hen Meneldir opened his eyes, he found himself upon the cold barren earth, his hands tied behind his back. A tangled mess of autumnal hair draped over his face, his clothes were sagged in dust and mud, his hands grappling a knife which he held over his binds.

"Ah, I see you've woken up," the daemonic voice muttered. "I'd have you sleep throughout, for your awareness will only greaten the pain, and the very little compassion left in me loathes that."

"You have no compassion," Mey replied, "do not pretend otherwise."

Nixior smiled in the most evil manner he could, "You may be wondering how I survived, right?" he turned towards Mey, showing the gaping green hole in his chest. "You damaged my body, but could not cleave my spirit, for my vigour is long, I cannot be hindered. No one, not even your precious Vil can stop me."

That remains to be seen, he whispered to himself, his eyes rolling on: one of the cultists was much taller than the others, black hair draping out of his dark cloak, and a very peculiar arcane aura about him. As they all neared the summoning pit, Mey worked on his binds as steady and silently as possible.

"Arise o Lord Morthaur!" chanted Nixior. "Praised be thy unholy name, let there be no dawn for the elven kind!"

Marching like shadows of death, the cultists walked towards the flames. Three cultists neared, but stopped all of a sudden. Something was wrong, but it was too late: little could the first do before being impaled by the second, the third stood dauntless and deedless.

The two removed their hoods to reveal their youthful, unscathed faces –Vilyánur and Aeresil. The very next moment the other cultists dropped their hoods to reveal Vilyánur's retinue guard.

Nixior looked in disbelief, his eyes shunned and mind flayed. All of a sudden a great pain surged through his neck, chaotic bile drooling out of it. "Don't even think of it," Mey whispered, beheading him and tossing his body into the fires.

...

"And so passes Nixior, Steward of Morthaur," Vil lowered his head, and the host behind him cheered aloud.

But suddenly they were all silenced: a piercing roar rent the lands and instilled fear into their hearts. "Fools!" the call of Morthaur was heard, "I will have my revenge! You think you have won, but no! My armies are coming for you, they will destroy you! You shall all burn!"

Alas, they looked a mile further to see a grand host of chaos-daemons and other fallen races amassing and charging at them. "What do we do now?" asked Mey as he walked over to Vil's side.

"Firstly, let me fix your hair," he said combing Mey's hair. "I have an army ready for war, all we need to do is construct a pylon and they'll be here."

"How long will it take for the pylon to form?" asked Mey.

"An hour, I'd say."

"An hour?" asked Mey, "look to the horizon, Vil. The armies of Morthaur are upon us, do you think we have an hour to tarry?"

"Do not fear, my lords," a wood-elf captain approached them, "we already have our hunters deployed in the vanguard. They will soon engage the daemons."

"Hunters?" questioned Mey, "do you think our light infantry will be enough to halt the daemonic warriors?"

"Halt, yes; defeat, maybe not."

"But with a good number of hippogriff riders we do have air superiority," said another captain.

"No worries," said Vil, "we only need to stop them for an hour or so."

Vil snapped his fingers and laid the foundations for the pylon, the wood-elves responded with a blast from their wild horns, summoning the wild hunt to battle. Archers and Javelinmen rushed into the fray and took shelter on and beneath the green fields, laying out their traps and bunkers with haste. Fifty thousand woodland warriors stood firm against a force twice as great, their mission: defend site zero at all costs.

*****

The hosts of Morthaur were now moving in silence under the shadow of the hill, the plains between the summoning pit and the daemon-gates were now but a shadow of what they were – plants died and withered as they trekked, reminding all of the true power of chaos.

"Do not fear," Vil grasped Mey's hand, "we shall endure."

"I am not in fear," Mey replied. "Just . . . I wish this never happened in my lifetime."

"One time or the other, this was bound to happen, but we cannot do anything about it. The only thing we can do right now is set an example for those who shall come after us."

Mey nodded, forcing a smile to ease Vil's weary mind, his heart throbbing.

Suddenly, at half a kilometre's distance, the dark army stopped, the frontline spearmen standing at a hand's length apart, allowing the second line to pass before them like a drain spilling out a torrent.

Vil touched his eye to his spyglass, only to learn these foes were armed with longbows. "Longbows!" he warned the wood-elves via telepathy, "close the distance as fast as you can."

The wood-elves heeded his command, their lightly armed archers advancing, their trail concealed by grass and green, spreading out into the thin ground between them.

"I wish we had dug trenches," Mey wished, "that way we'd have the absolute upper hand."

And so the battle began: their tainted foes shot first, pulling the strings of their bows back as tightly as they could, and letting their arrows fly.

Thereafter a storm of arrows rained down upon the weary frontline, wreaking little damage upon the high-elves, but tattering the poorly defended wood-elf warriors.

And the wood-elves responded with a flurry of arrows out of the green sea, taking the enemy by surprise. Like flies their foes fell, their poisoned arrows melting their wicked flesh and cracking their bones.

And the enemy responded with a charge of doom-knights: hundreds of armoured cavalry fell upon the scattered clouds of wood-elves, their swords quick with flame and minds quick with anger piercing the firmament of shadows.

And the elves retreated, their low morale overcome by fear and distance from friendly lines dooming them to the sword and hoof of the enemy. Many fled and many hid, and many repelled back with spear and pike, most bending upon impact but a great many killing the enemy knights.

A mere few minutes had elapsed since the battle had begun, and now the enemy had the upper hand, having neared their lines enough to engage the very few high-elves defending the pylon. There stood the knights in galloping distance from the front lines: the chance was tempting.

...

The knights charged, flanking the ever-strong line of legionnaires, trying to take the enemy by surprise, only to crash into a herd of war elephants. Without spear and afraid, the doom-knights trembled and broke as the elephants charged them down, following back into the enemy lines and wreaking more havoc. A hundred elephants charged, six died at the cost of a thousand foes.

But then it came like thunder: the opposing lines clashed upon the field, red against green, sword and spear snapping and slicing upon shield and helm, many a death following.

For half an hour the battle continued, the restless dead crashing against the withering elves, crashing against their enemies like the slow decay of time, ever so slowly chipping away like a gust of wind through a dune.

And though the high-elves, well-learned in the art of warfare and having fought numerous daemons before, stood their ground firm and held the line, at last they succumbed, and the ranks of daemons kept climbing with a steady pace.

And then it was: an elven battle-horn blasted behind the daemon ranks, followed by the wails of a thousand woodland guardians. The daemons were caught off-guard, enveloped between the high-elves and the wood-elves. Caught in the fray of fire and death, the daemons withered away with haste, leaving a host of victorious elves behind.

"Well that was scary," Mey commented, "but it's not over yet, is it?"

"No, it has just begun," Vil replied, stretching his eyes across the horizon. A part of him felt like this is what they wanted: more deaths meant more corpses to be raised, which only made the situation more horrible.

"Our only hope now is a flawless victory," Mey responded, quite an easy statement to make from behind friendly lines, albeit a near impossible task at hand right now.

Impossible indeed: the enemy numbered a hundred thousand, backed by the prowess of the most feral and mighty of daemons. And what had they on their side? The very thought of it made them shudder, the darkness only seemed to grow as mid-day rolled in, gathering in the distant fields, preparing for war.

Finally, the pylon had been established, much to the relief of all. Yet no cheer was presented by the wood-elves as the high-elven legions rolled in, although there was much relief in their hearts.

"Finally, the Legions III, IV, and IX are here," Vil recalled, "they'll be force enough."

*****

In the wake of the looming shadows, the daemon-tide grew closer and closer. Upon the horizon walked three thousand chaos-elves armed with spear and shield, garbed in brass and bronze, steadily closing the gap between the two. But the high-elves of Alinor were no novices in the art of warfare; centuries of fighting had shaped them into some of elvendom's most powerful warriors. The men of Legion III had opted to face them, whilst the other legions stayed behind as reserve.

An auxiliary cohort of javelinmen went first: eight hundred strong, armoured in naught but mail and cloak, bearing naught but light spears and bucklers, but quick on their feet and able in kiting manoeuvres.

Behind them formed four cohorts of impalers: six hundred each, garbed poorly but addressed well with heavy shields, swords and javelins. And behind them formed another four cohorts of veteran warriors: armoured and armed better than the ones before, with two heavy-javelins each.

In the third line stood two more cohorts of elites, each made up of six double-centuries, commanded by six grand-centurions; these were the elites of Legion III – hardened by millennia of warfare, multiple campaigns, and unnumbered battles.

At the flanks were stationed the heavy-cavalry – six hundred on each side, but swift and stocky. And though they were few in number, the wild riders of the Forest Kingdom concealed in the trees gave them a touch of security. Hippogriff riders clattered the sky, sounding the beginning of the Great Hunt with the bellowing of their battle-horns.

Enemy trumpets bellowed back at the elves, hordes of chaos goblins squabbled forward with their bows prepared, but the javelinmen had greater range.

Two thousand wood-elf warriors joined in with the javelin-volley, unleashing a storm of arrows and javelins upon the lightly-armoured goblin warriors and daemonic heavy-infantry alike. Though their arrows had no effect, the javelins pierced into their shields.

One by one, three javelin-volleys were lobbed by the elves, the goblins were sent to rout and the hoplites had sustained minor damage, but now was time for melee combat. With a blast from Vilyánur's horn, the javelinmen fell back and let the two lines collide.

The daemonic warriors now jogged up the field and towards the impalers, their forces having broken from cohorts into a line, thin but able and reinforced from behind. The very earth had begun to shake beneath their feet as they watched the infantry charge into battle.

"Their ablest of our foes arrange themselves in the first line," whispered Vilyánur into each of their ears with his telepathy, "take them down first and you shall face no resistance."

The impalers heeded the word of their lord and lobbed their heavy javelins at the first line of spearmen, catching them off-guard and into the fray of fire. Placing their shields in front of their faces, the daemons discovered to their horror that their chaotic shields were nothing for the arcane javelins of the enemy. The first rank broke and the second was frayed.

The two lines charged in and lashed their blades at one another, pinning each other in place without much avail. Cavalry charged and battled on the sides, but without much consequence.

Lighter daemons and wood-elves battled in the forests, charging out at instances but yet to little impact upon the battle. Same with the hippogriffs and gargoyles: on all four theatres of the battle there was a stalemate.

Strange lights filled the skies – a phoenix approached out of the thunder-bulwark and charged at the daemon warriors, driving through their ranks and scorching them away. The remaining withered away, the high-elves won one conflict, only to face the second without respite.

One by one, multiple waves of enemies approached, but the high-elves stood steadfast in the face of doom. Vil's legion, supported by three other high-elf legions and a great host of wood-elven warriors from behind, stood bravely in the face of imminent doom. And even though they suffered heavy losses, they slew a great many.

But now was to enter the real challenge: shaking the earth with a terrible roar.

...

As they looked up they saw fire in the sky, followed by the silhouette of gigantic wings – the Aspect of Morthaur, a terrible daemon spawned from black heart of the Chaos God himself, had spawned into the world in his dragon form.

Seeing him was like seeing your most terrible nightmares come true: the most powerful of the Chaos Gods in the universe had himself come to your world to defeat you, albeit in a weaker form.

"Oh no," Vil gasped, "Mey, defend the hill with your troops, I'll be back in a while."

"Wait, where are you-" ere he could finish his sentence, Vil warped away. And there Mey stood, standing atop the daemon-mount with his chaos hunters and lizard-folk, the enemy close by.

Vil, where are you? Mey prayed in annoyance, but no answer came to him. As the enemy neared them, Mey was caught by panic, his hope a flickering ember. Vil, come back!

And lo, before he could notice, fire-giants broke through the ranks and assailed Mey's guards, only to be taken down with ease by the lizard-folk: able bodyguards swift with halberds and shields.

But before the enemy could advance further, a blast of flame deleted them from the battlefield, a bloodcurdling roar turning the tide of battle. Mey struggled to take a hold of the situation, but he was glad nonetheless.

"Mey!" spoke Vil from atop Banewing, accompanied by Muldred and his kin beside him, "take care of the legions on the ground. I will take care of the air."

"Got it, comrade!" replied Mey.

Thus Vil and his dragon-retinue ascended to the air, disappearing behind the blanket of clouds, leaving the skies bright with fire and ash. Another hour passed by, and the battle entered a stalemate again. There was barely any fighting going on, only meek pushing here and there.

Once the men of Legion III had tired, those of Legion VI replaced them, then Legion IV, then Legion IX, and then Legion III again. So it carried on: a cyclic warfare. Save for occasional charges, the flanks remained silent too, for minor cavalry regiments could achieve nothing in a battle as complex as this.

In the forests it was the same: wood-elves and daemons had dug up trenches and bunkers, effectively getting into a stalemate. As of the skies, nobody could say what was happening – it was too cloudy.

At first Mey thought it'd be intense and hot, but now he realised the true nature of great battles: it was boring, most reserves sat down and chatted as their comrades fought on. For a long while this stalemate continued, until suddenly there came a cry of joy from the wood-elves.

"Lo! The daemons are under attack! Lord Krayn has come!"

As he looked up, Mey saw green meteors fall upon the chaotic hordes – zombies fought zombies, dragons fought dragons, daemons fought daemons. And another dragon joined the skies: Krayn, Daemon-King, in his dragon form, joined Muldred and Vilyánur to meet the Aspect of Morthaur in open combat.

Mey, a voice whispered to him, get a hippogriff and come meet me.