We attack at dawn ...The glory scene is near ...Torching house of single god ...We sacrifice our blood ... forth with rage in our war eyes ...Cut our way through hordes of weak christian fles...We sacrifice our blood

Into the flash of the lightning star-...eback on the wheels of the world, ...You can see the dawn a'coming or is that the flash of a spear, ... day will come, the dawn will break: ...me from, we've left our history books behin

In the darkness of the night in the shadows of the dawn ...king back the sands of time are sown ...l we feel the power of freedom with the dawn of a new day? ...through the valleys of the slain ...Our quest will lead us onwards to the journey of the brave ...will ring the sound of victory for one and...Silent tears of your hidden fears c...on for the memories of the everlasting dre...lent lands on wings of glory free ...Our journey ever onward...On through the days of glory rise towards the fi...The cries of war will sound the ...We stand before the dawn of a new world

Spending all our lives ...Taking our chances ...We will have our stand ...Gold is in our hands ...To the land of the sun where our journeys begun ..., we sail until the dawn ...Passing shades of darkness ...On the edge of life ...In a time of fire we're searchin...To the land of the sun where our journeys begun ..., we sail until the dawn ...d before the worlds of freedom ...Blackened steel of death tonight ...Our legions now descend...ar beyond the gates of glory ...To the land of the sun where our journey's begun ..., we sail until the dawn ...To the land of the sun where our journey's begun ..., we sail until the dawn

aelun's "Chronicles of Antediluvia", volum...Episode I: The Fall of the Shadow-King ... & III: The History of the Great Wars ...des IV-VI: The Rise of the Imperium ...est for the Trinity of Might ...nshroud The Citadel Of The Obsidian Crown (recounted on the second Bal-Sagoth album; "Starfire Burning Upon The Ice-Veiled Throne Of Ultima Thule) ...nbound (The Legions of the Imperium Storm the Cloud-Capped Palisades of Gul-Kothoth) ...sode XI: The Battle of the Nine Armies (The War of the Crown) ...and the Dissolution of the Imperium ...nbound (The Legions of the Imperium Storm the Cloud-Capped Palisades of Gul-Kothoth) ... resplendent armies of the Imperium assembled before the towering cyclopean walls of ancient Gul-Kothoth. It was some time before the billowing dust cloud raised by the massed arrival of the vast imperial host settled, ultimately dissipating as the shadows of dusk descended. With nightfall, the imperial army's countless torches, braziers and cookfires illumined the dark plain before the fortress like a coruscating sea, painting the stygian heavens the colour of flame. And the high summer's night passed swiftly. At length, the dawn approached tentatively, and with the first signs of the newborn sun etching its promise upon the skies, the martial preparations commenced in earnest. A brief and perfunctory exchange between the Imperial Herald and the fortification's Watch Commander held no surprises, and the Emperor's banner was duly driven into the seared earth before Gul-Kothoth with a chilling finality. Vast siege engines and powerful ballistae were hauled inexorably into position, alongside a battery of katapelte and petrobolos. The one hundred thousand strong Imperial Frontier Army, having planted their regimental blazons into the arid soil, waited with a disciplined patience born of never having met defeat in pitched battle or siege, the dreaded Imperial War-Leopards straining noisily against their iron-link leashes to the rear of the cohorts of conscripts and auxillieries. The pitiless Iron Phalanx and their Lord Militant Commander had assumed position at the head of the army's Alpha Wing, polished swords, spears and poll-axes reflecting the glow from the myriad torches and braziers which still burned about the Imperial Host. And behind them were drawn up the legendary Legion of the Ebon Tiger, Pride of the Emperor, the infantry and cavalry famed throughout the Great Northern Continent, personal regiment of the feared general Baalthus Vane. True to their martial reputation, the six thousand strong Legion were inscrutible in their jet black armour, their sable banner billowing in the chill breeze which skittered over the plain. And finally, astride his azure-shaffroned warhorse and surrounded by his elite guard, the silvern-armoured Emperor Koord himself studied the precipitious gates with a disdainful scrutiny. At the Emperor's right hand was the renowned Swordmaster of Kyrman'ku, an eastern bladesman of preternatural skill and the most revered and expensive mercenary in the Imperium. At his left, the infamous Ogre-Mage of the Black Lake brooded silently, swathed in a stygian cloak and fuliginous cowl and exuding an aura of implacable malevolence which unerved even the bravest of the Imperial troops. The Emperor had deemed the services of these two nefarious renegades pivotal to the execution of the Final Campaign, for they alone had knowledge of the mysterious arca...ades, the defenders of Gul-Kothoth beheld ...gin the final stage of this campaign with the rising of the sun. This war which has raged for decades shall finally be decided here, before the hoary walls of ageless Gul-Kothoth. The Imperium's last and most glorious victory is at hand. The procrastinating sybarites of the bureaucracy have been threatened and bribed into compliance over this venture. This more than anything else is why I have deigned to grace this final battle with my Imperial presence, even against the advice of the Grand Vizier and the sage counsel of the Seers. ...dy its claws, sire. Our victory here is ass...nfidence is but one of the many foes a general must face upon the field of war. Today, the precepts and maxims of the Imperium shall be tested, and we shall see whether the velvet glove of diplomacy or the iron gauntlet of conquest has proved...THUS VANE: The days of the feudal suzerainties are long gone, my liege. The Imperial Military Council is the only entity fit to govern the dominions. The fall of Vyrgothia shall today render the truth of the Imperial Mandat...atched to the Court of the Over-King has warned that the Vyrgothians may have recovered one of the artefacts comprising the fabled Trinity of Might; the legendary Obsidian Crown itself! In the hands of a skilled thaumaturgist, it is said that the Crown may be used as a weapon of unparalleled destru...tre! Feh! The power of the Trinity is but a myth! No antiquated trinket weilded by a religious fanatic will prevail against the Legion, sire. Our steel is proof against such diabolism! Behold! Gul-Tryarch has fallen, Gul-Azlaan has been given to the earth, Gul-Nomedes is naught but smouldering rubble, and soon we shall surge over the shattered remnants of Gul-Kothoth's renow...t the final chapter of our legend be written! ...An age of fire, sword and shi...The thunder of the battlefield, ...May the Empire's glory never fade, ...ighteous fury guide our blades, ...The Wizards of Vyrgothia: ... bejewelled circlet of night, Crown of the Elder King, ...at last the Trinity of Might, the Sceptre,...hapter 12: The Fall of Gul-Kothoth ...shed upon the field of battle. Colossal stones, firebrands and howling iron-tipped missiles rained pitilessly down upon the hero-hewn walls of Gul-Kothoth. Vast and serpentine cracks appeared in the ancient cyclopean edifice, and hundreds of warriors, both attackers and defenders, perished in the fray, either crushed beneath the ceaselessly assailed testudo, hammered to crimson pulp by the merciless storm of unforgiving stone, or burned to blackened husks by the nightmare onslaught of flaming quicklime and saltpetre. Scaling ladders raised and repulsed in turn, storms of razor tipped shafts...ngth, the mightiest of the Empire's iron-hooded battering rams, dubbed The Bringer of Woe, was brought to bear upon the besieged fortress, and, with the shadows of dusk lengthening upon the field of war, the centuries old Primary Gate of Gul-Kothoth was finally sundered amidst an earsplitting cacophony of shattering oak and iron louder than any storm-born thunderclap. With the rending of the mighty gate, and vast fragments of the ancient walls yielding, buckling and crashing to the blood-sodden earth, the Imperium's forces breached the defenses of Gul-Kothoth and sur...nstant that an army of five score and ten, bearing the Obsidian Crown, arrived upon the field of battle. ...eilding the Circlet of Night! The dire warning issued to me as I stood before Vyrgothia's Master Wizard has been proved no idle boast! The citadel's spells of containment breache... a reception worthy of their audacity! ... and at the command of a decurion, a volley of armour-piercing shafts screamed skywards to rain down mercilessly upon the foe. And even as this transpired, the Emperor's Prime Sorcerer, emissary of the Imperial Court and master of those arts which speak to man in narcotic dreams from the darkest and most silent places, summoned forth that black potency which lay entwined in stygian tendrils within his mind... an ireful power born of they who writhed upon the shores of Pangaea before man's progenitors ever erected their lofty spires to the restless skies. And yet Vyrgothia's Master Wizard, unrivalled Arch-Mage and adept of that lost Eastern order who journey beyond the boundaries of time and space upon those nebulous wings born of the sacred Azure Lotus, rose to meet this power which lapped at the periphery of his mind like a mid...pon that arid field of war, the sentinels of light and shadow sp...the aeons-old might of the Obsidian Crown was finally brought to bear against they who had breached the walls of ancient Gul-Kothoth...Sundered, the gate of the ancient fortres... lo, there and army of five score and ten,...Like the prow of a blood-hungry vessel of war rending the waves of a midnight sea, a luminescent blade of shrieking cerulean light lanced from the legendary black circlet locked tight within the gnarled hand of the Master Wizard, and clove mercilessly into the glorious ranks of the Imperium. And all who were touched by this ruinous arc of coruscating radiance knew no more... Men and beasts reduced to blackened husks, charred shells of smouldering ash, lifeless effigies which toppled to the seared earth to be dissipated by the whispering breath of the wind. Again and again the ravaging radiance smote the ranks of the Empire, leaving a noisome charnel-pit of nightmare in its crackling wake. The forces of the Imperium were plunged into a howling vortex of disarray, and, faced with the unthinkable prospect of defeat, the unprecedented first routing of the Emperor's glorious army began to become a grim reality. Yet for all the unparalleled carnage which had erupted about them, there was one regiment of Imperial troops for whom the taste of fear was bland compared to the sharp tang of rage which sat bitt...E: By all the gods of war! Stand fast, hounds of the Imperium! 'Tis true... steel is no use against this ignoble magical trickery! But if our souls are bound for the Pit this day, we'll damn well take a few of these bastards with us! Onward, my Legion! Alpha formation, banners high! Glory to the Emperor! Int...y yet turn the tide of war back in our favour. Now, let the final act be played out! I call thee forth, Ogre-Mage of the Black Lake! I call thee forth, Swordmaster of Kyrman'ku! It is time! Now, I charge thee, for the glory of the Imperium... Spe...ll their most vital of roles in that grand theatre of carnage which now ran unchecked on the field of battle. ...homless countenance of the distant heavens, words which in truth were not words, but rather a resonant key which would aspire to unlock a dire power which had reposed shackled since the fall of the legendary Shadow King himself, whose ebon circlet's power they even now sought to thwart. The incantation they gave voice to in the midst of that sanguineous turmoil which engulfed them was not so much heard by those within earshot as perceived, sensed as a vague disturbance in the fabric of reality, as fuliginous ripples on the surface of a hitherto still and placid pool, growing ever larger and more far reaching; an unnerving and unnamable sense of change which insinuated itself into the mind of the listener and suggested with a cold and disturbing quasi-certainty that something of preternaturally ineffable magnitude was transpiring, as surely as a festering and gangrenous corpse would split to spill its noisome gore. And as that maddeningly implacable incantation reached its resounding climax, a momentary silence enshrouded the battlefield, swathing the vista of chaos in an aura of noiselessness more pure and untainted than the tranquility of the boundless and s... the sundered gates of ancient Gul-Kothoth

Reminded of an inner pact betwe...To fields in debts of honour defending ...at shout in screams of anguish ...nt passion bespoils our soul receiver ...In glory we rise to offer, ...Create our freedom, a word, we...Words cause our banner, victorious our day ...Our Gods awake in thund...er's hands in paths of glory to the cause ...ten should we leave our children? ...Listen our lives stare in sile...They tell us of your poison ...Our cries will shrill the air will moan and crash into the dawn ...Our reason to be here ...Our heart is open ...Our reason to be here ...Our reason to be here ...Our reason to be here

Reminded of an inner pact betwe...To fields in debts of honour defending ...at shout in screams of anguish ...nt passion bespoils our soul receiver ...In glory we rise to offer, ...Create our freedom, a word, we...Words cause our banner, victorious our day ...Our Gods awake in thund...er's hands in paths of glory to the cause ...ten should we leave our children? ...Listen our lives stare in sile...They tell us of your poison ...Our cries will shrill the air will moan and crash into the dawn ...Our reason to be here ...Our heart is open ...Our reason to be here ...Our reason to be here ...Our reason to be here

With our lives ...Oh at dawn ...I'll face the edge of thorns ...Oh at dawn ...ll pray at the edge of thorns ...Oh at dawn ...I'll face the edge of thorns ...To the fields of sacrifice ...What can we do with our lives ... there's no hope at our side ...Though by glory we are denied ...Come play the song of death ...Play the song of death ... lost in the depths of his eyes

tain in the darkest of the forest ...They feed on our fear ...Created in our dreams at night whe...e all the creatures of the underworld live...o dust they crumble of they're touched by ...Tale of a Dream weaver ... around in the dead of night ...Be home by dawn ...In the silence of the night ...A window of glory light ...From deep within our dream ...The night awakens our fear ...They feed on our fear

mories that touches our minds ...Painful splinters of a cold relief ...humble bow in front of a war to come ...ies allied from the dawn of time ...tered on the brinks of hell ...n a whisper, a sigh of faith ...nding hate outlines our path ...Glorified acts of violence produces ...The foundation to our ruin ...A sigh of forgotten faith ...mories that touches our minds ...Painful splinters of a cold relief ...humble bow in front of a war to come ...ies allied from the dawn of time ...tered on the brinks of hell ...n a whisper, a sigh of faith ..., human destructive glory ...Of a slowly penetratin...A sigh of forgotten faith ...Creator of the growing fued ...Creator of a conclusive war

Certain as the dawn appears ...Let Your glory fall as You respond...Flood into our thirsty hearts agai...Let Your glory fall as You respond...Flood into our thirsty hearts agai

Return of the Hero, our Conquering King ...Agamemnon our Lord, you´ll know ...guarantees the will of the Crowd ...The Conqueror of Troy wields the Pow...A Dowry of Death, Artemis wait...Glory too high is a Dange...Lord of the Desert, we welc...The Lion of Vengeance, the Death of Priam ...ping Black Harvests of Blood, til the End of the Dawn ...Lord of the Desert, the Hou...The Black Cloak of Evil, the Net of the Damned ...Raping the Heart of the Sun, til the End of the ... Dawn

settle for a moment of glory ... the hot sand burns our barefoot skin ...By dawn I'll be asleep insi

By the ghost of Christmas past ... the wind on to the dawn of tomorrow ...Beware of the rocks ... the wind on to the dawn of tomorrow ...Beware of the rocks ...Let us live to tell our story ...ward on the road to glory ...Across the ice of frozen lakes ...Across the bridge of many ways

By the ghost of Christmas past ... the wind on to the dawn of tomorrow ...Beware of the rocks ... the wind on to the dawn of tomorrow ...Beware of the rocks ...Let us live to tell our story ...ward on the road to glory ...Across the ice of frozen lakes ...Across the bridge of many ways