Kyle attacked.
The realm capitulated for him in abject, worshipful surrender.
A mile of ossuary drifts in perfect concentric rings collapsed into fine grey ash as his weight passed from left boot to right, the ash hurled outward in a covetous, swirling ring while the realm itself cleared its great hall for the attending of its prince.
The continent-spine on the horizon shivered along its vast buried length like a thing in the throes of orgasmic dread.
The row of horizon-teeth bared itself wider by half an inch, as though the whole dead mouth of the world were readying itself to spit forth its favoured son and devour the intruder who had dared smile in its presence.
His right hand opened and from the red-black energy above him a blade remembered itself into his palm — long, thin, wickedly curved, single-edged, the metal so deep a black it supped upon the light around it and digested it whole.
