Conquest Of The Fallen: Dark Dominions

[🎶 Surrounded by Silence – David Arkenstone.]

"THE DRUMS OF WAR! O how they pound!"

"Dum! Dum! Dum!"

"THE BELLS OF BATTLE!!!

—O'er the hills come ringing!"

"Clang! Clang! Clang!"

"LIPS OF WARRIORS a'singing!"

"Yah! Yah! Yah!"

On the march of the eighteen thousand barbarians, it was one folk war chant after another.

A hard maiden would call the opening line from the front of the lines; swinging her sun-browned, brawny arms. Ten thousand men would harken back. Their voices echoed across the desert like the clacking of a million rattlesnakes. It carried on the wind and sand, and before ever they crossed the first triliths on the border of the Capital, news had reached the golden city.

Unheard it was that a myriad of Blackguards could be made of such quick work in battle. But the one thousand elite forces of the Dowager had met their deaths before they could do shit about it. To their credit, it was more a confrontation that actual combat. By the time their commandant was to yell, "Attack!" Rafel had already severed tongue and head from the armored soldier's body with his [Reaper] scythe.

From the towers of Darkwake, the black smoke of ten hundred bodies could be seen darkening the clouds of the South.

"Inbred bastards!" A [Second Hel Circle] demon with one forehorn yelled in the canvas streets of Titans Landing. "—All of them! He assembles a horde of robbers and gravediggers to fight his war. Our Apollyon has lost his way; see how he turns against his own kind. Death! Let the Dowager see to his death."

A [skyling] fae girl standing near at the time of this dwarven demon's spirited words hid her face under the cover of her silk veils. Her tipped ears too. She ducked under an alcove in an alley and whispered solemnly. "Tis' you whom shall see death, devil! You and your clan of rapists. He shall send you to the bands of fire from whence you came." The blond girl raised her yellow eyes to the skies, saw the grey smoke of the sad pyre and smiled.

"Godspeed, rebel lord."

Israfel was still good miles from the golden gates, but he already had friends in the city. Friends he would need. In another hour, their march would break the frontier of the watchmen. He had taken a fast horse today. His closest comrades on the raiding cavalry were the Skullriders. Khalifa, the Scarred One, and Mother Indira too.

Earlier she'd told Natalya when the girl had asked to ride with them: "the world would always need unsullied bodies to guide in the light. To lead them through the darkest frights. You must abide back, Natalya. You must stay. If I do not return from this battle, you shall swear upon [Central Core]. You shall become Mother Supreme."

And when Natalya tried to reason out, Indira had put out her finger to the younger Vestal's lips.

"Shush now, child. I see no better matron for the future of Séltand, than you, Virgin of the Coldflame. You will spread our sect to all the realms; I know it. I know it, child."

And with this, Indiravasanathārekalee kissed the cheeks of Natalya, whose [Red Cosmo] heart had glowed and beat harder in her chest. Full of deep longing, Natalya had watched them ride out from the stale bonfire of Lilith's skewered officers. In the valley of charred bodies, blackened of [Darkfyre], Natalya waved the armies of the Badlands her final farewell. And thus retreated into the mountains of the Skoatl tribes.

Each Skullrider had left behind a successor.

Grone, his nine daughters and heirs—and wives.

Lord Zaf, Hosanna: his only child. Sole princess of Caer Mullhen.

Dementa had no heir to speak of. But she left her soul with those at Helladeep. The free tribes of the Great Canyon. And of course, Khalifa fully intended to bring back the Junker queen from this war. May be then she'd have the cojoñes enough to profess her love for the ruddy Skullrider queen. But if not, then Khalifa was of one other mind: to die in battle, gloriously, at the side of the only woman she'd ever loved. And at the side of the strongest man she'd ever known.

On their march, the Samurais among the rebel troops taught the squadrons how to ride in their bikes and [Mecha] vehicles so that their trails were lost in the cover of dust after they'd gone by. The infantry masked their real numbers too by walking step for step, in the footprints of one another. In their passing, it was like it had been one person that had treaded through the sands, not eighteen thousand.

Rafel, King in the South, led his great forces three ranks behind the bannermen. The high flags of the coyote—their chosen flag rippled as crimson and gold emblems in the wind. He was comfortable in the first company of the host. Though he'd put his harem: Ravenna, Corazón, and Naamah safely in the middle, with the defense flanks of the [Iron Force] of Lord Zaf.

He could not stop them riding to battle with him but he could sure as Hel keep them where no stray arrows will ever reach.

Rafel raised his eyes a mile from the long line of naive immigrants struggling with officers by the huge gold gates of Titans Landing; his amber orbs flinched when he thought he spotted his aunty in the highest steeple afar off, in Darkwake: the most secure premises of the Capital. Just under there was Eragonn, the dungeons of his misery for seven hellish months. Cora and Aya had put in jail time with him, stuck with him, even when he was just a dumb, volcanic Giant.

He just wished to portal them away from all this horror. But he knew they wouldn't leave his side.

How could he want to kiss and kill them at the same time?

He knew if his Aunt ever got her hands on either one of them, she'd rip them to flesh shreds. So he kept them with Lord Zaf's [Iron Force], atwixt elite bladed Samurais and the best defense infantry this side of the Continent.

Rafel spotted the same hooded figure again in the high steeple. Once again, the eyes shot out at him.

Amethyst purple.

Vibrant.

Evil.n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

Gorgeous as fuck.

Oh, it was his auntie alright!

In a move he meant all of the city to see, Rafel put up his right arm. [WorldGobbler]—the deadliest battle-axe to ever be forged sparkled in his grasp.

"There will be no monologues today. There has been talk enough of freedom from the ones we've lost since the first appearance of the Titans, and their masters, [The Fallen]. No! Not today." He raised his voice. "Today, we fight!" His axe pointed straight to the silhouette in the spire afar; he fully intended to drive past the gates all the way up that Olympian hill to Darkwake. To rest his bloodied axe at Eragonn. To dip his blade in the blood of Hel's royalty.

Only then. Only then. . .

"SLAUGHTER 'EM ALL!!!" He burst with a great shout.

The watchmen on the citrine walls surrounding the vast Capital saw thousands of screaming wildmen from the savage South charge. The tremor shook the earth. Pebbles jumped on the ground. And the watchmen kneeled and nocked their arrows.

But in reality, Rafel and his forces weren't riding for the gates.

All that was Damnameneus' [Illusion Dimension].

The High druid had casted an entire false army into reality. His spell was so good that their forward marching even made the earth quake. But it was all a lie. A facade. A stratagem, that allowed the real [18 000] barbarians to slip out from under the noses of the watchmen of the city and take the left route of the River Sana'a west...towards a dormant tunnel that once served as mining pits.

A road straight into Titans Landing. And they didn't even have to fight for it.

Whilst the false army engaged the rain of arrows of the city's watchmen and hard-banging captains of tower-guards, Rafel and the forces of the Badlands crept through the misty wood bridges of a small fishing village on the borders of the vast city wall. Milann, the village was called. They entered into the mouth of a limestone cave and began their way through the python tunnel.

"Nice work, Damnameneus." Rafel congratulated the sorcerer. The Magus had put his back into the spell and so much [Influence] it took a sacrifice of thirteen bulls to power the dimension itself. He told Rafel, holding a lamp as the whole army slunk through leagues under Eldoria: "it would take the false army twenty minutes to ride out to the Gates. . .just about the same measure of time for us to leave this tunnel.

By the time their archers are realizing their arrows are only falling upon earth, we'll be in the city, and free to bludgeon them where they stand." Harsh fire entered Damnameneus eyes as he spoke the final sentence; Rafel wondered what the Magus had lost in the rise of the Fallen.

It was good though. He needed his men to be properly motivated.

One hundred feet above the creeping host of the rebels army, a naive Lilith watched her archers do bloody justice to what she thought was the idiots from the south. The Dowager smiled from the open rampart of her castle at Darkwake. All the talk of the marching rovers and what they'd done to her Blackguards in the desert fell on deaf ears. Frankly, she didn't give a rat's turd about desert people. But her nephew on the other hand. . .

"I would die for that boy," Lilith whispered to her golden slave. Giselle embraced her tighter.

It was true.

Lilith gave fuck all about Eldoria, the sorry throne of mortals, their realm of glass and mud, their politics and gods, and sex lives, and all that mundane shit.

She was only here because of one person: Israfel.

From the moment he was born, he had stolen her heart. Her breath. Her all. This role she played as Dowager was to keep him close. To be close to him. Even the faerie now hugging her. Her war with him at Corynthia. Everything! It had all being for him. Her dear, dear boy. And now, she could feel him so close their shared [familial rune] ached under her brassiere strap. Lilith whispered, looking out the window to the armies clashing with the defense of her city:

"Come to me, my little ginger darling. I know you're tired. I know you're angry. Just come to me and I'll take it all away. Come to me. Come to ma..." She stopped short on what she was about to say, glanced at Giselle and was grateful the faerie ex-queen was more interested in her boobs. This secret she had nearly spewed was one that would follow her to her eternal grave.

Lilith was still watching the city's walls when the false host reached it.

The watchmen archers and tower-guards were expecting a boom from the clash of bodies to their metal gates. Immigrants forgot belongings and merchants their produce; they ran helter-skelter. All to avoid the barrage of bodies. But then—

Nothing happened.

It was then a certain Captain traveled his eyes to the points where their arrows had shot and fallen. And lo, behold, the tipped quill were stuck in earth.

No bodies. No blood.

"IT'S A TRICK!" He yelled. "IT'S A FUCKIN' SPELL. AN ILLUSION! FALL BACK. FALL FUCKING BACK!"

The million arrows from the archers of Titans Landing lay abandoned and broken on the ground. It had met not one single of the enemy soldiers. The watchmen on the wall towers panicked and stared out in confusion. The false army fizzed; the hundreds of fake shoulders exploded into mere dust and shadows, blowing with the wind like chaff as the [Illusion Dimension] broke. The spell fell, and they realized all the while they'd been shooting at nothing.

What a waste of [Epic grade] arrows?

One archer confessed, "well if they aren't out there, then where the hell are they?"

RAARRRGH!!! RAAAARRRRRGGGH!!!

A sudden convulsive blast of voice rent the air as ten thousand warriors emerged from the ground. The literal ground!

Drainage holes and sewer grates all around the city exploded as soldiers popped up everywhere. It was an onslaught. No one expected it. An excellent war strategy.

One Lord was pissing in his chamber pot when a helmeted head of one desert barbarian appeared down below. He gasped, just as the soldier unsheathed his dagger and thrust him through his leaking penis. The Bonelander quickly withdrew his knife from the man's guts and wiped it off the grande curtains of the Lord's home before hopping out a long window to join the fray of his barbarian brothers.

"END THE CUNTS! BLOT THEIR TYRANNY!" savage voices of the Badlands forces bellowed as they gutted each and every horned fellow dressed in the littlest bit of gold all around the polis. It was absolute pandemonium in the Capital.

The captain that had yelled for his watchmen to fall back immediately regretted the command because behind them was the fury of slashing wildmen. They cut his ranks down like pigs. Since the heavy metal gates had been shut and secured to keep the Bonelanders out, the poor archers on the walls had nowhere to turn. Rushing them from behind was the manic southern men frothing like hounds at the mouth for blood. And before them was iron gates of reinforced steel. Even if they wanted to cut ranks and desert the city, those darned latches took a good twenty minutes to unravel.

Many of the guards on the walls took the other way to their deaths; they leaped the 40ft walls to their deaths. Now in the men's eyes, suicide was a better death than the harsh murder they saw the southern barbarians inflict upon their fellows.

One archer had his entrails crucified by the long Katana of a [Red Oni] samurai.

Everywhere was carnage.

The host of the South were charging. And the army of Titans Landing were screaming.

In the lookout window of the castle, Giselle's hot pink mouth hung down. Lilith fumed silently and turned from staring out.

"Idiots!"

"Ah—" she instantly gasped when her eyes fell on the person behind. He stood a bit in the shadows, closer to the door of her Queen's chamber than her. Still, his handsomeness was unmistakable. In all her gothic glory and definitely stronger [Influence], the SSS-rank demoness brightened and paled at the same time. Lilith Firstborn released from her flat belly a long, deep breath of longing. She stared from the flame hair on her intruder to his chiseled jaw: a body she knew by heart.

"Oh, Israfel, my boy... My dear boy," she started right across the room to hug him. The sound of her jumping heartbeats was swallowed in the screams of her men dying outside—by the hundreds.