And so the mighty and resplendent armies of the Imperium
***embled before the towering cyclopean walls of ancient Gul-Kothoth
It was some time before the billowing dust cloud raised by the
M***ed arrival of the vast imperial host settled, ultimately dissipating
As the shadows of dusk descended

With nightfall, the imperial army's countless torches
Braziers and cook fires illuminated the dark plain
Before the fortress like a coruscating sea
Painting the Stygian heavens the color of flame
And the high summer's night p***ed swiftly

At length, the dawn approached tentatively
And with the first signs of the newborn sun
Etching its promise upon the skies
The martial preparations commenced in earnest

A brief perfunctory exchange between the Imperial Herald
And the fortification's Watch Commander held no surprises
And the Emperor's banner was duly driven into the seared earth
Before Gul-Kothoth with a chilling finality

Vast siege engines and powerful ballistae were hauled
Inexorably into position, alongside a battery of katapelte and petrobolos
The one hundred thousand strong Imperial Frontier Army
Having planted their regimented blazons into the arid soil

Waited with a disciplined patience born of never having met
Defeat in pitched battle or siege, the dreaded Imperial War-Leopards
Straining noisily against their iron-link leashes to the rear
Of the cohorts of conscripts and auxiliaries

The pitiless Iron Phalanx and their Lord Militant Commander
Had ***umed position at the head of the army's Alpha Wing
Polished swords, spears and poll-axes reflecting the glow
From the myriad torches and braziers
Which still burned about the Imperial Host

And behind them were drawn of the legendary
Legion of the Ebon Tiger, pride of the Emperor
The infantry and cavalry famed throughout the great northern continent
Personal regiment of the feared general Baalthus Vane

True to their martial reputation, the six thousand strong
Legion were inscrutable in their jet black amour
Their sable banner billowing in the chill breeze
Which skittered over the plain

And finally, astride his azure-shaffroned warhorse
And surrounded by his elite guard, the silvern-armored
Emperor Koord himself studied the precipitous gates
With a disdainful scrutiny

At the Emperor's right hand was the renowned
Swordmaster of Kyrman'ku, an eastern blades man
Of preternatural skill and the most revered
And expensive mercenary in the Imperium

At his left, the infamous Ogre-Mage of the Black Lake
Brooded silently, swathed in a Stygian cloak and fuliginous cowl
And exuding an aura of implacable malevolence
Which unnerved even the bravest of the Imperial troops

The Emperor had deemed the services of these two nefarious
Renegades pivotal to the execution of the final campaign
For they alone had knowledge of the mysterious arcane rite
Known as The Words Which Unfetter

And behind their ***anic time-worn palisades
The defenders of Gul-Kothoth beheld this awesome force
Ranged against them and shuddered, not with fear
But with an awful and night-cold anticipation

General Vane, we begin the final siege
Of this campaign with the rising of the sun
The war which has raged for decades, shall finally be decided here
Before the hoary walls of ageless Gul-Kothoth

The Imperium's last and most glorious victory is at hand
The procrastinating sybarites of the bureaucracy
Have been threatened and bribed into compliance over this venture

This more than anything else is why I have deigned to grace
This final battle with my imperial presence
Even against the advice of the Grand Vizier
And the sage counsel of the seers

You shall enjoy watching the Ebon Tiger bloody its claws, sire
Our victory here is ***ured

You should not call your falcons before the hunt is done
My loyal servitor ,overconfidence is but one of the many foes
A general must face upon the field of war
Today, the precepts and maxims of the Imperium shall be tested
And we shall see whether the velvet glove of diplomacy
Or the iron gauntlet of conquest has proved the more effective tool

The days of the feudal suzerainties are long gone, my liege
The Imperial Military Council is the only en***y fit
To govern the dominions, the fall of Vyrgothia shall today
Render the truth of the Imperial Mandate self evident

And yet I am vexed, for as you well know, the sorcerous emissary
I dispatched to the Court of the Over-King has warned that
The Vyrgothians may have recovered one of the artifacts
Comprising the fabled Trinity of Might, the legendary Obsidian
Crown itself in the hands of a skilled thaumaturgist, it is said that the
Crown may be used as a weapon of unparalleled destructive potency

The Shadow-Sword, The Obsidian Crown, The Ebon Sceptre
Feh, the power of the Trinity is but a myth
No antiquated trinket wielded by a religious fanatic
Will prevail against the Legion, sire

Our steel is proof against such diabolism, behold
Gul-Tryarch has fallen, Gul-Azlaan has been given to the earth
Gul-Nomedes is naught but smoldering rubble, and soon we shall
Surge over the shattered remnants of Gul-Kothoth's renowned walls
The Vyrgothian Alliance shall crumble when these gates are breached
And the over king himself shall stand before thee in shackles

Indeed, at any rate, I have been blessed with foresight
Enough to prepare a contingency should the foe fulfill
That fearful potential which has been weighing heavy on my mind
But now, the sun rises, let it begin, let the final chapter
Of our legend be written, give the word, raze Gul-Kothoth to the ground

An age of fire, sword and shield
The thunder of the battlefield
The clarions call, bring down the wall
May the Empire's glory never fade
Righteous fury guide our blades
We march to war

Darkly bejeweled circlet of night, Crown of the Elder King
Unfettered at last the Trinity of Might, the Sceptre
The sword and the ring

And so it was that a terrible and inestimable carnage
Was unleashed upon the field of battle
Colossal stones, firebrands and howling iron-tipped missiles
Rained pitilessly down upon the hero-hewn walls of Gul-Kothoth

Vast and serpentine cracks appeared in the ancient cyclopean edifice
And hundreds of warriors, both attackers and defenders
Perished in the fray, either crushed beneath the ceaselessly
***ailed testudo, hammered to crimson pulp by the merciless
Storm of unforgiving stone, or burned to blackened husks
By the nightmare onslaught of flaming quicklime and saltpeter

Scaling ladders raised and repulsed in turn, storms of razor tipped
Shafts exchanged by the combatants, isolated skirmishes
Raging upon the ramparts, men blade to blade and clarions
Bellowing embattled defiance

For seemingly innumerable hours the sanguineous battle raged
With no quarter asked nor given between the bitter ancestral foes
And the gates held firm, at length, the mightiest of the Empire's
Iron-hooked battering rams, dubbed The Bringer of Woe
Was brought to bear upon the besieged fortress

And with the shadows of dusk lengthening upon the field of war
The centuries old Primary Gate of Gul-Kothoth was finally sundered
Amidst an earsplitting cacophony of shattering oak
And iron louder than any storm-born thunderclap

With the rending of the mighty gate, and vast fragments
Of the ancient walls yielding, buckling and crashing
To the blood-sodden earth, the Imperium's forces
Breached the defenses of Gul-Kothoth and surged
Into the Vyrgothian Alliance's last and most renowned stronghold
And it was at that fate-steeped instant that an army of five score
And ten, bearing the Obsidian Crown, arrived upon the field of battle

By Klatrymadon and Zuranthus, they come
They come, wielding the circlet of night
The dire warning issued to me as I stood
Before Vyrgothia's Master Wizard has been proved no idle boast
The citadel's spells of containment breached
The Black Crown is upon us

It is as I have forseen, be spry, my sorcerous lackey
Join the Iron Phalanx in entertaining these latecomers
While I prepare a reception worthy of their audacity
By your command, o' luminous Imperial majesty

At once, the far-feared and martially renowned Iron Phalanx
Wheeled to face the newcomers, and at the command of a decurion
A volley of amour-piercing shafts screamed skywards
To rain down mercilessly upon the foe

And even as this transpired, the Emperor's Prime Sorcerer
Emissary of the Imperial Court and master of those arts
Which speak to man in narcotic dreams from the darkest
And most silent places, summoned forth that black potency
Which lay entwined in Stygian tendrils within his mind

An ireful power born of they who writhed upon the shores of Pangaea
Before man's progenitors ever erected their lofty spires
To the restless skies and yet Vyrgothia's Master Wizard
Unrivaled Arch-Mage and adept of that lost Eastern order
Who journey beyond the boundaries of time and space

Upon those nebulous wings born of the sacred Azure Lotus
Rose to meet this power which lapped at the periphery of his mind
Like a midnight tide, and stood firm against its insistent siren call
And upon that arid field of war, the sentinels of light and shadow
Spoke to each other in tongues dormant since the Third Moon fell
Burning from the heavens and not sweet were the words they uttered

Until at last, with the armies poised to clash and with dusk
Painting the sky a deep crimson exceeded in its vibrancy only
By that bloody rubicund hue which stained the battlefield below it
The Emperor's mage fell and the aeon's-old might
Of the Obsidian Crown was finally brought to bear
Against they who had breached the walls of ancient Gul-Kothoth

Sundered the gate of the ancient fortress
Besieged! Now breached stand the walls
And lo, there an army of five score and ten
Behold, the Obsidian Crown

Embattled, the wizards, their weapons arcane
Untrammeled, the circlet, the Prime-Sorcerer slain
The Crown's peerless power, the Emperor's bane
Dark magicks and havoc, now red carnage reigns

Like the prow of a blood-hungry vessel of war rending
The waves of a midnight sea, a luminescent blade
Of shrieking cerulean light lanced from the legendary black circlet
Locked tight within the gnarled hand of the Master Wizard
And clove mercilessly into the glorious ranks of the Imperium

And all who were touched by this ruinous arc of coruscating
Radiance knew no more, men and beasts reduced to blackened husks
Charred shells of smoldering ash, lifeless effigies which toppled to the
Seared earth to be dissipated by the whispering breath of the wind

Again and again the ravaging radiance smote the ranks of the Empire
Leaving a noisome charnel-pit of nightmare in its crackling wake
The forces of the Imperium were plunged into a howling vortex of
Disarray and faced with the unthinkable prospect of defeat
The unprecedented first routing of the Emperor's glorious army
Began to become a grim reality

Yet for all the unparalleled carnage which had erupted about them
There was one regiment of Imperial troops for whom the taste of fear
Was bland compared to the sharp tang of rage
Which sat bitter upon their noble tongues

By all the gods of war, stand fast, hounds of the Imperium
'Tis true, steel is no use against this ignoble magical trickery
But if our souls are bound for the Pit this day
We'll damn well take a few of these *******s with us
Onward, my Legion, alpha formation, banners high
Glory to the Emperor, into the foe, show them the Tiger's claws
Never quarter, never mercy, never retreat, praise the Emperor

My sorcerous thrall has fallen but he has bought us time
Enough to riposte and general Vane's mettle may yet
Turn the tide of war back in our favor
Now, let the final act be played out

I call thee forth, Ogre Mage of the Black Lake
I call thee forth, Swordmaster of Kyrman'ku
It is time, now, I charge thee, for the glory of the Imperium
Speak the Words Which Unfetter and so, it began

The two pivotal players in the Emperor's plan
The two key figures in the Imperium's contingency
Stepped forth to fill their most vital of roles in that grand theater
Of carnage which now ran unchecked on the field of battle

The Ogre-Mage and the Swordmaster began to utter
Fearsome words in a tongue which was ancient ere
The gleaming stars shifted upon the fathomless
Countenance of the distant heavens, words which in truth

Were not words, but rather a resonant key which would aspire
To unlock a dire power which had reposed shackled
Since the fall of the legendary Shadow King himself
Whose ebon circlet's power they even now sought to thwart

The incantation they gave voice to in the midst
Of that sanguineous turmoil which engulfed them
Was not so much heard by those within earshot as perceived
Sensed as a vague disturbance in the fabric of reality

Ss fuliginous ripples on the surface of a hitherto still
And placid pool, growing ever larger and more far reaching
An unnerving and unnameable sense of change which insinuated
Itself into the mind of the listener and suggested with a cold
And disturbing quasi-certainty that something of preternaturally
Ineffable magnitude was transpiring, as surely as a festering
And gangrenous corpse would split to spill its noisome gore

And as that maddeningly implacable incantation reached its
Resounding climax, a momentary silence enshrouded the battlefield
Swathing the vista of chaos in an aura of noiselessness more pure
And untainted than the tranquility of the boundless and Stygian void

It was as if time itself had halted for one immemorial moment
And it was in that oddly immeasurable instant that the dark and peerless
Power unfettered by those grim pseudo-words finally ultimately
Made itself known before the sundered gates of ancient Gul-Kothoth