Indeed, when these warriors had first encountered Eladamri, they couldn't believed so short, slight, and unscarred a man-so unKeldon a man-could be a warrior. They were wrong. Eladamri had fought through the Stronghold and the Caves of Koilos. The Keldon scouts issued a two-word challenge, clear even in their barbaric tongue: "Prove it!" With Freyalise's help, Eladamri did. He killed the first rival, so ferocious was the attack. The second limped away sorely wounded, only to fetch more.
Ten warriors returned, accompanying their field commander. This young man was different-leanly muscular. His eyes shone with bright intellect within his scarred face. He studied the dead scout. With a long sweep of his eyes, he took in the strange, green forest laid down in the icy fastness of his lands. The sights sparked something in him, something he'd heard or read. These elves were no mere invaders. They were emissaries from another world and from the black future.
The young commander jabbed a thumb toward his chest and barked a single word, "Astor."
Astor proved an uncommon Keldon, equally versed in war and lore. He knew many Dominarian languages and took pains to teach Eladamri the rudiments of Common Keld. His rulers, Doyen Olvresk and Doyenne Tajamin, arrived within the week. The former immediately ambushed Eladamri with his crescent-bladed scythe. The weapon opened a long wound from the elf's right temple to his jaw. Without pause, Eladamri responded with a slash of his sword. He struck an identical wound on the doyen's face. Their bloodied blades met between them and locked. Neither man could throw back the other. In moments, the duel was done. Without words, they had achieved detente.
Even now, as the colos climbed the ragged mountainside, Eladamri was still proving himself to Doyenne Tajamin. She rode to his right and poured out a long narrative in Common Keld. She spoke of the end of the world, of Twilight. Most Keldons believed Eladamri and his forest home to be harbingers of this end time. As Keeper of the Book of Keld, Doyenne Tajamin was harder to convince.
Her colos leaped, surging to a narrow shelf of basalt. Snow fell in easy cascades beside the beast's hooves. Aback it, Doyenne Tajamin looked down with fiery eyes.
"True, the books of Twilight speak of allies from another world, but also they speak of invaders. You claim you are allies- perhaps-but you are undoubtedly invaders."
Eladamri smiled winningly, the expression rumpling the stitched scar across his face.
In Common Keld, he replied, "The Twilight legends are yours, Doyenne, not mine. You are more eager than I to make me fit." Eladamri's steed leaped up beside hers.
Tajamin smiled as well, a predatory leer. She lifted an ancient war cudgel. The age-blackened wood was carved deep with runes.
"This weapon will decide. Some folk believe the sword cuts to the truth. We believe a cudgel divines more surely. Only those who can stand beneath its blow are true." Tajamin flipped her arm.
Eladamri braced for another attack. Instead, Tajamin rode her mount up to a higher ledge.
"So, once we are out on the battlefield, I should expect you to club me?" Eladamri asked.
"A true warrior is ready for anything," she responded.
Two more bounds of her mount brought her to the top of the cliff. Glacial light broke over her face, showing up each scar that crossed it. Her wry and dangerous look melted away, replaced by a solemn joy.
Digging his heels into the shaggy sides of his colos, Eladamri surged up over the ridge. He too saw.
A vast glacier extended from the hooves of his mount out to distant black mountains. The ice shone white beneath silvery rafts of cloud. It was a veritable sea of snow, held aloft by an ancient range of volcanic peaks. Numerous lateral glaciers descended from higher valleys to join together in this one enormous ice sheet.
From two of the lateral glaciers marched divisions of the Keldon army. They had taken a slower but less treacherous approach. In their midst rolled massive war engines-trebuchets, catapults, and greater ballistae. Larger than even these machines of war were Keldon long ships on huge runners. At full sail, their bladed bows could rip through enemy lines and their vast rams could smash a twenty-foot-thick wall. Hoardings lined the rails of the warships. Through their loopholes, archers could pour quarrels on troops and battlements alike. Among these enormous machines rode twenty-five thousand heavy colos cavalry. Seventy-five thousand Keldons filled out the warhost.
Eladamri was glad to see his ten thousand elven troops marching among the arrayed might of Keld.
These were grand sights, true, but they were not what lit the face of the doyenne. The grandest vision of all stood to one side of the glacier.
On a conic peak among craggy mountains perched a tall, black city. The base of the structure was crowded with countless dwellings. Their steep roofs dumped incessant snows. Lights shown minutely in their windows. Farther up, the buildings grew dark. In the midst of the dwellings rose a tall pyramid of stone, open on two ends. It seemed almost a hangar for an airship, but the space could have held a vessel five times the size of Weatherlight. At the pyramid's pinnacle resided a lofty citadel. It lurked among the raveling clouds.
Eladamri stared so intently at the vision that he was startled to realize the proud doyens and doyennes beside him had dropped from their colos to kneel on the ice. Even Liin Sivi bowed low. Swinging his leg from the saddle, Eladamri knelt among them.
A chant came from the leaders. "Kradak and Jezal, doyen and doyenne, fire and hearth, till Twilight we await your return."
Eladamri kept his head bowed until the chant was done. The clang of armor told that his allies rose. He climbed to his feet with the others and remounted. Only then did he dare speak.
"What is this glorious vision?"
Doyenne Tajamin drove her mount forward across the ice. She spoke reverently. "This is the Necropolis, the resting place for our honored dead. All warriors who die in righteous warfare are entombed there. From the Necropolis, they will rise in the day of Twilight to defend Keld from the armies of evil."
"There are lights lit there," Eladamri said, pacing her.
"The caretakers dwell forever among the honored dead. It is the highest honor granted a warlord to guard the Necropolis. To die while serving in the Necropolis is to be assured a place there."
Nodding in understanding, Eladamri shielded his eyes from the glare. As the war party moved out across the ice, he glimpsed a flash of gold within the open pyramid.
"What rests there, at the center of the citadel?"
"The Golden Argosy, ship of titans. It was stolen from the lords of Parma by Kradak, first doyen of our people. In it, he sailed all the world and claimed it for Keld. This was before the other races spilled out across the land, stealing it. Since that time, we have journeyed afar to regain the lands that are ours."
Eladamri smiled in appreciation. "Those other races are certainly larcenous, but how can you conquer the world while the Golden Argosy resides in the Necropolis?"
"When Kradak died, the Argosy became his tomb. Only when Kradak arises again in Twilight will the Argosy sail once more. Then the world will once again be ours."
"Then the world truly would end," Eladamri replied ambiguously.
Tajamin responded with a smile. "Now you have begun to believe."
Shrugging, Eladamri said, "If the Necropolis has its own guardians, why do you bring this army of a hundred thousand?"