Ashes of Empires

"The Red Stallion. The Red Stallion?" Willam looked questioningly at his peers. None seemed to have any better idea of what the prophecy meant. If they did, they certainly didn't show it on their aged faces. 

"Is this translation correct?" spoke Gerard softly. "The Old language is... 'tricky' to understand."

Old gruff Damrada spoke next. His face was creased and tight with weariness. "It wasn't spoken in the old language. The apprentices translated it from Orguzhei" 

The council chamber broke out in a wave of murmurs and shouts. 

"Impossible!" A high pitched voice shouted from somewhere at the edges of the group. Followed by a dozen other Swears, curses, and profanities.

Will shared their fears and concerns, not once in his Eighty years of service to the council has a prophecy been spoken in anything other than the old language. Even if you looked at the thousands of years of history both written and unwritten you would not find an instance of what had happened last night. It was supposedly impossible to receive a prophecy in a different language as none of the others had magic imbued in its very language. There was a reason the uneducated masses call it the language of gods.

"Quite." With a single word uttered by the thick, rough voice of Telemechon the cacophony of the meeting died. The Elder Grandmaster stood front and center of the raised Dias of the masters. 

"While this news is undoubtedly a cause for great debates to be had we must focus on the task at hand." Telemechon stroked his long well-kempt beard and took a deep breath. "This prophecy didn't come from city dwellers playing at novice magic. At the same time, every single one of our seers saw the same vision from the great city of Irmund and the rolling hills of Castria, to the swamps of Erazia. Even the various Elvish kingdoms and principalities of Acheaia."

A wave of nausea washed over Willam as he listened to Telemechon speak. If so man all witnessed the same vision the prophecy might very well have too much power behind it to be stopped. And it would need to be stopped.

He slumped against the back of his ebon wood chair and exhaled a breath of utter exhaustion. The days to come would drive him to an early grave from overwork. 

"In light of these ill-boding events I am sanctioning a thirty-strong expedition to the Orguzh Steppe." Telemechon continued. "The goal of this expedition is simple. Find this 'Red stallion' and stop the coming blood bath. If no other way can be found the death of this person is permitted."

Hours passed by as Willam readied his pack in the barren room he often used at the citadel. He had known he would be one of the thirty chosen to go to the steppe. He was always chosen for such expeditions on account of his experience. Few of his order traveled more than a few days from their academies and citadels. 

A smile creased his face as he remembered his time spent traveling from one country to another. It had always been his belief that much could be learned from others, both magically inclined or not.

His smile faded when he remembered where it was he was traveling to. The great Orguzh Steppe was an inhospitable place of nothingness. There was nothing to be had but grass and death in that green sea. If the lack of food or water didn't kill you the Cold winters and Hot summers would. If it wasn't the terrain it was the people that inhabited it. In such a brutal place the people who were divided by nomadic tribal lines were made hardy and brutal. Every Man, woman, and child could be called to fight savagely if needed. A single warrior could more than likely outmatch most warriors the sedentary countries could through at them. It was lucky then that they lacked proper armor and equipment in most places.

Willam began to drift asleep on his feather bed. Weary from the day's events and those to come the peace of sleep took him easily.

"The Red Stallion Comes. From the great sea, a wave shall sweep aside all that is and all that would be. What is shall become what was, and what was will be destroyed. Can you hear the hooves. They come. They come. They come."