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the council had called for an immediate response to Zesm. A great troop was sent across the ocean to combat Zesm the Rancor, and put a permanent end to the threat of evil on Darkin. By the time Krem and his allies returned to the East Continent to form their garrison, Zesm had already sacked Bentertide, the Grand City of Hemlin. So the great army of allies came through the Angelyn Range to reach the last free realm of Hemlin, its southernmost city, Wallstrong. It was in Wallstrong that the leaders of the united armies of the West Continent gathered, spending their days awaiting reinforcements from Arkenshyr. Krem assured them that aid was coming. He said it would not come from the Reichmar—the battle dwarves nestled in the Angelyn Range who were long removed from the affairs of men—but from the humans by the southern shores of Arkenshyr. The remaining militia of Hemlin, made up of druids and weldumuns, was gathering in Wallstrong, ready to work together with their allies from the west. Because of the looming invasion, it came as a surprise to Krem, Slowin and Flaer when Erguile started the dinner’s conversation with a question about the near forgotten matter of the star:  
    “Isn’t it a bit strange, old Vapour, that we’ve dismissed the star?” Erguile broached between bites of famed Wallstrong Stew, a medley of meats and vegetables made by the barrelful. Slowin looked sidelong at Erguile. Flaer didn’t seem to pay the question any mind, and he continued to feast, oblivious of Erguile.
    “Are you concerned about it?” Krem calmly replied. 
    “Well, I don’t get concerned very often with mystical affairs. But isn’t it odd that the Grand Council saw it fit to call a meeting about the star, only several weeks ago, and now it’s all but forgotten?”
    “More pressing matters concern us now—that is your answer,” Flaer said without looking up from his steaming bowl of stew.
    “He’s right—it may have seemed important enough to hold our focus at the time, but we cannot waste thought on it until we deal with the evil forsaking our world. All will agree that destroying Zesm must be our only concern,” Slowin said.
    “I understand that. But no one could explain why the star appeared in the night sky so suddenly, or stranger still, why it grows larger, bit by bit, each night. I find it terribly akin to evil magic, as if a giant spell was brewing in the sky, biding its time before crashing down upon all of us, destroying Darkin,” Erguile said.
    “Other than frenzy in the more primitive tribes of Darkin, there has been no consequence of the star, nor is there evidence to suggest there ever will be, lad. The tribes that have grown fanatical can be left to their own devices, to shift their astrologies out as they see fit. We can let the problem lie for now, and not come to expect harm from it. I wish I could say the same of Zesm’s Feral army that marches toward us this very hour,” said Krem.
    “I question if we go to fight an army led by Zesm—I know it is rumored to be so, but who has seen him commanding the Feral? Who has seen Vesleathren’s slain body to confirm what so many believe to be true?” came a soldier sitting nearby, a druid ranger from the largest wooded region in northern Hemlin, the Forest Sea.
    “What difference does it make, dear boy—we know at least that we contend with a great evil, and one or the other at its head makes little difference in the end,” Krem replied.
    “But, as I’ve heard it, Vesleathren never mercilessly slaughtered women and children, nor did his father, Melweathren, in the wars of old,” spoke a nearby weldumun soldier. “The tidings we hear today tell us that no woman or child of Hemlin is sacred—that this Feral army is slaughtering all in their path, and none are being taken for slaves.”
    “It is not wise to blindly trust the legends of old,” Flaer muttered through his stew.
    “And why is that? Why should I not believe that the power we