It had been the last champion of the natives of Argoth, the avatar of their goddess, and with its death passed away all hope for the island people. Its huge forested head lay on the ground, screaming silently to the uncaring night. One of the fallen giants had been made of living wood, and had been splintered into a thousand shards. Spanning the shallow stream was a pair of toppled giants, remnants of an earlier battle between one of the invaders and the original inhabitants of this land. Along the opposite rims of the vale the flames lit by both invading forces glimmered like evil eyes in the darkness. By night it was lit only from below, by the thousands of campfires and foundries that now dotted the landscape.
By day the cloud canopy was a dull gray, a sheet of rolled and unfinished steel. Both sides in the upcoming battle had taken to torching the forests they found, if only to deny their opponents supplies and support. It had been overcast and cold on Argoth, despite unseasonably warmer weather elsewhere on Terisiare. Thick, inky clouds concealed the moons and stars from sight. The stream was a sluggish flow hidden by a thick film of oil, its surface broken only by the shadowy masses of nameless solids. Now these trees were gone no more than ragged stumps remained, the grass burned away, and the earth beneath packed hard and barren. Once this had been a verdant valley, its wide plain shaped by a wide, meandering stream, its flanking hills blanketed by thick groves of oak, blanchwood, and ironroot. The two armies had gathered on opposite sides of a blasted vale. The Brothers’ War It was the night before the end of the world.
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