The stench of burning flesh and charred lumber sat heavy on a windless summer night.  Most of the crops outside the city had been trampled and crushed during the battle—anything that remained was in flames.  

A newly widowed woman cried out for mercy … but there was none.  

She was struck down by a berserker.  

The beserker's lord, his face hidden from the light of day behind a cold steel mask, smiled. His name was Czarchon the Witch King and he wore a crown of gold and a wine colored robe with a blood red sash.  

Czarchon's speckled gray palfrey champed and stomped as he surveyed the ruins.  The witch king hissed like a body releasing its last breath, "At last."

"Our moment of triumph," Omphu Skullshield replied as he shook his spetum at the sky.  Omphu's blonde beard glistened even under a smoggy moonless sky.  His well-polished armor gleamed against the fiery padded satins that he sat upon, and that chair was strapped to a magenta dragon with wings so brilliant that they seemed to explode with the slightest move.  The dragon bared his teeth and his yellow tongue danced in the air as he spun around and eyed Czarchon with both hunger and hatred. 

Czarchon steadied his speckled horse as the mount sidestepped gingerly. The witch-king's steel mask revealed neither fear nor exuded confidence, but his voice quaked just a little as he patted his mount's neck and said, "Easy, Nightsky."  The horse ceased its retreat, but its nostrils were flared and the reflection of Omphu's magenta dragon filled the horse's bulging eyes. 

Omphu laughed.  "Perhaps Czarchon?"  His laughter stopped suddenly and his eyes narrowed as he spoke through gritted teeth, "Perhaps, I can finally rid myself of you and your foolish bishop." 

The bishop leaned on his staff.  Ten foot tall with a wicked bloodstained brass hook at the business end, Bishop Vrees called this towering cane his "penance-stick", and like everything about the Bishop it was not as polished and washed as it should have been. Vrees was a dirty man.  The kind of man who inadvertently collects grease and dust in every crevasse and fold of his skin.  His vestments smelled of last month's perspiration and at times he annoyed even his patron Czarchon, but none the less he was Czarchon's bishop.  

Vrees rubbed his bristly chin.  Clean- though it was, it was speckled with a shadow of salt-and-pepper.  "So it begins." 

"Begins?"  Omphu scoffed and then he sneered from his regal perch high above the reach of Vrees' staff, "I've long ago lost patience with your riddles, Vrees.  I didn't like them when you were a beertender and they don't become you as a bishop." 

"Then kill me now."  Vrees shook his staff at the dragon and then turned his back on Omphu and Vrees receded into a throng of war monks. Omphu's dragon reeled away from the murderous swipe and Omphu teetered in his mobile throne.  

He shouted at Czarchon, "What the hell is he talking about?" Czarchon muttered unintelligibly and shrugged impotently. 

Vrees tossed his staff a few feet straight up and caught it by the butt.  He stood for a second with one arm fully outstretched to the sky.  "There," he said to nothing in particular.  And then he dropped the staff straight down again. 

Omphu shouted, "Czarchon, I'll have you know this is the last friggin' time that so-called bishop will disrespect me."  He pulled his dragon back into a pounce, but suddenly the air crackled, burned and tingled. A cloudburst of light bathed Czarchon and Omphu in the unforgettable odor of the Ether.  

Omphu shielded his eyes and steadied his dragon as Hell ripped a gash in reality.  The berserkers, troopers and war monks gathered round the leaders fell to their knees, but Vrees grinned defiantly.  Czarchon's charger kicked up and whinnied, but Czarchon held his ground. 

The winds of the Ether swirled and stirred up the smell of death that still lingered in the city.  

But, with a sudden bang, the winds ceased again. 

The archdemon set his hands on his waist and his legs wide apart.  He was a fiery creature rippling with an excess of muscle set upon a powerful frame of sulfuric bones.  With a tone of admiration and contempt, the demon mumbled, "Gentlemen … you have wrecked your world." The demon laughed and hooted.  

Omphu squinted and his chin cocked sideways.  Vrees smirked at Omphu Skullshield and then he turned to the demon and reverently tipped his head. The witch king's eyes gleamed behind his iron mask.  "So we promised, so we have done." Flames pranced across the demon's body, while smoldering chunks of brimstone dripped from him.  He watched Czarchon for a moment, and his eyes narrowed and his fists clenched.  

But suddenly the demon chuckled a puff of smoke and he turned to inspect the damage.  "Impressive, mortals." Czarchon squinted at the Dark One's ambassador.  "Mortal?  The world is in ruins.  We are immortal … now." 

The demon started to smile and then suddenly broke into laughter. "Foolish, mortals." 

Czarchon's charger whinnied and bucked in terror as the demon danced and slapped his thigh in thunderous laughter.  The demon laughed until tears welled in his eyes and his stomach ached.  Vrees looked up at Omphu and smirked. 

Over the thunderous laughter, Omphu Skullshield yelled, "I have a deal with your master!" 

"Do you know exactly what bargain you have struck, Omphu?  Are you certain exactly what price you will get for betraying your people?  What will you get for raping your world?  For dooming your universe to an eternity of subjugation?"  The demon looked up at the sky, but smoke obscured the stars.  

Suddenly, the sky began to crackle and sparkle with fireworks of an unearthly nature. Vrees muttered, "Here they come." 

Omphu shook his spetum. "Don't trifle with me, demon … I am your master!" The demon ignored Omphu and turned in place again and again—marveling at the meteors popping and burning overhead.  

The demon's eyes and face were cast skyward and his arms held open to the heavens.  "See them!" He smiled.  "See them all!"  The light began to explode with ten thousand fire blasts and even the most unshakable, unbreakable, foolhardiest of all the berserkers clutching the earth at the demon's feet cowered in fear. "This universe is ours."  With each blast another demon seered its way into this universe. 

Czarchon's voice echoed in his helm.  "We have delivered this world—this gateway—to you.  My men and I have been promised immortality!" The demon came up swiftly into Czarchon's face.   Czarchon felt his iron mask warming but he did not blink.  He shuddered uncontrollably as he looked into the abyss of the demon's eyes. 

The demon hissed, "My Lord cannot give what is not his to give, foolish … mortal."  Czarchon and the demon were strobed in flashes of red light as the sky above burst with spirits dark and evil racing to sack and pillage worlds unknown to Czarchon and his men.  "You promised to deliver Reality … you have delivered a reality." 

Czarchon pulled his horse back from the demon.  The witch king was suddenly as unsteady as the mount beneath him. Omphu shouted, "I'll strike you dead where you stand if you are attempting some trickery demon!" Czarchon double-stepped back.  

"A – a reality?" Vrees winked at Omphu.  "Just listen, Skullshield." 

The demon turned to Czarchon, "This universe you have betrayed is just one of an infinite number of realities." 

"But—" 

"This is the end of just one battle in an eternity of battles!" 

"But—" 

"You may well live forever … but I doubt you shall ever be immortal, Czarchon.  Do you understand the distinction?"  The demon clenched his fist and held it to Czarchon's face.  "Stupid mortal.  You have served us well, and if you wish, you may serve us yet again … but you have not yet delivered what you promised." 

Czarchon dismounted and looked out over the wasteland that was his world.  Czarchon did not speak or react.  The corpse of his world lay before him forcing him to close his eyes.  In his mind, he saw those who fell before his blade … those victims broken by his hexxes … those who he had crushed and exterminated and betrayed.  Czarchon opened his eyes.  He was speechless. 

The demon paid the witch king no mind.  Beneath the fiery sky, the demon danced to the rhythmic of sounds of Chaos warriors looting the dead and raping the living.  "I like it!"  He bellowed.  "Tell me truthfully, Omphu, isn't this really heaven?  You can have the harps and pearly gates … I'll take this!" 

The demon slapped Czarchon on the back, "Lighten up, mighty Witch King!"  The demon cackled insanely.  "This is your moment … your moment in eternity.  Savor it. "Perhaps one day, when you are not so sure of yourself, I'll bring you back here and remind you what you can do with a little tenacity. " 

The demon laughed roisterously, and then placed his arm around Czarchon and waved his other hand before the witch king.  "Observe."  The demon made a fist and threw a puff of smoke.  The smoke parted and the smell of sea breezes breathed fresh air onto the suffocating city.  A seagull screeched from somewhere in the vision.  Berserkers huddled around Czarchon wiped the smog from their eyes and gasped at the site before them: a world relatively untouched by war. 

The demon smiled wickedly at Czarchon, "This … is Lharna."