[Intro solo Michael] [The prince:] Here we are, we stand together, fighting for what's right We're marching on towards the palace, soon it is in sight Does the evil prophet knows that we're comin...

Episode I: The Fall of the Shadow-King ...Episodes II & III: The History of the Great Wars ...Episodes IV-VI: The Rise of the Imperium ...Episode VII: The Quest for the Trinity of Might ... VIII: And Lo, When The Imperium Marches Against Gul-Kothoth, Then Dark Sorceries Shall Enshroud The Citadel Of The Obsidian Crown (recounted on the second Bal-Sagoth album; "Starfire Burning Upon The Ice-Veiled Throne O...Episode IX: The Obsidian Crown Unbound (The Legions of the Imperium Storm the Cloud-Capped Palisa...(here recounted on the sixth Bal-Sagoth album; "The Chthonic Chronicles...Episode X: The Shadow-King Reborn ...Episode XI: The Battle of the Nine Armies (The War of the Crown) ...Episode XII: The Great Rebellions and the Dissolution of the Imperium ...The Obsidian Crown Unbound (The Legions of the Imperium Storm the Cloud-Capped Palisa...Chapter 11: The Siege Begins ...And so the mighty and 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 arcane rite known as The Words Which Unfette...ime-worn palisades, the defenders of Gul-Ko...THE EMPEROR KOORD: General Vane, we begin 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. ...hall enjoy watching the Ebon Tiger bloody i...THE EMPEROR KOORD: You should not call in your falcons before the hunt is done, my loyal servitor. Overconfidence 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 the more effective tool...BAALTHUS 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 Mandate se...THE EMPEROR KOORD: And yet I am vexed, for as you well know, the sorcerous emmisary I despatched 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 a...BAALTHUS VANE: The Shadow-Sword! The Obsidian Crown! The Ebon Sceptre! 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 renowned walls! The Vyrgothian Alliance shall crumble when these gates are breached, and the Over-King himself s...THE EMPEROR KOORD: Indeed. At any rate, I have been blessed with foresight enough to prepare a contingency should the foe fulfil that fearful potential which has been weighing heavy on my mind. But now, the sun rises! Let it begin! Let the final chapter of our legend be written! Give the word! Raze Gul-Kothoth to the ground! ...The Imperial War-Skalds...The thunder of the battlefield, ...The clarions call, bring down the wall! ...May the Empire's glory neve...We march to war! ...The Wizards of Vyrgothi... of night, Crown of the Elder King, ...Unfettered at last the Trinity of Might, the Sceptre, the Sword and the Ring! ...Chapter 12: The Fall of Gul-Kothoth... was unleashed 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 exchanged by the combatants, isolated skirmishes raging upon the ramparts, men blade to blade and clarions bellowing embattled defiance. For seemingly inumerable hours the sanguineous battle raged, with no quarter asked nor given between the bitter ancestral foes. And the gates held firm. ...At length, 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 surged into the Vyrgothian Alliance...re and ten, bearing the Obsidian Crown, arrived upon the field of battle. ...Chapter 13: The Wizards Do Battle ...THE SORCERER: By Klatrymadon and Zuranthus! They come! They come, weilding 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 breached... the Black Crown is upon...THE EMPEROR KOORD: It is as I have forseen! Be spry, my sorcerous lackey... join the Iron Phalanx in ent...THE SORCERER: By your c...At once, the far-feared and martially renowned Iron Phalanx wheeled to face the newcomers, 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 mi... arid field of war, the sentinels of light and shadow spoke to eachother in tongues dormant since the Third Moon fell burning from the heavens, and not sweet were the words they uttered....Until at last, with the armies poised to clash, and with dusk painting the sky a deep crimson exceeded in its vibrancy only by that bloody rubicund hue which stained the battlefield below it, the Emperor's mage fell, and the aeons-old might of the Obsidian Crown was finally brought to bear against they who had breached the walls of ancient Gu...The Imperial War-Skalds...Sundered, the gate of the ancient fortress, ... Now breached stand the walls. ...Behold! The Obsidian Crown. ...Embattled, the wizards, their weap...Untramelled, the circlet, the Prime-Sorcerer slai...The Crown's peerless power, the Emperor's bane, ...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 ...LTHUS VANE: 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! Into the foe! Show them the Tiger's claws! ...THE LEGION: Never quarter, never mercy, never retreat! Praise the Emperor! ...THE EMPEROR KOORD: My sorcerous thrall has fallen, but he has bought us time enough to riposte! And General Vane's mettle may 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... Speak the Words Which Unfette...And so, it began... the two pivotal players in the Emperor's plan, the two key figures in the Imperium's contingency, stepped forth to fill their most vital of roles in that grand theatre of carnage which now ran unchecked on the field of battle. ...The Ogre-Mage and the Swordmaster began to utter fearsome words in a tongue which was ancient ere the gleaming stars shifted upon the fathomless 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 stygi...urable instant that the dark and peerless power unfettered by those grim pseudo-words finally, ultimately, made itself known before the sundered gates of a...To be continued in: Episode X: The Shadow-King Reborn

The price is an eye for...ar are you prepared to go ... no trial so what's the use to deny ...There is no use to argue ...There is no use to argue ...The final battle stands before ...It's sad to see that you are no...Different than all the rest ...g you care and want to help ...Kept in the dark again, some th...t of patience, it's the calm before the storm ...Is this to much for you to comprehend ...There is no use to argue ...There is no use to argue ...The final battle stands before ...Time has come to reveal your treason...And that I'm the saviour that has ri...You can try to controle my life ...There is no use to argue ...There is no use to argue ...The final battle stands before

s a time of change. The descendants of the Atlantean mages had...before the New Praesidium, and the wolves were baying at the Empire's door. ...as encroaching from the east, and the sylvan liege ...had locked tight the gates of his arbore...the end of the Age of Mystery, the last of Albion's gr...what would be their final battle... ...[The War-song of the Dragon Lords:] ...Dragon-phalanx rend the sky, Albion our gle...(Prowling amongst the pecseatan; Draconis...gon-Runes etched by the firey tongues of the IX Legio Draconis into the ...primordial stone of the great Logres Drache...The foes of this sceptred isle shall be driven back into the sea! ...I swear by the dragon's blood in my veins... and the dragon's heart that...[The War-song of the Dragon Lords:] ...Dragonfyre in the fray, faith and steel shall win the day, ...A god to serf and king alike, the Adamantine Hammer s...(Devouring the infidel outlanders;...To victory eternal... ...Imperium, throne of the Ancient Gods, behold the axiom, Wyruld-Cynin...d upon our dominion the sun shall never set...I must commit this to the pages of my journal...seemed to writhe squamously a...compelled me to walk to the edge of a particula...recognizing vaguely the apparent shapes of the five continents, ...yet the entire vista seemed so distant that the whole appeared in i...uld fit snugly into the palm of my hand. ...When I turned again to behold the looming obelisks, I...easily read the previously untranslatable ciphers in the black stone. They ...were the words of a great th...-old lore detailing the sidereal web of the cosmos, with ...Star-Maps Of The Ancient Cosmographers seemed to take a not insignif...on the author's sanity, as evidenced by the tone of his inscrip...seem to suggest that in dis...his fate was to be inexorably dogge

Valhalla the gods await me ...Great hall of the battle slain ...ise high your hands to bid a last ...farewell to the Viking land. ...Eternal army in the sky. ...I point my hatchet to the wind ...I guard the gates and all withi...ng as I ride across the sky ...Sworn by the sacred blood of Odi...Valhalla the gods await me ...Great hall of the battle slain ...Behold the kingdom of the kings ...I scream the final battle cry.

1. There´s a battle cry being sounded n...By the royal army of the Lord....Soldiers march to the rhythm of the Lord´s commands,...We shall stand in the victory as one....s been conquered by the Lord and King...So the victory is already ...e times so often in the battle´s rage...When the fighting will light the darkened sky....That´s the time I focus on the Word of God...nd can clearly read the final battle cry.

We fight the world on these batt...To re-erect the pagan pride ...We draw the blood of those in o...To us there is no defe...No remorse to give ...of power blows from the north ...The enemy shivers to the core ...Silence before the storm ...The gates of Valhall op...The ground beneath us s...As Oden leads the Gods to war ...The Rainbow Bridge crac...thing can stop this final attack ...Final battle is here at last ...By the long fires we sit i...The last with pagan blo...We fought the world with burning

Welcome back, to the stage of history ...tle? I'm too weeded to speak to ... The only key that I see to defeat you ... would be for me to remove these two Ad...u'll think I pulled the fuckin ground out f... I ain't tryin to shoot you, ... I'm tryin to chop you into piece...pen gashes strapped to a soakin mattress ... Fuck the planet, until it sp...nanas I'm showin up to your open casket ... to fill it full of exp... Blow you to fragments ... roll you and smoke the ashes ... I see the light at the end ...If so, heaven's got to be better ... Am I the worst? Because I, never go to church (never) ...l my liver rot, see the doc ... Leave the E.R., then hit a bar for a liquor shot, 'til the liver spot ...up and walk, leavin the concrete bare ... with the chalk outline still... Do I still have to hold my trey very t...drink, I curse, and to make matters worse ...way back, I was one to never like back-tal... See me at the pearly gates in lin... Just show me to my quarters, and oh...riously wounded but the soul still burns ... Final battle, fight! ... Analyze the strength of my game...now I'm no stranger to danger ... Tie your wife to the back of a black Jag... Ten blocks, untie the bitch and I still b...Give her a smack in the ass and a six pack ...ows spill like usin the wrong end of a funn... Fly you to Colorado, roll you ... I know you want to retaliate but you w

We fight the world on these batt...To re-erect the pagan pride...We draw the blood of those in o...To us there is no defe...No remorse to give...of power blows from the north...The enemy shivers to the core...Silence before the storm...The gates of Valhall op...The ground beneath us s...As Oden leads the Gods to war...The Rainbow Bridge crac...thing can stop this final attack...Final battle is here at last...By the long fires we sit i...The last with pagan blo...We fought the world with burning

We fight the world on these batt...To re-erect the pagan pride ...We draw the blood of those in o...To us there is no defe...No remorse to give ...of power blows from the north ...The enemy shivers to the core ...Silence before the storm ...The gates of Valhall op...The ground beneath us s...As Oden leads the Gods to war ...The Rainbow Bridge crac...thing can stop this final attack ...Final battle is here at last ...By the long fires we sit i...The last with pagan blo...We fought the world with burning

Now the time has come for me to leave this land ...hiding I'm left for the time ...To bring back the order of devine ... goblins no Gandalf to help ...With swords in the night ...Oh the last part of the game ...The final battle cry ...hiding I'm left for the time ...To bring back the order of devine ...I have a dream the things you've to hide for ... panic just give me the thing ...Hear the voice it's cold as ... following no place to escape ...ast steps will find the right way ...Where's the future the call of the blind ...Cause there is none to find ...Watch the sky you see no ligh...With the howling wolves the nazgul will die ...Hear the voice it's cold as ...Run Run for the whole world ...You feel the strange but cannot ...we carry along from the war

With the key to the abyss and a great c... he seized the dragon and bound hi...Upon the thrones sat those to whom judgement was ... I could see the souls of those whom... had not worshipped the image of the beast ... The day has come for the dragon to return ... He must fight the final battle ... I know the end for I have read the word ... The chosen came to life again and reig...Though the rest of the dead remained in the grave ... This is the first resurrection ...Foes marched across the breadth of the earth ... And surrounded the camp of gods people - the city he loves ...And the devil who deceived ... Was thrown into the lake of burning sul...Where the beast and the false prophet had b...When the storms outside are ... When the roads just fade awa... I'm waiting for the dawn ...To see the light of the rising son

there's no one left to grieve me ...I'll see you with the rest of them in hel...my hand won't shake the console ...as I win the final battle of all wars ...and down beneath the ocean ...I'll see you with the rest of them in hel

[From the south comes the forces of chaos and destruction. The ultimate heat from the world of Muspel will very soon burn the world and turn it into ashes. The firegiant Surt rides with his hords to meet the gods in the final battle of Ragnarok. But the whell of fate will turn once again and from the ash a new world wil

- The McKenzie brothers just reached their limits. It's now mid-August and two months have passed since the new marshall Mike Monroe came to town. He'd already ...They were drunk as the skunks, they were on their way back from the saloon. They passed Steve Harlow's range to wrestle some cattle. The marshall and his deputies showed up and shot 'em in the neck. The most bloody fireworks Dog Head City had ever seen. Jim, the oldest brother and head of the clan since father Judas got his head blown of in a gunfight, saddled up his horse and went in to town, just to set things straight with the marshall. On his way to town he rode past his uncle Jock's to fill him in about J..."Looks like the marshall wants a war and he's gonna get one", Jock said. "I'll send a message out for brother James, your uncle. Remember him? You met at the wedding when he stole your cousin Julia from the groom." Meanwhile, in town, marshall Monroe and his deputies were drinking their heads off and shootin' run away chickens to celebrate the passing of the McKenzies. ...Next morning, the McKenzie clan were ready to set things straight with the marshall and his men. They sent little John into town to lure 'em out and in...John came to town, walked into the saloon, saw the marshall eatin' lunch. Baked beans, sollie belly and a tun of brew. He saw his chance to be a man, he'd always been a little boy in the clan. He wiped his sweat of his hands and said: "Hey scumbag, this town ain't big enough for the two of us. You killed my two brothers and now, it's your time to kiss the dust. Get ready to slap leather." ...leared his holster, the marshall had filled him with so much lead, it took six strong men to carry him out. Mike Monroe finished his meal, reloaded his gun, gathered his men and said: "It's time to finish the McKenzies, once and...The McKenzie brothers ...The McKenzie brothers ...The end of your terrord...The McKenzie brothers ...The McKenzie brothers ...The end of your terrord...After the final battle, ...just where the river breaks up ...in to thoose beautiful ca...before it melts in to Rickies Lake, ...the McKenzie Brothers j...captured the town. ...They went to a saloon near the court, ...where occupeing the floor, ...ave that for others to tell. ...n stools hanging on the bar ...trying to avoid the brothers ...Among the other places they t...- to say the least, were the bank, ...the library which was b...and the jailhouse was left ...The very next day ...a telegram reaches the lokal post office. ...It said: the U.S Cavalery is mov...to solve the problem with the McKenzie klan. ...e now seen all over the town. ...After having read the telegram ...Jack gathered the McKenzie klan. ...Next destination: The cathouse in El Paso...They got to cross the Mexican border. ...s their only chance to survive. ...Bring the McKenzies dead or a

The might of chaos descends as we join the fight...inst our common foe the jaws of fate...War unleashed the stench of spells...rust our fists into the face of hell...The final battle begins left or righ...rtal terror touches the sky...The beasts of hell blac...We shout our fear to a soulless sky...Ashes to ashes war sweeps the land...Burn the world the curse of man...No one heeds the call judgment day