Tranik stared into the fiery heart of the portal as it opened. The glowing ring of light before him grew to massive proportions... filling the entire chamber with its crackling energy. Stray tendrils of power scraped the walls and floor, leaving deep scorch-marks on the enchanted stone. Tranik backed away from the portal until his back was to the wall... and would have backed further if he could. He knew that, while dimensional travel was safe for omnipotent beings such as his Lord, just being in the PRESENCE of such activity could mean death or worse for mere mortals. Only Tranik's special robe... woven of equal parts lead and magic... kept his flesh from liquifying before the waves of arcane energies pouring out of the portal

Tranik prayed that his Lord and Master would return before the garment's protections were overwhelmed.

He kept his eye fixed on the center of the swirling nexus... looking right into the jagged hole that had been torn in the very fabric of reality. And in the center of that hole, a figure appeared. It began as merely a dark blotch on the impossibly bright background. The blotch became a shape... the shape became a man... and the man became...

The Warlord.

He strolled out of the flaming nexus as calmly as he strode the halls of his own fortress. Even though the current incarnation of His Majesty was only a mere child... a boy barely into his teens... he still walked with every bit of the high, arrogant grace that belonged to a being of his true age and power. His head was held high... shoulders back... hands clenched tightly into fists at his side... and his eyes were glowing bright yellow, like two stars that dwarfed the very sun with their brilliance.

It was Him. K'Sano. The Mortal Who Would Be A God.... the Nigh-Immortal Embodiment of Power.

It wasn't until Lord K'Sano got closer that Tranik could see the cost of that power: The horrible scars on the otherwise flawless face. The sunken, shriveled flesh surrounding his left eye. The left eye itself... which had once belonged to Tranik until His Lordship commandeered it to replace his own.

Tranik couldn't help but flinch at the memory of THAT day.

But this time there were no new scars... no flesh to be mended or organs to be replaced. Tranik sighed in relief. But there WAS a difference.. the same difference that Tranik had noticed more and more after each of his Master's trips. True, each extra-dimensional jaunt seemed to leave K'Sano more powerful than the last... it also imbued him with a certain slowness... an almost sluggish weariness that wore on him like an anchor tied around his throat. His stride was slower than before... his eyes brighter, but less focused.

But surely, these things were only in Tranik's imagination. After all, how could a man with only ONE eye ever hope to comprehend a being that transcended what could be seen with a thousand eyes? Tranik banished the sacrilegious thoughts from his mind, lest they bring about a long and painful demise in the Pain Pits. As Lord K'Sano joined him in the Arrival Chamber, Tranik dropped to his knees and lowered his head in supplication. He felt the energy in the room waver... then die off as the portal closed.

Tranik waited, unmoving except for a slight, but uncontrollable tremble in his limbs. The trembling increased as K'Sano's slow but steady footsteps approached him. Then they stopped... and Tranik found himself staring at K'Sano's boots.

"What are you doing here?" The Warlord's voice was slightly less than his usual thunderclap, but it still boomed loud enough to send shivers down Tranik's spine.

"...My Lord...." Tranik began. He rocked gently back and forth on his knees. "I am your High Priest... greatest among all your s-servants... yet still a paltry insignificance in your mighty presence. It is as keeper of your fortress in your absence... that I come before you now to assuage your anger at what has transpired. Though I myself took no part in these events... and have even expended my modest power trying to correct them... I must take full responsibility for-"

"What Has Happened." K'Sano demanded...his voice had risen to its familiar, thunderous incarnation.

"There was... ahhh... there is..."

"Rise, fool. Speak into my face... not my boots!"

"Yes, my Master." Tranik rose. He was taller than the Warlord, but he dared not assign any sort of significance to that fact. Were the Warlord the size of a cockroach, he could still erase Tranik from existence a thousand times over. Tranik kept his eye dutifully lowered, lest it accidentally look down on K'Sano... a transgression punishable by an unspeakable death at the hands... and tendrils... of the torture-weavers.

"What has happened in my absence?" asked K'Sano.

"It... It.... it is raining, my Master." Tranik replied. He felt K'Sano's eyes on him. The long silence pulled at his soul until he was forced to explain further. "It.... it has been raining for several days."

K'Sano growled deep in the back of his throat.

"And who among my weather-masters has seen fit to alter the climate-patterns that I MYSELF have mandated?"

"N-None of them, my Lord."

"Then tell me, high priest, why it is raining during a week that I reserved for sunlight?"

"I-- I don't know, Your Lordship."

"YOU DON'T KNOW!?!"

The room grew brighter... extremely bright. PAINFULLY bright. Tranik knew that K'Sano's eyes were glowing again... glowing with power and fixed firmly upon him.

"Perhaps YOU think the regulation of my kingdom's climate is a TRIVIAL affair, but I will NOT have my edicts countermanded! If YOU do not know why my orders are not being carried out, then I will replace you with someone who DOES!"

"Th-there is a-a-an outside force directing the rain. It is st-stronger than the weather-mages. M-Much stronger. They c-cannot o-overcome it."

"What KIND of outside force?" said K'Sano.

"We-we don't know," Tranik gulped. He waited for the inevitable bolt of anger to incinerate him on the spot. It never came.

"Show me," said Lord K'Sano.

---

The observation turret rose from the north wall of the fortress like a gigantic, cylindrical spire. But whereas the other turrets held shielded alcoves for archers and mages... this one was topped with K'Sano's private platform... an open courtyard from which he could spy on the city below, or personally pour his wrath down upon anyone foolish enough to displease him. This time, however, K'Sano's attention was not directed down toward the city... but up at the roiling gray sky that was deluging them with rain.

The sky above them was a blanket of dark gray clouds that were nearly invisible through the torrential rain they produced. The downpour was so intense that seemed more like a solid wall of water than mere rain. K'Sano couldn't see more than a few feet... the boundaries of the courtyard were shrouded in a watery haze.

Beside him, Tranik shivered in the rain-chilled air. His robes had been soaked in less than a second. The rain never touched K'Sano, however. Instead, it rolled down the invisible barrier he had erected around himself before stepping outside, outlining the protective field in multiple sheets of cold water. K'Sano's eyes flashed as he briefly extended his consciousness into the barrier so he could judge the force of the rain.

It was impressive.

K'Sano hadn't seen anything like this before. The rain was so intense that each drop was like a miniature missile.. or a tiny fist hurtling down from the sky. Were it not for the ruggedness for Tranik's robe, the high priest would likely have deep bruises all over his body by now.

Very interesting indeed. He wondered what kind of effect it was having on the populace.

The Warlord focused his power so that he could see through the thick shroud of rain. His eyes became beacons of yellow light as the city came into focus. He hardly recognized it.

There were no streets. Raging rivers of mud and water gushed between the buildings, sweeping away everything that wasn't secured... and some things that were. The impossible rain had battered more than a few buildings into useless piles of debris... the weaker structures had collapsed during the first day of the onslaught, and now the stronger ones were beginning to yield. Even as K'Sano watched, the sturdy, reinforced rooftop of a half-submerged building folded and caved in with an audible snapping of its mighty support beams. K'Sano heard the frantic screams as the rain pummelled the people who'd taken refuge inside the structure. The Warlord cast his eyes elsewhere. The city's lower elevations were completely underwater. Not even the rooftops of shops and homes were visible in the eastern quarter of the town, and the southern quarter wasn't far behind it. The Temple of the Warlord... where his citizens gathered to worship him... sat on a hilltop and was so far spared from the flood. But it would not remain so for long. The hilltop was already an shrinking island rising from a sea of muddy water.

"It's like this all over the kingdom, my Lord," Tranik murmured.

"What?"

"The rain... it blankets the whole kingdom, not just here. It's EVERYWHERE... from the lesser chasms all the way to the hillshire province! Some townships have already been swept away, but the refugees have nowhere to go. And the weather-mages cannot stop the rain even for a moment! There is some outside force directing it-"

"Hmmm..."

K'Sano looked up to the sky. His eyes flashed angrily as he shifted his vision into the unseen spectrums.

"I see...."

"You see what, my Lord?"

"We are besieged."

"Shall I prepare your war-chariot, my Lord?"

"No," said K'Sano. "This will take but a moment..."

K'Sano's feet left the stone and he quickly rose into the air. The courtyard faded into rain-shrouded obscurity below him as he approached the massive cloud that was assaulting his kingdom. The rain buffeted him in unrelenting waves, but K'Sano rose through it undeterred. He slowed and finally came to a halt high in the gray sky above his fortress... hovering at the level of the dark gray cloud. K'Sano clasped his hands behind his back, lifted his chin... and waited.

The rain doubled its intensity, and a fierce wind buffeted him... driving the hard raindrops nearly horizontally into his force field. This continued for several seconds before K'Sano finally spoke.

"You will reveal yourself to me, now!" He commanded. His booming voice drowned out even the loud roar of the rain.

For a while, nothing happened, but then the wind shifted. The raindrops swirled around him, forming liquid shapes in the air high above the fortress. The shapes flowed together, coalescing into a single form: The gigantic face of a man, composed of falling raindrops.

K'Sano studied the liquid features, but he didn't recognize them. He hadn't expected that he would.

"Who Dares-" K'Sano began.

"VERRAQUE DARES, MORTAL!" the face bellowed. Its voice was an inhuman roar... the voice of a storm breaking. "LONG HAVE I SEARCHED FOR THE BLASPHEMER WHO DARED SULLY THE HALLS OF THE GREAT CATHEDRAL ... I HAVE FOUND YOU, WARLORD....AND NOW MY VENGEANCE FALLS UPON YOU!!!"

"Verraque," said K'Sano. The name was familiar. Then he remembered... and he couldn't help but smile. "A myth. A legend. My kingdom is attacked by the fading myth of a cursed rain-god."

"MY POWER IS REAL ENOUGH!" Verraque growled. The rain's force doubled again... drops the size of fists pounded the buildings below, decimating entire stretches of homes. Stone and mortar began to crack under the assault. Only the enchanted walls of K'Sano's fortress were strong enough to withstand Verraque's fury. "SOON YOUR KINGDOM SHALL LAY AT THE BOTTOM OF A NEW OCEAN... UNREACHABLE BY EVEN YOU!"

K'Sano surveyed the scene below. The rain-god was right... the water-level was rising visibly. The peasants were doomed... their homes were already gone. And if this were happening all over the kingdom...

"Cease this foolish attack now, rain-god... or you shall suffer a fate even WORSE than that of your father!"

"SO YOU ADMIT YOUR BLASPHEMY!!!!!"

K'Sano floated closer to the raging face of the raingod.

"I do not ADMIT blasphemy... I AM blasphemy! Your FATHER'S power flows through me even NOW, rain-god... flows through the veins of a MORTAL! It is MINE to command, as YOUR power shall soon be!"

Without warning, K'Sano thrust his fist toward Verraque and unleashed a blast of energy that tore the god's face asunder... tendrils of superheated steam snaked through the air, dissipating rapidly...

...as a NEW face quickly formed behind the Warlord. The god's mouth opened, and a hurricane-force wind sucked the Warlord's tiny form into the gaping, watery maw.

The sky had turned to water.

Millions of raindrops battered him at once... each striking like a cannonball... in an unending wave of fury. The Warlord's magical field kept the assault from reaching his flesh... however, BREATHING was going to be a problem. K'Sano stretched his arms to either side. Power surged from his fingertips. The brief blast vaporized water... but the steam it produced instantly condensed into a gigantic fist that struck K'Sano from behind.

The rain-god's fist hit with the force of a dozen tidal-waves... swatting K'Sano out of the sky like an insect. The Warlord tumbled from the air-

KRA-BOOOOM!

-and struck the fortress wall with enough force to fracture the enchanted stone. He didn't even have time to take a breath before Verraque's fist slammed into him again, this time driving him THROUGH the wall.

A wall of angry water surged into the fortress, flooding the hallways... demolishing the walls... and sending its denizens... both human and inhuman... scampering for cover. Very few of them were fast enough to escape the rain-god's fury. The flood moved like a hungry predator, snatching up everything it could find. Even the fearsome, skinless shriikes were at its mercy. The flood smashed K'Sano's grotesque personal servants against the walls and floors until they were nothing more than bloody chunks in the raging tide. K'Sano himself was submerged in the heart of the flood... pressed hard against the floor by an unseen hand.

K'Sano raised his fist and slammed it down... the floor beneath him shattered like glass. The water drained into the chamber below, carrying the water-tossed Warlord along with it. K'Sano flew through the waterfall until he found open air.

Then he turned back.

The flood was following him... a giant tentacle of rain snaked through the air toward him. The end of the tentacle ballooned into an enormous fist.

K'Sano growled.

His fortress was invaded. This, he would NOT allow!

Twin beams of amber fury erupted from his eyes. The beams struck the fist and turned it to steam in an instant... but they didn't stop there. They followed the tentacle of water back up to the main body of the flood... then followed the flood through the fortress... going up stairs and zigzagging around corners... until it reached the hole in the outer wall. And every inch of water that the beams touched was vaporized. K'Sano's attack filled the hallways with steam so hot that whatever had survived the flood was now being cooked alive.

But the flood was gone. K'Sano had destroyed it.

And now he was angry.

K'Sano's body glowed and crackled with rage.

The Warlord raced through the corridors, taking the same path that his eye-beams had taken. When he was outside, he shot into the sky, where Verraque awaited him.

Rain-tendrils reached out of the sky to seize him, but yellow lightning bolts impaled and destroyed each as soon as it appeared. The bolts streamed out of K'Sano's glowing aura and left a thick trail of steam in his wake as he rose through toward the cloud.

"I do not know why Drya released you from her curse, raingod," K'Sano growled. "But she did you a GRAVE disservice! You were SAFE while imprisoned on the mortal realm... you were beneath my notice, and therefore SPARED fate that befell rest of your pitiful pantheon. But now... NOW you TOO will DIE!!!"

K'Sano stretched out his arms, and his entire body pulsed. Thick, twisted cords of lightning burst from his small form, filling the sky with yellow fury. The sizzling tentacles of energy spread in all directions... stretching to the furthest corners of K'Sano's kingdom. They arced and sliced their way through the massive rain cloud, tearing it asunder... literally ripping it to pieces.

"NNNRRAAAAAAAAAAGGGHHH!!!" Verraque howled as the Warlord's power tore into him. And then... then he laughed. "AAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA! IS THIS THE BEST YOU CAN DO, MORTAL!!!!"

"No," said the Warlord. "This is merely a distraction."

The dimensional portal yawned open before K'Sano. K'Sano reached out with his mind and turned the portal inside out... sending its energies out along the tendrils of lightning that he had already established.

There was a flash...

...and then Verraque, the cloud, the rain, and the Warlord were gone.

---

The firmament appeared suddenly under the Warlord's feet. He banished the momentary disorientation and regained his balance before it even became an issue.

Verraque wasn't quite so deft. The rain-god had been taken by surprise... one moment he was a raging storm over K'Sano's kingdom... and the next, he was standing on a dark, rubble-strewn landscape somewhere else. Standing. On FEET.

He was in his true form... a pale, thin human with eyes the color of the ocean and hair as dark as a storm cloud. Verraque stumbled backward, nearly tripping over his own feet as he adjusted to the sudden change in form and location.

"You attack me on the mortal plane," said K'Sano. "Where your power is greater than mine. But now the field of battle has CHANGED! And a most fitting choice it is... wouldn't you agree?"

Verraque looked around, and the Warlord saw the recognition in the confused god's eyes.

"The Cathedral," the god gasped.

"I slew your father Abzec-Syr on this spot," said K'Sano. "HE fought poorly... as did your pitiful siblings. I smashed your father's precious sky-globe on the very place where you stand trembling now. Your mother did not fight at all... so weak was she that she took her own life rather than die by my hands. And now... NOW the prodigal son has returned to avenge them. HA! HAHAHAHAA!"

"Yes!" said Verraque. "Their blood cries out for vengeance!"

"Their BLOOD was siphoned out of their bodies by my alchemists, who are using it create weapons and potions for my Horde. The only thing it cries out for... is for YOUR blood to joined it. Which it soon will. Surrender NOW and your torment will be short..."

"NEVER, MORTAL!!"

Eyes glaring with blue rage, Verraque charged the Warlord. His fist was drawn back; angry sparks arced from his knuckles as he prepared to strike the Warlord down.

With a thought, K'Sano summoned his battle armor.

Bands of enchanted metal appeared around his limbs and torso, encircling every inch of his body, The visor of K'Sano's horned helmut slid down over his face, and the eye-slits flashed as the armor's enchantments filled him with energy.
K'Sano's body grew to monstrous proportions, and the armor swelled along with it. Iron-hard muscles pulsed beneath the demon-quenched steel, and in the span of a single thought, the boy-child had been transformed into a towering engine of unstoppable destruction.

He caught the raingod's fist in one gauntleted hand, and grasped Verraque's throat with the other. He lifted the struggling god off the ground by the neck... then slammed him back down, driving the side of his head into the ground.

"Exactly what are you intending to prove by this?" K'Sano taunted. "That you are as powerless and shortsighted as the mortals you once lorded over?"

Verraque grabbed K'Sano's ankle... the only part of the Warlord he could reach with K'Sano's hand still planted on his neck. He tried to pull the Warlord off balance, but K'Sano jerked his foot away and brought his armored boot down on Verraque's wrist.

Even in the immortal realms, where entities such as Verraque and his pantheon were more vulnerable, their flesh was still harder than any substance known to mortals... and their bones were nearly impossible to break.

-CRACK-

NEARLY impossible.

Verraque's wrist shattered under K'Sano's foot. He expected the puny raingod to cry out, but he was to get no such satisfaction.

At least not yet.

K'Sano dropped to one knee... with that knee lodged firmly in the small of Verraque's back. He hooked his arm around Verraque's neck and proceeded to bend the raingod backward-

"A-A-AK!"

"I know this hurts," The Warlord said calmly as he increased the pressure. "You should have heard the way your older brother screamed when I folded him in half like a sheet of thin parchment. First... the bones of your spine will dig into your nerves... then the bones will shatter, sending sharp fragments stabbing into your spinal cord. And then-"

Verraque's arms were flailing madly, and one of them found a stone from the ground. Verraque thrust the rock back into K'Sano's face. Were Verraque's arms not at such a disadvantaged angle, he MAY have been able to muster enough force for K'Sano to feel the blow...

...but then Verraque WAS only a rain-god, so probably not.

K'Sano grabbed the stone with his free hand and peeled it out of Verraque's grasp. The rock had a nice, sharp edge to it. Good. He slammed the stone down onto the back of Verraque's head. The impact was so hard that sparks danced around the stone when it hit. K'Sano struck again... and again... eager to see which would yield first, the stone or Verraque's skull.

They both gave at about the same time.

The rock shattered in K'Sano's grasp just as Verraque's skull produced a satisfying CRUNCH. The raingod's struggles ceased, and the former-deity went limp beneath K'Sano.

Blood poured from the gashes in Verraque's scalp. K'Sano dipped his fingertips into the glowing fluid and examined it. There were several vampire-lords that might surrender their entire kingdoms for a single drop...

...but then, Verraque WAS only a rain-god, so probably not.

"I believe I have changed my mind about adding your energy to my own," said K'Sano. "I have come too far only to DILUTE my power with the likes of you."

K'Sano stood up and started to walk away... then he spun and delivered a powerful back-fist strike to Verraque... who was sneaking up on him from behind. The blow caught Verraque on the jaw, and the mere ECHOES of the impact were like thunderclaps rumbling across the barren landscape.

Verraque staggered away from the Warlord... but he did not fall. Blood poured down his back... leaked from his face... plastered his hair to his battered scalp... but he didn't fall.

"Did you really think I would be fooled by your simplistic charade?" said K'Sano. "Do you think I am unfamiliar with what it takes to kill a god? After all... I have killed so many..."

Verraque started to say something, but all that came through was a low growl of rage.

But the growl was not confined to Verraque's throat. No... the entire LANDSCAPE was alive with fury. Clouds gathered above them, and before K'Sano could brace himself, a storm of such power that it dwarfed anything on the physical plane unleashed its power upon him.

Not that he NEEDED to brace himself.

Perhaps on the MORTAL plane, this assault would have given him pause. But not here. Not on the ethereal planes, where his power rivaled that of the gods. K'Sano marched through the wind and rain as if it were only a spring shower. Lightning licked at his armor, but K'Sano shrugged off the tendrils of electricity as easily as the rainwater that accompanied it. Neither left so much as a single mark on his armor... and K'Sano never felt a tingle even from the most powerful bolts.

Verraque had begun to retreat... either he was confident that his 'attack' would subdue K'Sano, or he was merely using the storm as a distraction to cover his exit. K'Sano didn't think the raingod was smart enough to run, so he decided to use Verraque's own confidence against him. The rain was so intense that it shielded K'Sano from view until he had crept closer to Verraque. With one lunge, he launched himself at the unsuspecting god.

Verraque dodged, but K'Sano's fist still caught him.

BOOOOOM!

The single blow cracked the side of Verraque's skull. The two that followed drove the raingod to his knees before him. Verraque would have collapsed completely if the Warlord wasn't holding him upright with one hand on the raingod's shoulder. He drove his fist into Verraque's face... then paused to watch the wounds begin to heal. He struck the god again... and waited as the pieces of Verraque's shattered face started to reassemble.

He struck again... this time the punch was so hard that it the momentum tore Verraque right out of K'Sano's own grasp. Verraque landed on his back and slid several yards. His unmoving body lay sprawled out on the ground as K'Sano approached him. Without hesitation, he drove his fist straight down-

Verraque rolled to one side just in time to avoid the blow. He kicked out with his left foot... but the kick bounced harmlessly off of K'Sano's armor. K'Sano grabbed Verraque's leg... pulled... and twisted-

CRACK!

-then twisted again-

CRACK

-then back the other direction

CRACKLE!

"AAAAAAAAAAGGH" Verraque roared.

K'Sano released the god's shattered leg, and immediately kicked Verraque in the upper back. Verraque convulsed and coughed up a lung full of blood. The storm that still raged around them both instantly died. K'Sano's fists came down in a hammer-blow to Verraque's lower spine-

KRA-BOOOOM!

Shockwaves from the blow cracked the ground... miniature chasms radiated outward from underneath VERRAQUE's broken, bleeding form.

But Verraque wasn't dead. He was pulling himself along with his arms, trying to drag himself away from the Warlord.

K'Sano grabbed him by his broken leg; Verraque's fingers dug deep grooves in the dirt as the Warlord yanked him back.

"I do understand," said K'Sano as he knelt down and grabbed Verraque's head. "I do. Without your pantheon, you have nothing to live for. No family. No worshippers. No power. Even Drya's curse is gone... you have no mortals to serve or torment. Your life is pointless... irrelevant. So you contrive this false attempt at vengeance so that I can relieve you of the burden... the burden of your empty and useless existence."

Verraque tried to struggle, but K'Sano twisted his head sharply... not breaking the neck, but coming close enough to get Verraque's attention. Verraque's shattered bones and torn flesh were still healing themselves... a very painful process. K'Sano wanted Verraque to enjoy the full agony of it before he twisted the raingod's head off.

"Perhaps you should have begged Drya to reinstate her curse... it would have saved you so much pain..."

"...and..." Verraque moaned "...perhaps... you should have gathered... ALL the pieces of my father's sky-globe when it shattered..."

Verraque's hand suddenly clenched into a fist, and K'Sano's head erupted in a burst of pain so intense that it literally threw the Warlord off of Verraque and sent him stumbling backward.... both hands clamped to the sides of his head.

"NNNYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!"

"...it would have saved YOU so much pain..." said Verraque. The raingod rolled over... then got up. He was holding something in his fist, but K'Sano couldn't see what it was. The searing bolts of pain were almost blinding... and there was blood running down his face... into his eyes...

"AAAAAGGH!"

It felt like there were razors tunneling through his flesh shredding his face from the INSIDE!

Verraque held out his fist and uncurled the fingers... briefly revealing the glowing shards of glass that lay in his palm.

The GLASS!

K'Sano remembered the last time he was here... when he destroyed Verraque's pantheon and looted their treasures. Abzec-Syr's enchanted sky-globe had shattered in his hands, sending shards of glass deep into his face. His best mages and surgeons had been unable to remove the enchanted glass OR the scars they'd left behind... but now it seemed that there was more at stake than mere scars. The glass ITSELF was still lodged in his flesh, and Verraque was controlling it somehow with the shards that HE had.

Verraque clenched his fist again, and the pain intensified.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGG!"

K'Sano tore off his helmut and clutched his face. His face was on fire... blood poured out of a dozen deep wounds... wounds that continued to lengthen as the glass shards sliced into him. They were like needles of white-hot iron under his skin.... needles that moved... that wormed their way through his muscles and nerves, seeking out the places where they could cause the most pain. They poked, prodded and bored into every inch of his head... circling his eyes... shredding his sinus passages... some wormed their way back through his scalp... others snaked down towards his throat. Each one left a trail of fiery, bloody PAIN in its wake.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!"

"The God of the Sky SHALL have his vengeance!" Verraque spat. The pain in K'Sano's face doubled with every syllable... "You shall DIE on your KNEES, mortal... BEGGING for mercy from son of Abzec-Syr!"

"...I bow to no one..." K'Sano hissed through tightly clenched teeth. He could feel shards of glass piercing his throat and mouth... he could taste the blood...

"Then today, you will learn! BOW!"

The glass shards all moved at once... bursting through the skin and remaining there for an instant before sinking back into his flesh.

"AAAAAAAAAGH!"

"BOW, MORTAL! ON YOUR KNEES!!!"

"NO-AAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGHH!!"

K'Sano dropped to his knees... not out of defeat, but because the pain had made him dizzy. His face was a mask of fresh blood... his skin was already shredded... and now the tiny needles of glass were closing in on his eyes... pricking his eyeballs...

"BEG FOR MERCY!!!" Verraque bellowed.

"...heh, heh, heh,..." K'Sano chuckled. "Heh, Heh! HAHAHA!"

"Your own torment amuses you?" said Verraque. "You are more twisted than even I had imagined!"

"HAHAHAAA! It is YOU who amuse me!" said K'Sano. Every word he spoke sent droplets of blood flying off of his shredded lips. "You are not a god... you are NOTHING... and yet you STILL cannot resist-ARRRRRGH!- GLOATING over the pain of mortals. You should have killed me when you had the element of surprise-"

"Oh, you WILL die, mortal!"

"No. You will."

K'Sano's eyes flashed bright... BRIGHT yellow. The bloody flesh around them sizzled as two beams of power streaked forth from the glowing orbs.

Verraque side-stepped the blast... and laughed at the Warlord's last-ditch effort to save himself. Verraque didn't see the twin beams of yellow light make two 90-degree turns and come right back at him from behind.

TTHAAAAZZZZZZZ

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGK"

The blast tore a hole completely through Verraque's chest, nearly cutting him in two. The raingod fell, the look of surprise still frozen on his face. He landed in a heap, with a thick cloud of smoke rising from the crispy black hole in his torso. The glass shards tumbled from his paralyzed fingers, and the pain in K'Sano's head ceased instantly. The wounds were still there, but the Warlord's considerable magic was already healing them...

...much like Verraque's body was trying to heal itself even now.

Unfortunately, it would never get the chance to finish. K'Sano was tired of this game... it was time to end it.

He grabbed his helmut and settled it onto his bleeding head. Then his eyes began to glow once more as he prepared to incinerate the fallen raingod.

"Farewell, fool-" he began-

KRABOOOMMMM!

The blast struck him out of nowhere and drove him backward several steps. And before the Warlord could search for its source, it came again-

THABBOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

K'Sano flew through the air... but not on his own power. The second blast was so powerful that it had picked him up and thrown him. And so powerful that he FELT it even through his armor!

But this was no ordinary thunderbolt or fireball... no, quite the opposite...

When the Warlord finally hit the ground, his skin was ice-cold... and his limbs were beginning to tremble. The outer surface of his armor bore a thick layer of FROST!

The Warlord's heart quickened... he KNEW who this was, but-

KRAK-THOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMM!

The third blast came as a cracking blue streak of lightning that pierced the Warlord's armor as if it weren't even there. K'Sano felt the heat drain out of his body... the trembling if his extremities became uncontrollable. His teeth were chattering so hard that he nearly bit his tongue off... not that he would have noticed, since his face and mouth had gone completely numb.

He barely felt the fierce wind as it blew down from the sky... a hurricane of ice and snow that swirled around him... depositing layer after layer of ice on everything nearby... the ground... the Warlord... Verraque... everything. Soon, a figure appeared in the storm, a towering human shape stepped out of the tempest. A female shape... with shocking white hair and glowing eyes the color of the winter sky. Her skin was the color of death... pale gray, with gray lips that were drawn back in an angry sneer that K'Sano could never hope to match. Her face radiated icy cruelty... there was no mercy or compassion anywhere within her. Not for K'Sano. Not for anyone.

She was Drya... goddess of winter....

...and she despised K'Sano with a passion that bordered on insanity. Not because of anything he had done or planned to do to her... but because he was a mortal.

For Drya, being mortal was reason enough.

But she had never attacked him directly before now. She'd taken him by surprise, and her assault had left him weak. K'Sano didn't know if he could win this fight. Not now. Not THIS time. So he immediately began gathering his energy for a retreat...

TOO LATE!

Drya raised her hand and threw a ball of blew lightning at him. K'Sano's eyes blazed. His eye-beams struck the lightning-ball dead on-

WHOOOOOOM!

The explosion's shockwave sent K'Sano sliding across the frozen ground. A wave of intense cold washed over him... further depleting his energy reserves. He couldn't feel his extremities now... couldn't tell if they were still attached or if they'd frozen solid and snapped off inside his armor...

"...this is not your battle, Drya..." K'Sano managed to mumble.

"I DECIDE WHICH BATTLES ARE MINE AND WHICH ARE NOT, MORTAL. NOT YOU." The winter-goddess's voice was like the crackling of a glacier.

"...why are you here..."

"YOU DARE QUESTION ME!?"

"I dare much... as you are well aware."

"YOUR BOLDNESS DOES NOT AMUSE ME," said Drya. "THE ONLY REASON YOU STILL LIVE IS BECAUSE YOU HAVE A PLACE IN THINGS YET TO COME. BUT THAT PLACE IS NOT HERE."

"You speak of some fate for which I am destined?" said K'Sano. "My only fate is to clean away the weak, old gods and absorb their power into mine! Your day shall come soon, Drya..."

"IF IT IS MY POWER YOU DESIRE, THEN YOU SHALL HAVE IT IN ABUNDANCE! BEGONE, MORTAL FOOL!"

Drya pursed her lips and blew her breath at K'Sano.

Instantly he was gripped by a cold so deep... so intense... that it liquified and then SOLIDIFIED the very air itself around his armor, sealing him inside a block of ice several feet thick.

Then Drya waved her hand, and it was as if the moon itself had slammed into K'Sano. The Warlord's icy prison shot into the air and streaked across the sky like a comet. The stars became streaks of light that swirled around him until... with a flash of blue light... he was gone...

---

The mages had just finished patching the holes in the fortress walls... first with force-fields, then with fresh stone summoned from the hell-pits... when the thing appeared in the sky. At first, Tranik thought it was a star... but no, stars do not move quite as quickly as this thing did.

Then he thought it may have been an attack... but who would be foolish enough to attempt such a thing? Still... the thing did seem to be headed towards the fortress rather quickly. Tranik dared not sound the alarm needlessly, so he summoned his spyglass and examined the curious thing streaking across the heavens.

THEN he sounded the alarm.

Two minutes later, the Warlord returned home.

The death-toll was measured in the thousands.

---

Verraque opened his eyes and saw nothing but white. He cleared the ice and snow from his face... and STILL saw nothing but white. Ice. Ice, as far as he could see. He could sense that he had not traveled anywhere, yet this was clearly not the same place where he had fought the Warlord. Was it?

Why was it so cold?

...so cold that even a god could feel it. Verraque remembered this cold. He had felt it before...

"Oh, no..." he gasped. The raingod began to tremble uncontrollably, not from the cold, but from terror. It was her.

It was HER!

"Did you think I would not know?" said Drya. She was standing over him, looking down at him with cruel, blue eyes. "Did you think your escape from my curse would go unnoticed.... or unpunished?"

"...please..." Verraque begged. "...everyone else is dead... please let me go... please... I'm b-begging you... PLEASE-"

"No," said Drya. She reached down toward him... sharp, icy fingertips extended toward Verraque's recently-regrown chest. "No, you still have lessons to learn.... and I am not quite finished with you yet..."

"NO! DRYA, NO! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-"


[END]

copyright 2001 by Dark Icon (Marc Washington)