General Thorn takes in the cool, crisp air of morning dew mixed with the aroma of smoke billowing from the burning buildings.

This village – Kadishu – was little more than a fishing town on the edge of the Demesne. Population: 175. Barely increasing year by year. But for some reason he can’t quite pinpoint, the village seems strangely familiar to him…

He sighs as he looks at the battered guards that had been left to defend this place. A token resistance at best. Deshaan had already taken all the good soldiers in his realm and sequestered them in his castle. Not a bad move, considering his irredeemable love for mortal life, but one which would win him no favors with the people that remained on the outskirts of his Demesne.

Thorn was counting on that.

He prods the head of one decapitated soldier with the pointed toe of his boot – a face twisted in an eternal scream.

Fragile. So utterly fragile. Why he and his men had drawn their swords, knowing that Duke Deshaan had left them here to die, he could only guess at.

But the end of their miserable lives at least means something, Thorn reminds himself as he marches towards the village square.

It set the right kind of example.

He beckons one Seeded goblin to his side – one currently engaged in dragging a woman by her hair into the cobbled street.

“Are the villagers assembled?” He asks.

The greenskin gives a twitch.

“All – present – Lord – Thorn.”

He nods, barely even acknowledging the woman’s screams.

“Good.”

He rounds a corner and emerges into the square proper. The ramshackle hovels – those not put to the torch – are well and truly emptied. The banners of Deshaan have been cast into the streets, ripped to shreds, and in the center of it all the villagers that remain crowd around their inoperative fountain.

He stands atop a crumbled statue and takes them all in – scanning through the crying faces of the children, the disgruntled eyes of the old, the fearful twitches of the mothers and fathers.

“People of Kadishu,” he calls, nodding to his seeded greenskins so that they began to close ranks around the edges of the village square, penning in the villagers. “Your forces have been decimated. Your homes are gone. Soon, your land shall be terraformed to make way for the beauty of Lady Gyko’s growth.”

Their expressions don’t change. There is anger, still, in some of these faces. A regrettable reaction to ascension. But, once, that anger had been his. He understands.

“Let it not be said that the Lady is not without mercy,” he says. “Bend the knee and pledge yourself to her service and she shall grant you life eternal. You shall never again fear death. You shall walk together under a common purpose. You will never again feel the pangs of hunger, or sadness, or fear eat away at your bones. You shall ascend, as will the rest of this world. Deny the Lady’s love,” he let the sentence hang. “And die.”

He lets his statement hold their attention for a time, watching the parents cast startled glances at each other.

“For the good of your lives,” Thorn continues. “And the sake of your children’s lives, I urge you to do what is right. You have ten minutes to deliberate.”

He hops down from the statue without another look at the crowd.

“Prepare the seeds,” he tells his greenskin commander. “If any attempt to flee, slay them.”

The goblin gives a violent jerk.

“The – Lady – must – speak.”

Thorn regards the creature with confusion.

“Lady – Gyko – speak – to – Thorn!”

His eyes widen. He understands.

The greenskin hands him a pink-hued bulb.

“Keep watch,” he tells the spasming goblin, before turning and walking to a quiet corner of the village streets.

A direct message, he wonders. I knew it was coming. But it comes sooner than I anticipated.

He closes his eyes as he places the bulb on the ground.

The petals of the flower unfold, and a puff of purple spurts into the air before him.

And as he blinks the perfumed cloud away, he looks upon Lady Gyko’s smiling face.

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“Thorn,” she whispers, her forked tongue playing around her bloodied lips. “Your progress is worrying me. Is my little General getting cold feet?”

He sees the wisps of cold air emanating from his mouth as he looks into her huge, lambent eyes. He floats in a formless, dark void, nothing but her face before his body and her vine-coated breasts beneath his feet. She could swallow him whole in an instant. She need only inch forward and bite down.

He steadies himself.

“My scouts report that Seneca has failed,” he says. “Intelligence suggests that the Lightborn has taken shelter in Glenheim. An assault will be necessary.”

Gyko touches one slender, serrated fingertip to his cheek.

“And that is why you are here, dearest Thorn?”

He suppresses the gulp rising in his throat. “Yes, my Lady. The population of Kadishu shall provide the backbone of my forces, supported by indigenous creatures sourced from the Plains of Rowan.”

The Darkseed’s smile grows.

“Always weaving plans within plans, little devious Thorn,” she says, her finger curling round his waist. “I have always allowed you a greater degree of autonomy than my other servants, have I not?”

He straightens up. “For this, my Lady, I thank –“

The air in his lungs is cut off as she squeezes him.

“Yes,” she whispers in the void. “But I gave you a simple command: bring the dog before me. And yet, the greatest single threat to my glory is currently cavorting with Elves and their weak-willed mother dragon.”

She squeezes him tighter till he is sure he’ll pop. His eyes bulge from their sockets, and his whole world becomes the blurred vision of her narrowed pupils.

“Explain this to me,” she commands.

“I…,” he groans against her, knowing his every word could be his last. “The – the Lightborn does not know we follow him. We can…use him. We can use him to crush all your enemies, my Lady. First Glenheim, then…the mages of Lereghost and…then…hidden Glumgavel. We shall follow him to these vestiges of the past that hide themselves from your sight. They will not deny the Lightborn. He will be…our…guide!”

His ribs start to crack against her might, and his vision clouds. He’s fading. He knows it. He –

Then Gyko’s tendrils retract, and he’s on his knees, looking into her smiling face again.

“My dear, sweet Thorn,” she sighs down at him. “A keen mind in a champion is a most undervalued trait.”

He gasps to try and recover his breath, his hand reflectively flying to grab his locket instead of his chest.

“You know my desires as I know yours,” Gyko continues. “Yes. I would see all our enemies in the East Seeded under my will. With the Elves, the mages, and the remnants of the Grey ones thus enthralled, my war against the North would be easily won…”

He nods, obedient, as his Lady considers his plan.

“This Lightborn is but a pup,” he croaks. “One without an army, and without the diplomatic skills to muster one. The Elves will not join him – they have already lost too much. The Mages of Lereghost will laugh him away, and what remains of the Greycloaks are nothing but disenchanted old men. He will grasp at all his options until there are none left.”

He feels his Lady’s bosom rise with joy. “And then you shall come for him.”

Thorn nods, relief washing over him.

“Dearest Thorn,” she says. “What a sly little man you are.”

He bears the words with a hidden scowl, gripping his silver locket harder.

“Very well. You will finish with this dreary hamlet and then find Seneca.”

His eyes dart up at her.

“Seneca, my Lady?”

Her smile shows her gnarled teeth again.

“Yes,” she whispers in his ears. “I feel, as only a mother can, that she yet lives. It is time to see where her loyalties truly lie. Glenheim shall be ours within a tenday if you leave this night. Seed your forces and take a gift to my prized assassin. Deliver to her my will, and let my glory spread to her former home.”

She leans forward, stroking his grizzled chin with her flecked tongue.

“And Thorn? Do not keep secrets from me again.”

He would have nodded a thousand times if he had gotten the chance. Instead, her smirking form instantly dissipates, and he is left looking at the ‘gift’ she had left him to deliver to Seneca.

He picks it up with a grimace, pocketing it and returning to the village square without looking back at the withered petals of the Lady’s flower.

“Lord – Thorn…” one Seeded greenskin stutters when he returns. “One – human – resists.”

He looks up to see the villagers cowering under the watchful gazes of his sentinels. All of them but one.

And now he remembers why this town seemed so familiar.

“Casseric Thorn,” the tiny man standing before him says. “How the mighty have fallen.”

He stiffens. “That name no longer belongs to me, Elder Galbraith.”

Galbraith spits on the ground, his old mouth drizzled with saliva and beard spattered with blood. He’d tried to fight back. Of course he had.

The goblins ready their weapons.

“Look at you,” the village Elder continues. “Never thought I’d see the day. A soldier who once swore himself to defend Arwyll now nothing more than a flower’s little lapdog.”

Thorn meets the old man’s eyes. Totally steady.

“I take it, Sir, that you do not mean to surrender?”

Some of the other villagers call out to their leader, begging him to kneel. But he barely even acknowledges them.

“This is my home,” he says, staring down every growling goblin that closes ranks around him. “I made it what it is. Planted the seeds for every harvest. Watched each family grow. Welcomed the Lightborn himself when he came.”

He chuckles in Thorn’s face.

“He’s coming for you, y’know.”

“The Lightborn is gone,” Thorn replies coolly.

Galbraith shakes his old locks. “Nah. He’ll never be gone. So long as there’s evil like you, the Lightborn’ll go on. You can’t kill him. You get it? The Darkseed’s never won. Not once!”

Some of the kneeling citizens start murmuring amongst themselves.

Thorn nods to one or two of the goblins to begin the Seeding as he smiles grimly at Galbraith.

“It is sad that your life must end as you languish in ignorance,” Thorn replies. “You always were a man of conviction, Galbraith. Perhaps, when you enter the afterlife, you might share the Lightborn’s hearth.”

“I go willingly,” he spits. “I ain’t no coward, like you.”

His finger twitches towards the blade at his hip.

“I am sorry you think so little of me,” Thorn says calmly. “But rest assured; your people shall be safe under my leadership. They are part of one family now.”

“And what about Minerva and Rachel?” he sneers at Thorn’s face. “Is that what you told them? Are they safe, now? Eh, Thorn? What must they think of you no-“

Galbraith’s words are lost as his mouth gargles with blood, and he looks down to see Thorn’s blade embedded in his gut.

“Why don’t you ask them?” Thorn replies as he twists the blade and lets the Elder fall. Then, any villagers who were not already on their knees start groveling.

“Finish this,” he tells his warriors, and they surge forward into the screaming crowd, ready to administer the Lady’s gift. “But Seed this one last.”

“Th-Thorn..” Galbraith sputters beneath him. “Why…”

“That’s the thing about choice, Galbraith,” Thorn mutters as he sheathes his bloody weapon and walks off, hand clasped round his locket. “When it comes down to it, we never really have one at all.”