From "Demon Gates" by Robert Day

Drav was the last warrior to fall, pierced through the chest by the Demon’s blade as he swung in a vain attempt to wound the fiend. In a rage, Faradhar threw the last vestiges of his energy into another bolt of lightning. It struck the Demon as it turned towards him. Sparks showered the corpses at its feet and the Demon howled in pain.

To Faradhar’s horror, the howls turned to laughter as the demons infernal gaze descended upon him. With a whimper, he crumpled to his knees. His staff clattered to the stone as it slipped from powerless fingers.

“You have no power to fight me,” mocked the Demon in a voice both powerful and compelling. “Your powers and those of your people are weak, unchanged from an age long past.”

The Demon looked around the chamber with what could only be described as rapture. Mocking laughter echoed through the cavern, assailing Faradhar. His reeling mind could not concentrate, could not focus enough to piece together what was happening and what it meant.

His thoughts turned to agony as the Demon loomed over him. Its intense heat crushed his waning magical defences and engulfed him. He neither saw nor heard the blade’s descent, but his last thought before oblivion was a silent prayer for the people of Kil’Tar.

From "The Fall of Ossard" by Colin Taber

Above Market Square, from the balcony of the Lord’s Residence, an inquisitor has promised the desperate citizens of Ossard salvation:

The shimmering forms of winged angels materialised above Inquisitor Anton, scores of them, and each played a long golden horn. Robed in white, they smiled with beautiful faces marked by nothing; not age, pox, nor ill form.

The crowd grew louder, many letting tears run free, as most cried out of miracles.

 
The angels finished their clarion call and dove down to glide over the square. They swooped low to lay their hands on the sick, to bless the needy, and to chase away any lingering despair.

How could any doubt the inquisitor and his declared pious empire?

How could any doubt the future when it came heralded by angels?

But, amidst it all I remained alone and forsaken.

Having got what I came for, to know the future of the Inquisition’s Ossard, I made to go.

I began to cross the square as one of the angels glided down, unknowingly heading straight for me. At the last moment, he looked up, but then averted his eyes as he set his great wings to beat. He still passed above, but at a greater height, and I swear that as he did he shivered.

From "Blood of Requiem" by Daniel Arenson

War.

War rolled over the world with fire and wings.

The Vir Requis marched. Men. Women. Children. Their clothes were tattered, their faces ashy, their bellies tight. As their cities burned behind them, they marched with cold eyes. All had come to fight this day: the young and the old, the strong and the wounded, the brave and the frightened. They were five thousand. They had no more places to hide.

The dying sun blazed red against them. The wind keened. Five thousand. The last of their race.

We will stand, we will fly, we will perish with fire and tooth, Benedictus thought, jaw clenched. Men will say: Requiem did not fade with a whimper, but fell with a thunder that shook the mountains.

And so he marched, and behind him his people followed, banners red and gold, thudding in the wind. Last stand of Requiem.

It was strange, he thought, that five thousand should move together so silently. Benedictus heard only thumping boots. No whispers. No sobs. No whimpers even from the children who marched, their eyes too large in their gaunt faces. The Vir Requis were silent today, silent for the million of their kin already dead, for this day when their race would perish, enter the realm of memory, then legend, then myth. Nothing but thudding boots, a keening wind, and a grumbling sky. Silence before the roar of fire.

Then Benedictus saw the enemy ahead.