Monday, February 13, 2012

The Summoning of Hosts

"M'Lord" it said.  It was on its third body, the other two having rotted away, despite the Lord Nurgles attention.  It now had a mouth, which made it much easier to understand thought Harakj.  "Everything is prepared?" "Yes, m'Lord"  "Good, good, that is very good." Harakj climbed onto the balcony.  The city once of men was now unrecognisable from its previous construction.  Much was blasted rock, but towering over the outer wall were two massive stone pillars, both stretching into the sky, wide enough apart to fit a small town between.  They glowed a sickly green and read, symbols carved into the rock.  It appeared as if they moved, but even Harakj The Great could not look at them directly.  As he climbed the last step, wings brushing the high ceiling, the wailing increased, the noise swelling like a hellish pipe organ.  Below the keep were gathered a multitude of cowering beings, man, beast and elf, united in their terror.

"Begin" said Harakj.

At the things signal columns of priests appeared from the court yard, hundreds robed and cowled, walking as if of one mind.  They kept coming, till the cowering thousands were surrounded on all sides, the stone pillars at their centre.  The multitude cringed back from the cowled ones, fear of them overcoming fear of the pillars.  The chanting began, "DROP DOWN YE HEAVENS FROM ABOVE, AND LET THE SKIES POUR DOWN RIGHTEOUSNESS."

The glowing of the pillars increased, slowly then more quickly.  Bright as the moons, bright as the sun.  The wailing surpassed terror.  Sudden silence, so profound it was as if creation never was, the very absence of sound. Every eye was drawn to the pillars, glowing ceased, absence of light and absence of sound.

"Ye are my witnesses" saith Harakj, "my servants whom I have chosen, that ye may know me and believe me, I,  even I am the Lord and beside me there is no saviour and there is none that can deliver out of my hand."

Everything that had life outside of the fortress died, so fast that they never knew.  A void appeared between the pillars, purple, blue and green lightening flashed from its depths.  Harakj felt a tugging, a similarity, through the void came monstrous beings, chaos embodied in red flesh.

The beginning of the end.

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