The south was burning.

Countless smoke columns stained the horizon, turning the once blue sky into an unhealthy gray. Some of the villages burned out fast, leaving an empty husk hidden between fallow fields. Others blazed for days after their flames had reached the nearby forest and turned entire areas into smoking ruins.

Only the first snow was able to calm the fervent embers and put an end to the man-made catastrophe.

In the end, not all villagers would reach the southern fortress. Some fell under the leprechauns weapons. Others succumbed to the journey’s challenges. And some reached Gladford and brought the first accounts of the cause to its residents, and soon, the entire human world.

A traitor to the human race. The son of Maeon, the god of war. A devil in human skin.

Their stories - some dyed in hate, others drowned beneath sorrow - determined how the others reacted.

But while the peasants received a new story to threaten naughty children, the nobles and their factions started to move in the shadows. They ambushed and threatened each other, trying to find the master of the devil, and disturbed the fragile equilibrium of the moon alliance.

Those who had strength used the approaching chaos to earn their own place in the world, while the weak ones started to thirst for strength.

A farmer boy took up a wooden sword to defend his family from the devil. Such stories repeated themselves thousands of times, all over the continent. Although most of them ended in failure after a short few days. Yet some of them prevailed and introduced even more unknowns. After all, those who planned to defeat the devil wouldn’t kneel in front of a simple lord.

Even Freiherr Houdin’s time at Haithabu was cut short as his masters kicked him back toward the frontier city.

It was midwinter when the first emotionless reports arrived in the heartlands.

But by then, the story of the devil had lost its prior allure and silently faded into the background, overshadowed by even more shocking news about Gladford.

Yet unbeknownst to them the same information also reached an inconspicuous gathering place in the south-west.

The spacious room was a natural cave with a mud hut as its entrance. Two lonesome rays of light shone through the windows but failed to illuminate the interior. Darkness dominated.

Steps approached and stopped in front of the moldy cloth that covered the door frame, but no one entered. Instead, occasional rustling interrupted the silence. Someone, or something, walked up and down, shifted its weight from one leg to another, but didn’t enter.

Soon, more steps followed. Heavy and unbalanced, completed by metallic impacts.

Click sounds and squeaks echoed between the two groups. One clearly more aggressive than the other.

Finally, the curtain was pulled aside and a one meter tall figure entered the inside. Its uncertain steps made it look like an oversized toddler but the gray-silver fur displayed the owners real status. A leprechaun shaman.

Two gray colored leprechauns entered next and dragged two black Púcas on chains behind them.

Together, the small procession started their way into the darkness of the cave.

Further in, human eyes wouldn’t be able to see anything but their eyes displayed every detail without problem. The long and winding path to the back. Countless leprechauns bordered the path and watched the small group, their eyes filled with both hatred and uncertainty, yet none of them moved.

The little group could only walk between them, listening to their hisses and growls.

To humans, these were meaningless sounds.

Noise.

But to them, it was humiliation.

The moment they arrived in front of the rear wall, all sounds stopped. The shaman at the front knelt down, pushing its head against the floor, long drawn-out snarls leaving its throat.

A minute.

Two minutes.

Half an hour.

The shaman’s throat became dry and rough, but the unsettling singsong never stopped.

In the end, a clear impact of metal against stone rescued the shaman and ended its song.

A blood-red leprechaun, sitting on small hill of bones, raised its staff once more and uttered a single snort.

The sound had barely hushed, when the gray leprechauns grabbed the Púcas’ heads.

Gurgling.

And the black leprechauns fell to the ground. Their heads still in the hands of the guards.

The shaman shivered and another endless series of sounds left its throat.

The story of the devil who had brought fire to the lands.

The blood-red leprechaun sat still and listened, its eyes displaying intelligence most wouldn’t link to such weak and barbaric monsters. Yet this one displayed the calmness of a lord towering over its following.

Until it finally opened its mouth.

A roar cut through the silence.

And the south’s fate was decided.