TALES FROM THE RENGE: THE PROPHECY FULFILLED

STORMING THE CASTLE

A great army moved, as if it were a single unit, ever closer to the walls that surrounded the Master’s castle and his emptied city. Gone were the peasantry who tended his fields, having fled from the thunderous clamor that approached their homes. Gone, too, were the inhabitants of the city that lay just inside the battlements of the great but decaying walls.

All that remained was a small sea of empty buildings, that stretched on for miles in every direction, that surrounded the isle where Olgath’s castle sat. no one could really remember the name of the city. It seemed as if the name had been lost to time. All they knew was that it was his home.

He had come from this city, as had his father and all those who’d preceded him as Master. This had been the origin of the lineage, the place where it all had started. The treaties that had begun the arbitrator’s ascent had been drawn up and signed here. Now, the line would end here with Olgath’s death…

In Valthrid, another battle was coming to a climax. The Ashashinidii were slowly closing in. The flood of Seekers had slowed to barely a trickle. Seemed the Inquisition was running low on live bodies. Still, there had been no sign of the Master of his Grand Inquisitor. Only Seekers and demons came to do battle. Yet, now that the Seekers were becoming fewer, the demons seemed to be the most abundant.

They, too, seemed hesitant in battling their new foe. They’d never trained for combat against these people. They never knew they existed. Sure, they’d been sent to search for them and destroy them but all had assumed, after no evidence had been found to support the theory that they existed, that they had been on some sort of croobaen hunt.

A croobaen hunt, indeed. They’d presumed that these peoples had never existed. It had been like trying to find the squanacht. A lot of folk had claimed to see them, but no evidence could be found. All squanachts and croobaens. Poppycock, indeed.

But those creatures did exist, as did the Ashashinidii. They were kindred beings. They were invisible to those who wanted to do harm to them. For the Ashashinidii, that didn’t mean they wouldn’t harm one of those sent to hunt them. On the contrary. They would kill anyone sent to find and enslave them. No one would return from a conquest against them alive. Bodies would be found floating down the tributaries that ran through Ashashinidii territory.