Anyway, without further ado, this is:
The War Of Brothers
Itzal Walker sat on his knees, arms
held out to the sides as shadows twined themselves around and around
his supple form. He did not flinch or shiver as the shade attached to
both itself and him, slowly, laboriously forged and spun by his
assistants. The two demi-lords, Ascobal and Ascoran, ran their hands
up his bare arms and the dark followed, until he was weighted down by
the gloom that had collected into spikes and plates that were harder
than even steel forged in will-fire and quenched in vampire blood.
The making of his ceremonious armor was an honor, although it was one
all his own. By the end of the next night, the twins would almost
certainly be dead, their blood seeped from their bodies, and their
work undone by their passing.
They stood by his flanks, and his army
by them. The moon hung high in the dusk, directly overhead and a
little in front, as if it were the line between him and his foes.
Across this imaginary, soon to be broken, line, these enemies stood
as if he were looking in a mirror. At their head, one that he
recognized all too well. He thought to call out, the familial bond
strong within his heart, but decided they would meet sooner than he
wanted already. He sighed as the moon itself seemed to swell, ticking
and throbbing with the beat that would soon reach a crescendo and
call the war to open. Then the night's calm, something he wished
could last forever, was broken by a battlecry, then shattered further
by an answer from his own side. And then the night itself was lost in
battle.
