Death threads and treads, marched to the beat of satanic reverie, the sadistic swing, the sinuous plumes, of a beast tarnished and lacquered by iniquity, by annihilation, by sedition. As he carved and whittled away the bones of persecution, he ruminated, he calculated, he wove machinations into the dark, vicious slate of his mind – to restoration and renewal of an empire quiet for too long. Their prior actions had been desecrated into seasons worn and long past, demons and infidels breathing down napes and slashing at throats, diving deep into caves, caverns, sanctuaries without ice, without chill, only the heinous silence of nothingness and decay. And thereafter, there had been threats, sullen, brooding Regimes wanton, begging for a toppling fortress, yearning for a falling, withering barricade, and for some moments, the slinking, inept cretins had mastered and absconded: Arah and her daughters, torn away from the fringe of their icicle sovereignty. Secrets had been unearthed, uncovered, shackled and tethered back together, and in pernicious, puissant silence, he’d stolen one of their own. But now, the solemn quietus ruptured his core, the undulating poignancy of his coiled muscles, the vehement pulse of his flesh, because they asked for peace, when all he craved was violence and revolution. Only content, only satisfied, when blood was shed and daises of war waned into the horizon, the brooding, brewing motions and movements of his Reaper potency wandered across the rime; a deadly wraith coveting carnivorous intentions. His wayfaring, soldier finesse ground him towards the borders, perhaps more out of habit now that the sentinels perceived threats and guarded the open portion of wall and glacier, and the penetrating, piercing scope of his stare resonated upon a gathering of individuals. Two were recognized immediately: Deodat, the painted, loyal Corporal, and Roland, the newly anointed Thief. The other, however, was entirely foreign, and the slightest prick of curiosity slid through his remorseless sentiments, engaged his roaming mind into immorality and atrocities; new blood arriving on the doorsteps of the Basin, and he’d followed to examine it.

He was no welcoming party. The devil’s King drew across the summer vestiges as a chaotic, bedlam beast, apathetic, indifferent, and reticent, simmering and scintillating below the dispassionate surface. The studious slant of his gaze, harsh, unrelenting, remorseless, flickered to each figure (a nod was given to the stags, respectful, thankful for their efforts), and then lingered upon the newcomer. A mare, but whittled and sketched in lines of war-blood and infidels, perhaps cretins of his own nature, embarking upon siege after siege, never quite done with their fury, with their wrath, with their outrage and villainy. Brutality, barbarity, bloodied, ruthless entanglements: he wanted them all, and he pondered if she would choose to follow the Basin’s furtive, odious creed. They always needed strength, ruffians of satanic bidding, minstrels of cold-blooded desires; he wove introductions with the blunt candor of a callous, merciless monster, blunt, unrelenting. “Deimos, Lord of the Basin.” Another examination shadowed, the harpooning gaze of his resolute stare, cold and aloof, before a chasm of inquiry. “Who are you?”