behind tall grass as they made their way up a low ridge side. Once at the top, Adelaide could scarcely believe the sight that met her eyes. The journey to the new warfront had only taken the stealth squad a few days. Barely a week had passed since the unlucky troops had first encountered the metal men. Yet, the landscape on the other side of the ridge was unrecognizable. There was no green to be seen, or even brown. 

Instead, there was only black iron silhouetted against the red glow emanating from a thousand forges, and from the massive pit at the center of the camp. The rumble that had been growing beneath her traveling feet for days was suddenly explained. The steel soldiers that had slaughtered her own were merely defenders for the monstrous machine towering at the center of the hellish encampment. An iron mass spun slowly, drilling into the ground.  

She had just enough time to realize that the ridge on which she crouched was one curving edge of a massive crater, before the constant flow of hot air pushing forth from the encampment suddenly surged. It blew the black hood from her head, revealing her red hair around her masked face. She reflexively reached to fix it but the glinting copper color wasn't what revealed their position to the electric sentinels. The body heat of her reaching arm triggered the targeting code as she attempted to gain a better vantage point. The only warning before a mortar impact blew apart the hillside was the clanking of the massive turret as it turned. Adelaide had heard it and pushed herself backwards down the slope. Even so, she was still caught up in the blast. 

The force flung her across the open grassland. How far, she wasn't certain. The stars overhead streaked by as she braced herself before she inevitably hit the ground. Leather armor prevented her from losing skin to the friction. It did little, though, to protect her from the jarring impacts that bruised her body as she rolled.

A slight loss in momentum was enough for her to regain control and find her footing. The soles of her boots found traction on the grass and she was off in a dead sprint. She was grateful to be unencumbered by heavier armor even as she ripped the thin leather plates from her arms and chest. The discarded pieces would buy her that much more time to flee, though she dared not stop to remove the armor from her legs. Her only weapon was a sizable knife securely sheathed against her thigh. 

If anyone else had survived the explosion, she didn't care. 

Adelaide ran as far as she could before she collapsed, chest heaving in the scrubby brush. The night seemed eternal, though, and it was every bit as dark as it had been when she began. The landscape had changed gradually and her surroundings told her she still had a very long way to go. As soon as she was able, she rose to her feet again. The human thanked every god she'd ever heard of when she saw that there was no sign of pursuit. She topped another ridge that crossed her return path to the horde and paused. 

Dawn was finally breaking as she surveyed the landscape ahead. A streak of pale orange and yellow dimly illuminated the shallow valley below. Movement attracted her attention. A humanoid form was shuffling along some distance away. Its back was hunched, hair hanging dark and long over its shoulders. Her eyes narrowed. In this no man's wilderness, the large figure could only be one thing: a Dol'Vrah deserter, hopelessly lost in a foreign land. She became more disgusted with every step the disgraceful wretch took. The redheaded general drew the long knife from its sheath. Tired as she was, she wasn't too exhausted to suffer a coward to live.

Adelaide crept down the ridge-side and made her way towards her target. The thickening brush provided sufficient cover for her to draw close. She smiled as she realized the gods favored her especially that morning. She saw that the Dol'Vrah was horribly scarred over one shoulder and half of the face. If an eye remained on that side nearest her, it was surely blind. Matted hair hung around the undamaged side of the deserter's face and a ragged beard curled long over his chest. The scar tissue on the maimed half was bald and grossly tanned from long hours in the sun. 

Adelaide could stand that embarrassment to her forces no longer and pounced from the brush, driving her shoulder into the Dol'Vrah's chest. She heard the air leave him and her smile only widened. They hit the ground and her weight pushed out any breath he had left. “Die, deserter!” The human snarled with her knife tip ready to push between the left ribs. Both of her hands were around the handle and her full weight poised to drive it deep into the coward's chest. Adelaide couldn't help but look into the deserter's remaining eye to watch his worthless life end. 

The fierce green glaring back at her was enough to drop the blade from her hand. Her smile dropped to an expression of shock that quickly twisted into a scowl. Her right hand came up and landed a punch on the blighted left side of the Dol'Vrah's face. When he turned the featured half of his face back to her, he was scowling. He opened his mouth to speak, but she hit him on his blind side again. He let the blood build in his mouth while he decided whether to spit it on the ground or in her face. “Not only did I find a coward, but the Lord of Cowards, at that...” She snarled, reaching for her dropped knife. The snarl fell from her lips when his nearly-black blood splattered across her face. 

Adelaide's fingers left pale streaks as they moved down her face and over her lips. She laughed until the exact moment she snatched up the knife with movement quicker than any reaction he could've made.  “I should execute you right here, old friend.” She hissed while she pressed the blade against his throat, her face only inches from his tanned and scarred visage. The general began to lean into her blade and he couldn't stop her. “All these years of war, endless conflict and conquest...” Her eyes had lowered to the wound she was making in his sun-weathered skin, but her gaze cut to his face suddenly. “...have made me something of a monster.” Her voice was barely a whisper. She wasn't entirely aware she'd said the words aloud. 

“Adelaide...” His voice was low, in tone and volume. He moved to sit up and she let him push her knife deeper into his own flesh. His Dol'Vrah blood began to seep from underneath her blade. 

“Are you even worthy to stand, Siegfried?” She growled the question. The fury burning in his remaining eye was all the answer she needed. She sheathed her blade as she stood. She didn't bother offering to help him up, knowing he wouldn't have accepted if she did. 

Her right arm clasped a fist to her chest in salute though she refused to lower her eyes. “Hail unto Siegfried, Warlord of the Dol'Vrah.” Adelaide said flatly, clearly fighting another snarl from her face. Her back turned to him in the next moment. She was furious. All that time seducing and manipulating Drefen, and her alternate patsy Vius, was apparently wasted. Her anger permeated her very steps as she resumed her trek towards the sunrise. 

Siegfried stood and straightened to his full height, despite the painful stretching of scar tissue. Adelaide was well over six feet tall, but Siegfried still towered over her. His long legs closed the space she'd put between them in only a few strides. One huge hand gripped her shoulder tightly and he turned her around easily. The other hand grabbed her jaw. His fingers pressed into one cheek while his thumb dented the other. “You have truly forgotten your place, General Adelaide.” He growled with a scowl on half of his dirt-smeared face. 

“Only because you abandoned yours.” She spat her words in retort. His hand dropped away and she knew then that her words could still cut him deeper than her blade. Adelaide began to circle her prey like a stalking wolf. “You don't even look like a warlord anymore.” She sneered with a bitter laugh. “You look like some little king from some little castle, who caught a plague like all his little peasants. Perhaps I really should kill you out here, bring back your head. Then, I'll watch Vius and Drefen fight to the death for your empty throne.” She taunted. Adelaide was desperate to see what was left of the warlord within that starved and scarred body.

Adelaide knew her simple plot was working when she heard a growl rumbling in Siegfried's massive chest. His temper always had been even shorter than hers. “If you've drunk one drop of their blood, I'll execute them both.” He snapped. His attempt at intimidation only resulted in another laugh from the redhead. 

She watched his solitary eye struggling to keep her in his vision as she strolled around him. “Oh, I've sampled Vius more than once. Drefen would slice his own throat if I gave the order.” She continued to goad him. “I wonder if you'll be able to taste them on your precious cup when we return.” 

Siegfried roared and rushed her. “Filthy Northern whore!” His voice boomed loudly through the quiet morning. The warlord lifted Adelaide by her shoulders, but still she laughed. Every second that she cackled only further infuriated the Dol'Vrah emperor. He was shaking with rage, and with weakness. He couldn't hold her weight aloft for very long. Siegfried dropped her within seconds and she landed easily. 

“Pitiful.” She said and spat on the ground at his feet. “You won't survive a day back in the horde. Vius will break you like a bitch.” She sneered. Siegfried flinched at the cold touch of metal against his skin as she caressed the spot where his left eye had once been with the blunt side of the blade. His obvious fear somehow both disappointed and excited her. “What happened?” She asked, finally coming to stand directly in front of his eye. Adelaide impatiently drummed her fingers against her knife while she awaited his answer. 

“A falling star was said to have landed a week's ride east of the front. Dol'Vrah legends promise unbreakable blades made from the remnants found in those craters.” Siegfried obediently answered. “I left immediately with only the messenger and the witness. No one else knew of the treasure. When I laid eyes on the crater, I killed them both.” He stated with familiar, unaffected simplicity. “I approached the crater. Six of these...” He trailed off, fumbling for a description. 

“Metal men.” Adelaide snapped, eager to reach the end of his tale.

“...Yes, metal men. You've seen them and survived unscathed?” Siegfried's surprise was evident. Adelaide's face was utterly blank and she could see that this unsettled the warlord. “I defeated three.” He continued when it became obvious that she would offer no direct answer. “Then, something passed overhead, and I was on fire. I could hear more of the... metal men... approaching as I burned and so...” He trailed off again, but his companion remained silent. 

Adelaide already guessed what had happened next but she wanted to hear him say it aloud. “I ran away.” He finally muttered with his half-gaze turned to the ragged boots on his feet. Adelaide was no longer tapping on the blade. It had begun to shake in her grip. Something of a monster, she had indeed become, but more monstrous still was Siegfried. At least Adelaide was loyal to the cause of conquest. His scarred appearance was a more fitting form for the hideous soul within, she thought, for his selfishness could cost them everything.

“I ran, too.” She said. He looked at her and she could see some hope for redemption in his eye. The stare meeting his had only grown colder, though. “Except, I ran towards the horde.” Adelaide snarled as she watched his hope flicker out. “I ran towards the army we built, so I could bring their full fury down upon the enemy you have let grow upon us. I can't even number the forges that now burn around that glowing pit they've dug.” She paced and gestured wildly as she spoke. The knife glinted with each wave of her right hand. “Our entire empire may crumble because of you, you greedy fucking yellow-bellied bastard!” Her roaring voice carried nearly as far as Siegfried's had. 

Her voice quieted as she took several quick steps towards the warlord. “I've worshipped you like a god all these years. I mourned you even while I worked to ensure the survival of our empire. Now, I wish you had died that day. Then, I wouldn't have to pretend that you're the fucking warlord while knowing you should be scrubbing horseshit from my boots with every other slave.” She berated him until she realized that with every second she wasted on Siegfried, the metal men were multiplying. 

The disfigured Dol'Vrah was speechless. No one had spoken to him with such open revulsion in his decades of life. Adelaide was several yards away by the time he began to follow her again. 

The sun grew higher, then low again as they walked. She could think only of Siegfried and how she loathed his very presence behind her. She no longer respected him enough to fear him. “I should stab you once for every day that you've lived as a coward.” Adelaide hissed over her shoulder as the sun declined behind them. She'd kept the knife in her hand for hours as if with every step, she was still deliberating whether or not to plunge it into him. 

Her hateful remarks came less often as evening settled in. She finally sheathed the knife sometime just before the sky began to shift colors with the sunset. They walked on in the deepening dark until they found a cluster of trees around a small pond. The water was clean enough for their parched throats and they drank deeply, subconsciously compensating for the insufficient food they'd managed to find along their way. 

That night, Adelaide dreamed of the tireless marching of the metal men. All of the soldiers falling before her mind's eye didn't horrify her nearly as much as the chains brought for her by her steel enemies. Her heart pounded her into waking with a sharp gasp. The haunting gray of early morning hung above a thin mist swirling over the ground. 

The same question that had begun her day for so long surfaced in her drowsy mind. Where was Siegfried? He wasn't slumped against the tree where he'd been when she fell asleep. The general had already decided Siegfried wasn't worth looking for when movement and sound to her left drew her attention. There was just enough light for Adelaide to watch the fairly clear water dripping brown from his beard while he drank. She couldn't bear to look at him any longer. “Wash your damned face already so I can shave that awful beard.” She barked at him as she stood. The redhead stretched her aching muscles, and felt a hard shove send her into the pond. 

One huge foot held her to the muddy bottom. She struggled, but her oxygen-starved body couldn't unbalance the warlord. When Siegfried finally let her rise, she could barely crawl onto the bank. Adelaide coughed and wretched until all water and filth was purged. Her hand went for her knife, finally ready to end her lord's life. Her fingers found nothing to grasp. The sudden fear behind the soaked locks clinging to her face sparked a rumbling laugh from Siegfried. 

He wagged the knife he'd taken from her while she slept, taunting her while a grin turned up one corner of his mouth. “You will shave my face, after you wash it. Then, you'll cut my hair, and when we stroll into our camp, everyone will kneel to me. Whether you'll kneel as a general or a slave depends on how you behave between this moment and that one.” Siegfried watched her mouth fall open as he spoke, blood-shot blue eyes wide. No one could surpass the manipulative mastership of Siegfried. 

Her hand quivered in awe when she accepted her own knife like a precious gift, but the weapon was steady as its flawless edge sheered the hair from his cheeks, his jaw, his neck. How had she slept through the sounds of him sharpening the blade to such a precise edge? 

A Dol'Vrah sentry squinted towards the distant horizon. She lifted a spyglass and the rudimentary lenses provided just enough focus to distinguish two figures approaching the imperial encampment. She gave the appropriate call and waited for more detail to become available to her sharp eyes.

The rare and valuable spyglass soon fell forty feet to the ground and shattered, but no one noticed. The words the sentry called out just before it fell had turned the horde of thousands silent as a crypt one ear at a time, as every eye turned towards that direction. Three words spread from lip to lip like a disease. 

“Lord Siegfried returns!”

While they were still too far for the un-aided sentry to see, Siegfried put his arm around Adelaide's shoulder and she slipped her comparatively thin fingers into his huge hand. “Do you hear them, my love?” He whispered into her ear. Her only answer was her tongue licking the lingering taste of his blessed blood from her lips, beneath her half-lidded, power-drunk eyes. 

Word of the warlord's return spread throughout the camp as Adelaide and Siegfried approached the command tent at its center. Slaves brought a bathing tub and heated water while pages carried summons to the other generals, who were already preparing. Riders and ravens bearing unofficial announcements of the reclaimed throne went forth in every direction. Schemes of usurpation were smothered by the mere mention of Siegfried even while Adelaide still scrubbed the remaining dirt from his skin.

While Siegfried ate his dinner at the command table and began laying out a campaign against the metal men, Drefen stared at Adelaide. The redhead had denied him even a single glance in return, making a subtle effort to save the other general from execution. Vius had always maintained a looser, more practical alliance. He and Adelaide knew all along that the human warrior only truly heeled to the command of Siegfried. The master smith was already devising an independent bid for the Black Throne when he noticed blue eyes finally turn to Drefen, then himself.  

An idea had occurred to Adelaide.

A few hours later, Adelaide leaned against the head of the command table. She watched Siegfried, glutted and drunk, slip from consciousness. He slumped in his throne and his bloated gut appeared to be the only thing holding him upright. While he'd been eating and drinking himself into a stupor, Adelaide's idea had grown into a plot. Satisfied that the warlord was deeply asleep, and that there was not a shred of dignity left in him, the redhead slipped into the night, unseen by anyone. In her hand were two halves of a long-broken crown.

First, she visited Drefen. The mage commander cloaked their passage to Vius's tent. With their voices hushed beneath a visible fog of enchantment, they adjusted their plan. 

The Dol'Vrah were loathe to surrender their armor and weapons that following morning but every piece of metal to the last scrap was collected. The warlord promised all would be reforged and returned once the horde's greatest enemy was defeated. Drefen and his mages were busied with their own bookish tasks while Vius's smiths melted iron, steel, bronze, copper, and every other metal they'd found. Soon enough, there was no time to mourn swords and shields. All available hands were called to begin the second phase of Siegfried's plan. When their construction was finished, a half-dozen massive metallic spheres of differing hues had to be guided towards the east. The polished orbs were carved all around with sigils and circles and already trapped so much energy that the hum emanating from them could be heard and felt. Dozens of soldiers and slaves alike were crushed by mishaps along the way, but no one cared much. Any life lost for the empire only added to the collective glory of the Dol'Vrah. 

Whether the slaves chosen to test the expanded range of the heat-sensitive sentinels were lucky or unlucky depended on one's point of view. Instant death by mortar shell was perhaps preferable to the more creative demises delivered by their masters. The encampment of the horde had been moved horrifically close to the metal men's crater. The spheres were carefully placed while each day was more tense than the last. 

With no metal armor or weapons left, the horde was incredibly vulnerable and everyone knew it. There were almost certainly spies among them, employed by the few free kingdoms still resisting the Dol'Vrah Empire. If word of their weakness spread before they could break down the spheres and re-arm themselves, a multi-facetted assault could equal the threat of the metal men. Mages supervised the sights where arcane circles were being cut into the terrain surrounding each sphere. Sentries watched from towers and patrolled the well-marked perimeter just outside the range of the automaton's heat vision. A quick response would be their solitary hope against any attack from within the crater. 

The final preparations were being laid when a terrible shrieking of metal cut the air. Those closest to the crater felt blood leaking from their ears, then their noses, and finally their eyes just before collapsing. At the bottom of the glowing pit, the monstrous drill's screaming brakes had brought the machine to a stop. The silence left behind was soon filled by the distinct, rhythmic clanking of steel limbs marching. All power within the crater had been diverted to the metallic foot-soldiers. 

Every automaton mindlessly marched forth from the crater. Metal feet crushed the bodies dropped by the braking drill underfoot as they crossed the imperial perimeter. 

Siegfried's green eye went wide when he heard the dying screams of those already being torn and blasted apart by the steel legions. He turned to Drefen, who appeared paralyzed with horror. “What are you fucking waiting for?” The warlord bellowed and the mages' commander came to. 

“It's.. It's not ready.” He stammered. “I don't know what will happen if we attempt-” He was interrupted by Siegfred grabbing him by the collar of his black robe. 

“What you should know, then, is that we will all die if you fail.” Siegfried hissed and all but threw Drefen away from him. 

The mage commander scrambled away, already barking commands to his subordinates. Incomplete as the ritual supposedly was, the general and his battalion had enough power to begin the spell. A pale glow enveloping all of the spheres grew brighter as more voices joined the chant. Lightning crackled in a halo around each orb before arcing outwards to connect them. The energy radiating outwards swirled up a great wind that aided the mages in lifting the metallic spheres. Each massive orb began to spin on its own axis as it hovered. The rotating spheres then began to orbit the crater, faster and faster with each revolution. 

The terrible shrieking of the drill began again, then stopped, then started. Steel centurions turned on each other while others fired their weapons at the ground and into the air. Some pulled off their own limbs or fired plasma blasts into their own metallic skulls. They collapsed, one way or another, among the hundreds already slain. The shrieking of the drill drew louder until even Adelaide was dabbing at the crimson trickle from her ear while she observed the hellish scene of flesh and steel from a relatively safe position.

The deafening shriek finally waned, only to suddenly erupt in an explosion that shook the ground for miles surrounding. Hot iron and molten rock shot high into the air before raining down like burning hailstones. Though his forces were fleeing the scorching hail, Adelaide could already see the glow of victory on Siegfried's face. She watched it falter as he realized the spheres were not slowing. He turned to find his redheaded general had left his side. Siegfried didn't see the remains of the metal men as some force drew the fragments back into the crater.

The powerful explosion and more powerful magic had torn open a portal that was devouring increasingly large morsels of metal. The monstrous drill at the epicenter of it all was wrenched free from within the world's surface by the vacuous anomaly. 

Siegfried turned his back to the arcane light and found Adelaide. She was approaching Vius, who was gripping a massive iron chain. Each link was as long as Adelaide was tall but the thick iron was still clattering against itself in the arcane wind. The master blacksmith was struggling more to maintain his hold on the chain with every step he took towards the crater, and Siegfried. 

Drefen had reappeared though his eyes were aglow with the same hue of light emanating from the orbiting spheres. He had played his part of ignorance well, and Adelaide rewarded him with a kiss on his pale lips. Siegfried's confusion gave way to the sudden weight of betrayal when Drefen placed the re-forged crown of Adelaide's kingdom upon her brow. 

The warlord charged at them with a roar that would be his last. Vius released the chain. Unhindered, it whipped through the air with terrifying speed. Siegfried caught it with his waist and both disappeared into the blinding storm of wind and magic. The three generals stared in his wake for a long moment, as if the warlord might somehow survive and fight his way from the portal's grasp to kill them. Drefen awaited Adelaide's order while his power drained dangerously low. 

“Close it.” Adelaide finally said. 

The light disappeared and Drefen collapsed along with the portal. He didn't have enough power left to slow the orbs. None of the mages did. The spheres' orbit broke and the arcane satellites soared out of sight to devastate unsuspecting landscapes far away. Adelaide nodded to Drefen's limp form and Vius put the unconscious general over his shoulder. They started towards the command tent, already trying to fathom their incredible losses. “All will be righted in time.” Adelaide said to Vius over her shoulder as the command tent came into sight. 

Drefen woke to find himself sitting in a chair, facing the Black Throne. Vius's huge hand thrust a goblet into his grasp before his eyes were even fully opened. When he could focus, the vision he beheld brought a smile to his thin lips. The generals lifted their cups to the throne where Adelaide sat, and she lifted hers in return. Candlelight flickered on her armor, and on her crown.  

“Hail unto Adelaide, the first Empress of the Dol'Vrah.”
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