Of Men Made Gods

Prologue: A Sacrifice

A Sacrifice

137 P.A.

WIND WHIPPING HIS cloak around him, Lucifio Lamourn stood on a hill looking at the swirling mists in the distance. Behind him, the sky bled in magnificent colors as the sun slowly rose while above the brightest stars still lingered in the fading darkness at the edge of night. Time moved on in its usual pace and the day dawned with it as the twilight grayness faded from the world around him.

Gradually, with the warm touch of the golden rays making the mists reluctantly disappear, the vast army camped in the distant planes came into view below him. Seeing how much closer they had come since he last saw them, Lucifio realized that they must have marched almost ceaselessly through every last scrap of daylight they could get.

Silently looking at the dark mass that was starting to show signs of movement, he felt a deep hatred well up inside him. He had heard many of his people say that they felt respect for this foe who had destroyed their first home, but he had never shared their sentiment. He had never understood the madness that drove these barbarians, the bloodthirsty urge that made them want to make an adversary of anyone in their path.

Fighting for a thing that had never been clear for Lucifio, the murderous hordes had hurled themselves at the impregnable walls of his ancestors' once magnificent cities until they had ceased being impregnable. One by one, through the ages, they had destroyed all of their lands. And with each generation, his people had been pushed back, one step at a time, up to the time of his grandfather when all in their dwindled numbers had agreed to move on. And, since then, it had taken them fifty years, a generation's lifetime, to find a suitable home. Stragglers were still pouring into their new land where they would start to build their city when his own father had died.

It was almost a year ago that the first of the wandering merchants had reported the advance of their ancient enemy. Most had not believed they would come this far just to hunt the ragged remnant of their once mighty civilization, but he had seen the truth from the start. When most were reluctant to even acknowledge the danger, he had been amongst the first few to find out for himself. In the following months, all had seen the realities more clearly and everyone was making an effort to help in the war against the army that was trying to reach their new home.

With the invaders finally stopped at the hills that were the last guard of their new land, it was just three months ago that they had been able to make one of their captives from a battle talk. It was almost by sheer luck that they were able to learn the truth that had made most of Lucifio's colleagues fall into spiraling despair. For a few weeks, they had been able to keep secret the fact that all this time they had been fighting only a fraction of their enemy's forces.

Scouts and spies had been sent to verify the terrifying information once the public found out about it all. And, when some of those who were sent finally returned to acknowledge the validity of the claim that had been dragged out of the long dead soldier, many people had decided to start again their search for a new home. Some, though, had gone mad, deciding to kill themselves and their loved ones before the barbarians reached them, while still others had taken a different track into madness by spending what they thought of as the last of their days in the depravities of life that would have resulted in them being banished from society in any other time.

Lucifio, though, had persevered with his thoughts intact through all the chaos of a civilization that had suddenly been stripped of its hope. While people around him lost all their inhibitions, he had realized running away would do no good in the end while fighting was clearly out of the question with the kind of numbers the enemy was said to hold in its swiftly approaching ranks. So, in the end, he had gone to the one resource his people had always had more than any others they had ever met before, magic.