The Dark Liege Of Chaos Is Unleashed… – Bal-sagoth – letras

[ALTARUS:] You must learn to control your spirit-form, Xerxes… for bymastering the art of traversing the mists you may effortlessly travel to manyplaces, and many times. Countless secrets will be unlocked for you, and greatenlightenment shall be yours.[XERXES:] Yes, master… and yet, there is one realm which intrigues me aboveall others, one era which occupies my thoughts unceasingly… What of theclash between the Royal Army of Hyperborea and the Wraiths of the Chaos-Liege?[ALTARUS:] Ah, yes… command the mists, Xerxes… gaze into their limitlessdepths… compel them to show you that martial vista which you so ferventlyseek.[XERXES:] Yes… I see the massing forces, the battle is imminent! How splendidthe Imperial Army looks as it fronts the foe… into the fray they ride![Chapter 1: The Bloodying of the King][(The Armies of the Hyperborean Empire steadfastly engage the Horde of Wraiths)][THE KING:]Imperial Cavalry… advance! RIDE THEM DOWN!In to the fray! Demonstrate unforgettably the art of Hyperborean warcraft!Spearmen, form into Omega Phalanx.Archers, notch arrows, prepare to loose.Warriors, stand ready… Sound the clarion!Hearken, sons of the glorious Empire…Here we stand upon the Field of Blood…Though this day we may die,Our legend shall live forever.[ALTARUS:] And the armies met upon the Field of Blood which stretched lifelessbefore the aeon-veiled citadel which men called the Shrine of A’zura-Kai, amysterious and foreboding place steeped in ireful omens and legendary dread…Aye, the carnage of that first clash was phenomenal. The Hyperborean Cavalrytore gloriously into the foremost rank of the shadow-warriors, the enchantmentof the Crystal of Mera rendering the squamous pseudo-flesh of the wraithsfully vulnerable to the steel of the royal legions. The king himself rode atthe forefront of the onslaught, his ensorcelled ebon blade hewing ten to theleft and cleaving ten to the right, his grim eyes gleaming beneath hisshimmering horned and plumed helm. The momentum of that first charge threw thedark ones into shrieking disarray, and the vanguard of Chaos fell back beforethe thundering resolve of the Imperial attack. But the baleful, poisonedblades of the wraiths took their toll upon the Hyperborean horsemen. Raught byleprous swords and spears, men and mounts fell screaming to the dusty earth,where they were mercilessly rent and devoured by the slavering jaws of theChaos-Liege’s minions. Aye, glorious was the courage of the royal warriors,admirable was their mettle… for every Imperial Knight felled by the darkones, five wraiths met their deaths beneath the slaughterfall of royal steel.And yet it was not enough. Like a slithering tide, the shadows engulfed thecavalry, and the bloodied king ordered the Hyperboreans to ride clear andregroup. Then, with volleys of shafts as their herald, and the Battle-Prayerof Hyperborea upon their lips, the Imperial Guard marched into the raveningembrace of the melee, and never in the grim and sanguineous history of battlewas there a clash to rival the slaughterous magnitude of that awesomeengagement…[THE ARCH-WRAITH:]Minions of Chaos, rend their flesh, crush their bones, devour their souls![Chapter 2: Havoc at the Shrine of A’zura-Kai][THE KING:]Onwards with our spear-heads gleaming,Meet them with cold steel a’cleaving,Fall only when our hearts cease beating,Men of Hyperborea.[ALTARUS:] At the King’s command, the clarion was sounded to move thebattle-hardened veterans of the Seventh Fen-lander Army into a flankingposition to unite with the remnants of the Royal Cavalry. Like a purifyingstorm the allied Imperial forces clove into the wraiths to deal righteouspattern-welded death unto their nighted foe. But at that moment, black terrordescended screaming from the twilight sky… howling swarms of winged fiends,hurled forth from the malignant bosom of Lord Angsaar, soared razor-talonedinto the fray. Beseiged man-to-fiend upon the field, and harried from above bythe shrieking horrors of the Chaos-Liege, the Hyperborean Army began tofalter, and to fall. And lo, beholding the carnage, the King raised high inhis left hand the ancient Crystal of Mera, and in his right gauntlet hebrandished the Bane of Angsaar, the dread Shadow-Sword once wielded by theChaos-Liege’s immortal nemesis… and he spoke aloud the terror-fraught andaeon-swathed words of invocation which he alone had been audience to deepwithin the shadow-haunted Mountains of the Dead…[THE KING:]By the darkling powers of the Shadow-Sword, I call forth the fury of the stormto rend the massed legions of Chaos![ALTARUS:] And at the sound of his baleful Words of Power, the sky split wide infury, and searing tendrils of ruinous lightning lanced inexorably forth fromthe heavens to rake and reave the massed hordes of Chaos…[XERXES:] The fearful spells he had learned from the Mountain… did theircasting win the battle for the King’s legions?[ALTARUS:] The fiends were dealt a staggering blow by the sorcerousincantations, the power of the spells inexplicably magnified by theenchantments of the Crystal. The Wraiths were routed soundly by the eldermagics, fleeing the field howling their anathemas and maledictions against theKing, and the winged horrors fell seared and burning from the enraged sky. Butthe twisted machinations of insidious Chaos had prepared for the King onefinal blow in this dread confrontation… aye, the Chaos-Liege had reservedhis most heinous perpetration ’til the last…[Chapter 3: The Awakening of Chaos][LORD ANGSAAR:]Fly, my winged sentinel of the night,Deliver unto me the Ninth Crystal of Power,That I may at last be free once more…Come then, mortal! Test that cursed blade of black steel against me if youdare! O’ great king, your pitiful army shall be swept away before my wrath!’Ere the dawn, ten thousand shall die![THE KING:]For the eternal glory of Hyperborea![ALTARUS:] Striking from the swift darkening sky, Angsaar’s Arch-Wraith, whichhad been watching the battle with gleaming inhuman eyes, leaped to the attackand smote the King, engulfing him in its ebon wings and driving itssteel-rending talons into his golden armour. And yet it was not the life ofthe Royal Scion of Hyperborea which the fiend sought to take on that fatefuleve, but rather that which the King held tight in his gauntleted fist… theCrystal of Mera. Wrenching the glimmering antediluvian jewel from its keeper,the Arch-Wraith unfurled its leathern wings and soared into the deepeninggloom with a cacophonous cackle of victory, leaving the King to roar his ireafter the fleeing wraith.[XERXES:] But what did Angsaar want of the Crystal? I know he battled hisimmortal nemesis over possession of the mystic gems many aeons ago… but whatuse would just one of the jewels be to him?[ALTARUS:] After rising from his Chamber of Slumber, the Chaos-Liege’s power wasdirely depleted… and he was unable to venture beyond the obsidian walls ofhis Citadel of Shadows, being compelled to control his wraiths and fiends toundertake his diseased schemes on his behalf. When he ascertained that thewizards of the Royal Court of Hyperborea held in their possession the NinthJewel of the Galactic Confederation of Mera, the most powerful of all thecrystalline keys to the Psionic Epsilon Matrix, he began to formulate anelaborate scheme which would gain him the gem and facilitate his liberation,sundering his fetters and allowing him free reign to spread his vile influenceacross the land once more. Utilizing to its fullest extent the dark art ofsorcerous mind-control. Angsaar succeeded in placing spies and traitors withinthe King’s Court, and thus set into motion a dark chain of eventstreacherously crafted to bring the Armies of Hyperborea to battle at onecarefully predetermined place… the Shrine of A’zura-Kai… an ancientcitadel built over the site where, many thousands of years ago, one of theGalactic Confederation’s galaxy-spanning star-chariots was cast forcibly toearth by the tempestuous skies of a powerful cosmic witch-storm… a placewhere resultantly, the star-born energies of the Prime Crystal would bemagnified tenfold, if wielded in unison with the correct arcane incantationswhich Angstaar alone knew…[XERXES:] Then the battle, the defeat of the wraiths, all that had been merely aruse… a scheme implemented by the Chaos-Liege merely to realize his ultimateambition of the sundering of the mystic shackles?[ALTARUS:] Aye… the Shrine would act as a portal, a gateway opened by thepower of the Crystal, a yawning aperture in the dimensional barrier throughwhich Angsaar could escape the incarceration of his Citadel at last. And asthe Arch-Wraith soared the night-winds on its return journey to its malignmaster, the Prime Crystal clutched in its bloodied claws, the King knew as hewatched the Shrine of A’zura-Kai begin to glow with a great and ominoussidereal luminescence, that he had on that battle-fraught eve defeated onedreadful menace on the Field of Blood only to unleash an infinitely moreterrifying foe… But the Chaos-Liege had reckoned without the power of theone thing he feared the most… the one thing which had the merest glimmeringhope of thwarting his dread scheme and restoring order to gloriousHyperborea…[XERXES:] Yes, the only chance… the last hope for victory…[ALTARUS:] The Shadow-Sword. Evident once more was the fearsomeextra-dimensional intelligence linking the sword and the gem, the samecrystalline sentience which had guided the King to the mountainous restingplace of the ebon blade, and had shielded the presence of the sorcerousimmortal weapon from the dark one until it had been brought into play upon thefield of battle, that magical link placed within the Ninth Gem by the Immortalif ever again the power of the Shadow-Sword should be needed to bring to bearagainst Chaos! And with the Arch-Wraith disappearing into the massing dark,that yard of fearsome black steel spoke once more to the King in the same longdead tongue it had burned upon his mind deep within the Mountains of the Dead,the essence of the Immortal mystically encased within the blade instructingthe Scion of Hyperborea to commit himself to one final, cataclysmic deed… adeed which would end the aspirations of the Chaos-Liege forever, or plungeHyperborea and the kingdoms of the world into an endless abyss of eternalsuffering and a ravening maelstrom of limitless carnage and galactic terror…[XERXES:] What was that deed? What could stop the Chaos-Liege? I must know theoutcome of this confrontation![ALTARUS:] The vista begins to darken… the mists once again weave their spellto withold their timelost secrets. Practice your art, Xerxes… hone yourskills, and the final outcome of this epic tale shall soon be made known toyou…