Lukotor the Wise’s hands trembled around the Vessel of Altak-Tur, which had penetrated the minds of the guards from the southern gate and seized their bodies. It was a powerful spell that strained the vessel terribly; it shuddered as though in agony. Cracks were forming in the magical clay.

Only a little more, he promised himself.

Triumph thrummed in his breast as the enthralled ogres led them through the low wall to the barrows. King Gergorix’s tomb rose before him. He was certain of it. He could feel it. Within that great hill would shine his ultimate triumph. An egg that would hatch into endless power.

Avernix’s bearing was imperious, but his countenance pale and coated in an icy sweat. His lips muttered silently and his eyes were helpless. When they’d first reached the wood, it was with a great army at their backs. Now, like an apocalypse, all had been withered down to three exhausted warriors. He’d been made heirless as well.

Lukotor considered all his overlord had lost and knew he would need to pledge restitution and bestow boundless tribute unto him. With the power to shatter mountains, he could spare time to console his devastated sovereign. Or perhaps…

His dark eyes narrowed.

Perhaps he should be sovereign.

All along he’d held no interest in pursuing earthly rule once he’d gained Gergorix’s legacy, thinking to slough off such things like a child casting away wooden toys in adulthood. He’d thought to live as demigods do, drinking of mortal gratitude for generations while supporting Avernix’s dynasty. With the overlord’s forces devastated, Lukotor would need to take a firm hand to rebuild what had been lost. Why not control it directly? It could be amusing.

They rounded the barrows, their feet crunching on ancient gravel paths weaving between silent hillocks. A pall hung on the air. One of death. One of anticipation.

Gergorix’s barrow loomed higher before him.

Lukotor scoffed, touching one of the jewels in his hair. Clearly, the Wizard-King had been a man of limited taste. No matter the size, it was still a dirt mound he’d chosen to spend eternity beneath. Is this all the fool had aspired to? Even the city - grand enough in its time - would have been a poor lair for one who rocked the skies with his power. Lukotor had traveled to many civilizations far grander in his youth.

He would build something that would shame the Duke of Laexondael and the Merchant Princes of Zabyalla. And when he came to rest…no…why die at all? His imagination soared at the possibilities. He walked tall, more than ready for godhood to be bestowed upon him.

The warriors’ breaths fell silent.

He rounded a final barrow.

The door to Gergorix’s tomb came into view.

He froze.

The Vessel of Altak-Tur slipped from numbed fingers to roll on the gravel.

“Lukotor…the door…” Avernix murmured.

The vault had been breached by a terrible force.

“No!” the old man shrieked, pushing past his bewitched ogres and rushing toward the doorway. “No! No! No! No!”

His pyromancer’s ember came to hand, its glow wan from being called upon so frequently as of late. Its light dissolved the pitch dark of the tomb. The burial chamber had been despoiled. Ancient treasures were scattered about thoughtlessly by a brute hand.

The bones of the Wizard-King’s personal guard were scattered, their verdigris tinged armour flung to and fro. In the middle lay a crumpled skeleton with a crown lying beside it. Lukotor kicked it aside, desperately searching the dusty vault.

“Lukotor!” Avernix and his warriors filled the entryway. “What’s happened?”

The wizard snarled at him.

Crunch.

Another rotten tooth broke in his mouth. “Don’t stand there like a fool, help me search for it! Now!”

The overlord recoiled. Never before had the old man spoken to him so, and his endless fears and frustrations finally curdled into a terrible wrath. His face turned red as blood. “You dare? You dare speak to me, Overlord Avernix of Garumna, like this?”

“I dare!” Lukotor shook with rage. “I made Overlord Avernix of Garumna! Who was it that fed your tribe’s weak demons?! Who was it that taught you tactics and grand ambition?! Who was it that helped train your warriors beyond the ale-swilling brigands they were?! Who was it that put actual thought into the empty heads of those two louts you called sons?! It was I! Lukotor of Garumna! Lukotor the Wise!” the ancient man’s voice shook the dusty chamber. “I am a god to you! Obey me, you hapless idiot! Look for the egg!”

“This…! This!” Avernix’s finger shook, jabbing forth accusingly. “This is your fault! All of this! I built an empire! I had everything, and this disaster you conjured took all of it! Now I see it was all for naught, and you dare to command me like a cur! I’ll have your head, wizard!”

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He went for his sword.

Without a word, Lukotor levelled his ember.

Fwooooosh!

A stream of flame shot forth.

The conqueror leapt aside as quick as a hunting beast, but the fire caught his three warriors in the doorway, immolating their flesh and burning out their lungs in heartbeats. The stream continued, consuming the stone-still ogres, which set them free of the spell by way of agony. They shrieked like dying pigs as they fell to the earth, clawing at their sloughing flesh. In the distance, roars of alarm echoed through the village.

Lukotor leapt forth, his ember sputtering, but Avernix was in full flight, the barbarian conqueror abandoning honour and vengeance for the sweet embrace of survival.

Fwoooosh!

Lukotor’s second stream missed him as he rounded a barrow and disappeared. Cursing, the old man rushed back into the tomb, holding up his ember for light.

The object of power shuddered, giving a great sputtering sigh.

The prize he’d claimed from the volcanoes of Eldvioi flickered and died into a piece of worthless coal. Growling in frustration, he cast it away to shatter on the cobblestones and searched by the light of Avernix’s burning warriors.

He cast aside a disc-shaped talisman of pure gold encrusted with jewels. A miniature white golden sword was set atop it.

Not there.

He threw away a priceless goblet of gold and platinum. It was studded with diamonds, rubies, sapphires, pearls and green jade.

Not there.

He stepped on Gergorix’s golden crown. Its diamonds, rubies, sapphires and aquamarines formed images of triumph along its outer rim.

Not there!

He flung aside a beautiful silver-bladed sword. Its golden hilt was covered in diamonds, emeralds, sapphires and rubies, with a grip of red dragon scale.

It clattered to the stones near the exit.

“It’s not here!” he shrieked, ripping jewels from his own hair but too filled with fury to feel the pain. “It’s not here!” The old wizard ran from the tomb, his hands balled into fists so tightly that his palms bled.

“Why!?” he screamed at the heavens. “I have laboured and laboured! I sacrificed everything! My blood! My years! My toil! All for this! I have nothing left! Nothing!”

Heavy footfalls pulled him from his mania.

His stomach fell as his luck turned ill once again.

Ogres were stalking through the great barrows, their inhuman eyes fixed on him and their tusked lips drooling. The five in the lead made the others look like milkmaids. Four massive males a head taller than the rest framed an ogress that might have been sired by a demon. She towered far above even her honour guard, half again the height of her subjects, and her great, powerful bulk was to ogres what the rest of her race were to humans.

A crown of horns jutted from her head - a hideous mirror of the tribe’s territorial signs - and her mastodon hides were covered in a rancid grease. In one hand she gripped a giant bronze hammer that looked able to plough a castle gate in half with a single stroke, no doubt taken from one of Gergorix’s statues.

“You…” her voice was the grind of mountains as she chewed through a word in Garric. “You come to die.”

Lukotor’s shoulders slumped in defeated agreement. There was nothing left to do. He took in the terrible form of his slayer, drinking every detail of the sharp bone fetishes hanging from her furs. The stone knives stuck through her vine belt. The twined pendant hanging from her neck, shining from…

He froze. His lips parted.

Mad, bubbling laughter poured from between his tangled teeth.

In a cage of twined mastodon hair hung an egg.

An egg of white marble, jade and gold, encrusted in rubies, emeralds and diamonds.

The Egg of Gergorix.

The Wizard-King’s legacy hung before him as no more than an ogre’s pendant.

With a speed he had not known in decades, Lukotor leapt for the Vessel of Altak-Tur. Caught in surprise, none of the giants were able to act before he seized it. Incantations poured from his lips. The whispering voices from the urn shrieked as his spell twisted its magic beyond its purpose. He thrust a clawed hand toward the bewildered giants, then squeezed it shut.

There was a surge of impact.

Panic-stricken thoughts poured from the vessel, but his terrible wizardry crushed any resistance. Their bodies contorted, twisted, then went still around their panicked eyes. He had them.

Nothing was stopping him now.

Walk forward, he mentally ordered the giant chief.

She slowly came forth. The urn shuddered.

Take that thing off, he commanded. Free that stone from the ridiculous setting you put it in.

Snap!

The ogress pulled off the necklace, snapping the mastodon hair. Spider webs of cracks appeared through the vessel.

Give it to me! He extended a clawed hand that trembled in anticipation.

“Lukotor!” a stranger’s deep voice called from behind him. Rapid footsteps approached.

The Egg of Gergorix dropped.

For a single breath, the world hung in the air.

Any number of things could have happened. A beam of hellfire or thrown sword could have severed the old wizard’s life. The quick hand of a thief could have snatched the egg before it dropped.

Yet nothing so fortunate occurred.

Lukotor the Wise closed his hand around the prize he’d sought all his life.

A new Wizard-King was about to ascend.

Slit your throats, he mentally commanded. The ogres before him slowly raised their claws and drew fountains of crimson from their necks. Gurgling, they fell. Danu the Ogress, feared throughout all the forest of giants, died to a man who knew not her name.

The Vessel of Altak-Tur pulsed, gave a final infernal shriek, then crumbled into dust as he burned out all its magic. He did not care. He did not need such a bauble anymore.

“You are too late, thieves!” Lukotor whirled about, lifting the egg in triumph.

A motley band stood before him. A tall, dark southlander with crimson eyes. A heavily armed warrior in gilded and sapphire plate armour. A tiny, rat-faced woman who swore in Makkadian, her eyes terrified. The red-eyed man stared helplessly as Lukotor raised the egg.

“Witness now the coming of a new age!” the ancient man shrieked. “An age where my will is law!”

Jewels shone in the morning light. He reached deep into the stone, calling forth That Which Hungers from its gilded prison, ready to yoke its power to his own purpose.

And he reached.

And he reached.