The Ruins of Gorlan/Prologue

Princess Darkness, Lord of the Mountains of Rain and Night, former Baroness of Gorlan Fief and disown Princess of the Kingdom of Magic, looked over her bleak, rainswept domain and, for perhaps the thousandth time, cursed.
This was all that was left to her and those who served her now - a jumble of rugged granite cliffs, dripping caverns, tumbled boulders and icy mountains. Of sheer gorges, dead midnight green pine trees and steep narrow passes. Of gravel and rock, with never a flowering tree or a blade of green grass to break the monotony until the plains of the Eastern Steppes, half a mile away.
Even though it had been two long months since she and her allies had been driven back into this forbidden realm that had now become her prison, she could sti;; remember the pleasant green glades and thickly forested hills of her former fief. The streams filled with fish and the fields rich with crops and game. Gorlan had been a beautiful, living place. The Mountains of Rain and Night were dead and desolate.
A platoon of Wargals was drilling in the castle yard below him under the watchful gaze of one of the human lieutenants of her loyal Black Army. Darkness watched them for a few seconds, listening to the guttural, rhythmic chant that accompanied all their movements. They were stocky, misshapen beings, with features that were halfway human, but with a long, brutish muzzle and fangs like a bear or a large dog.
Avoiding all contact with humans, the Wargals had lived and bred in these remote mountains since ancient times. No one in living memory had ever set eyes upon one, but rumours and legends had persisted of a savage tribe of semi-intelligent beasts in the mountains. Darkness, planning to forge an army to aid her master, the great Dragon Lord, in a revolt against the Kingdom of Magicar and their allies, had left Gorlan Fief to seek them out. If such creatures existed, they would give her master an edge in the war that was to come.
It took her months but she eventually found them. Aside from their wordless chant, Wargals had no spoken language, relying on a primitive form of thought awareness for communication. But their minds were simple and their intellects basic. As a result, they had been totally susceptible to domination by a superior intelligence and willpower. Darkness bent them to her will and they became the perfect army for her master – ugly beyond nightmares, utterly pitiless and bound totally to her mental orders.
Now, looking at them, she remembered the brightly dressed knights in glittering armour who used to compete in tourneys at Castle Gorlan, their silk-gowned ladies cheering them on and applauding their skills. Mentally comparing them to these black-furred, misshapen creatures, she cursed again.
The Wargals and their commander, both attuned to her thoughts, sensed her disturbance and stirred uncomfortably, pausing in what they were doing. Angrily, she directed them back to their drill and the chanting resumed.
Darkness moved away from the unglazed window, closer to the fire that seemed utterly incapable of dispelling the damp and chill from this gloomy palace. Fifteen years, she thought to herself again. Fifteen years since her master, Isaac, had rebelled against the Dragon Riders and King Indran and Queen Crystal. However, knowing his forces, mighty as they were, were still not enough to take the realm, which was guarded not only by riders, but also ten mystical creatures known as the Beasts, Isaac had turned his gaze to isolated, un-united island kingdom.
Silently, he placed and found hundreds of human servants among the kingdoms civilians. Meanwhile, he silently searched through the Riders for members unsatisfied with their position, hoping to recruit them to his side. Eventually, Darkness and thirteen others had joined him alongside their dragons. But unlike some of her fellow traitors, Darkness had remained within the Riders, recruiting allies from inside the kingdom and preparing to join her master fully.
Finally, her master had infiltrated enough supporters to conquer the kingdom of Verninda, surrounding the kingdom with his army. With a secret signal, he alerted hidden followers and waiting army members alike and launched an all out attack on the kingdom, conquering the entire land in a single day.
And then, finally he turned him gaze to the United Kingdoms.
He and his followers had planned it all carefully as the United Heroes grew less and less concerned with his distant presence.
Meanwhile, Darkness, banking on the indecision and confusion to split the other barons, gathering many fellow power-hungry nobles to for a conspiracy against her mother and father and giving her master his opportunity to seize the throne.
Secretly, she had trained her army of Wargals, massing them up here in the mountains, ready for the moment to strike. Then, in the days of confusion and grief following word of Hibernia's fall, when the barons travelled to Castle Araluen for the planning meetings, leaving their armies leaderless, she and her master had attacked simultaneously, overrunning the northern-eastern quarter of the Kingdom in a matter of days, routing the confused, leaderless forces that tried to oppose him.
The kingdom, which had grow careless and inexperienced, could never have stood against him. The Realms was her master's for the taking. The throne was her master's for the asking.
Then Lord Northolt, the king’s supreme army commander, had rallied some of the younger barons and all the loyal riders into a loyal confederation, giving strength to Darkness's parents resolve and stiffening the wavering courage of the others. The armies met at Hackham Heath, close by the Slipsunder River, and the battle swayed in the balance for five hours, with attack and counterattack and massive loss of life. The Slipsunder was a shallow river, but its treacherous reaches of quicksand and soft mud formed an impassable barrier, protecting The Dragon Lord’s right flank.
But then one of those grey-cloaked meddlers known as Rangers led a force of heavy cavalry across a secret ford ten kilometres upstream. The armoured horsemen appeared at the crucial moment of the battle and fell upon the rear of The Dragon Lord’s army.
The Wargals, trained in the tumbled rocks of the mountains, had one weakness. They feared horses and could never stand against such a surprise cavalry attack. They broke, retreating to the narrow confines of Three Step Pass, and back to the Mountains of Rain and Night. Darkness's master, his rebellion defeated, went with them. Darkness and her fellow treacherous riders had eventually been imprisoned in the great prison of Gormincraig.
But, five months ago, The Dragon Lord had attempted to make a comeback, freeing his loyal followers, only to be once again defeated.
However, this was not the end, and, in profound stupidity, the Lord of Chaos, Discord, had attempted to unite the most powerful villains in the land so the united heroes could defeat them for good. Darkness had eventually gathered the villains together and attempted to reclaim the kingdom, but was stopped before she could complete her plans by the very people she had tried to destroy and turned to stone.
But, after a blast of dark lightning reanimated them, Darkness and her allies, now strengthen by Darkness's Black Army, had invaded, nearly overrunning the land.
But then, Darkness's acursed granddaughter, Yellow, had gathered together their remaining forces into one army. The armies met in combat at the plains of storm, beneath the Storm Spire.
And their they had almost won. But then, Queen Cricket, aided by the other kingdoms, had led a force of humans and creatures on the army's left flank, decimating Darkness's forces and forcing them to retreat into the Mountains
And here she had been exiled these two months. Waiting, plotting, hating those who had done this to her.
Now, she thought, it was time for her revenge. His spies told him the Kingdom had grown slack and complacent and her presence here was all but forgotten. The name Darkness was a name of distant name nowadays, a name mothers used to hush fractious children, threatening that if they did not behave, the black lord Darkness would come for them.
The time was ripe. Once again, she would lead his army into an attack. But this time he would have allies. And this time, he would sow the ground with uncertainty and confusion beforehand. This time, none of those who conspired against him previously would be left alive to aid her enemies.
For the Wargals were not the only ancient, terrifying creatures whe had found in these sombre mountains. She had found many allies, and with them, dreaded secrets. Secrets of how to gift frbidden powers to allies. And using these powers, she had enpowered her two most loyal allies, even more fearsome than Wargals – the dreadful beings known as Wasp and Slithraa.
The time was ripe to unleash them.