As Ashen-Shugar entered the hall of his mountain domicile, the skies above reverberated with the sound of distant thunder. And he knew the Dragon Host flew between worlds.
For weeks the skies were angry and without substance, as the stuff of creation flowed from horizon to horizon. Madness was without limit-in the universe, as the Valheru rose up to challenge the new gods. Time was without meaning, and the very fabric of reality rippled and flowed, and in the centre of his hall, Ashen-Shugar brooded.
Then he summoned Shuruga and flew to that odd place on the plain, that city of Draken-Korin’s making. And he waited.
Mad vortices of energy crashed across the heavens. Ashen-Shugar could see the very fabric of time and space rent and folding in upon itself. He knew it was almost time. He sat quietly upon the back of Shuruga and waited.
A clarion sounded, that alarm he had erected in concert with the world, which told him the moment he had awaited was upon him. Urging Shuruga upward, Ashen-Shugar searched for what he knew must appear before the mad display in the skies. The dragon stiffened under him and he saw his prey. The figure of Draken-Korin grew discernible as he slowed his black dragon. An odd something appeared in Draken-Korin’s eyes, something alien. The other voice said, It is horror.
Shuruga sped forward. The great dragon roared his challenge, answered by Draken-Korin’s black. Then the two clashed in the sky.
Quickly it was over, for Draken-Korin had surrendered too much of his essence to create the madness which filled the skies.
Ashen-Shugar landed lightly near the twisted body of his foeman and came to stand over him. The fallen Valheru looked up at his attacker and whispered, “Why?”
Pointing upward, Ashen-Shugar said, “This obscenity should never have been allowed. You bring an end to all we knew.”
Draken-Korin looked heavenward, where his brethren battled the gods. “They were so strong. We could never have dreamed.” His face revealed his terror and hate as Ashen-Shugar raised his golden blade to end it. “But I had the right!” he screamed.
Ashen-Shugar severed Draken-Korin’s head from his shoulders, and suddenly both body and head vanished in a hiss of smoke. Leaving not a trace, the fallen Valheru’s essence returned skyward, to mix with that mindless thing of anger which battled the gods. With bitterness Ashen-Shugar said, “There is no right. There is only power.” Alone of his kind, he could understand the mocking irony in his words. He retired to his cavern to await the final outcome of the Chaos Wars.
Time was without meaning as time itself was a weapon in battle, but in some sense it passed while the new gods warred with what had been the Dragon Host. Then the gods moved in concert, those who had survived the internecine warfare whereby each had established his place in the hierarchy of things, and they focused their unified attention upon the Valheru. They moved as a force of power beyond the maddest dream of Draken-Korin, and as a body they cast the Valheru from the universe. They cast them into another dimension of space and time and moved to deny the Valheru a way back. In near-mindless rage the Valheru sought to return home, to reach that thing left against this day, that thing denied to them by one of their own. Ashen-Shugar had prevented their victory, and now they were being blocked from their homeworld. In their anger and anguish they turned their might upon the lesser races of the new universe. From world to world they rampaged, destroying anything and everything in their path. From world after world they tore the essence of life, the secrets of magics, and the powers of suns. Before them lay warm, verdant worlds circling living suns; behind them lay frigid, lifeless orbs spinning about burned out stars. In their frantic attempt to return to the world of their nurturance, they delivered utter ruination to all they touched. Lesser races banded together, attempting to oppose this raging thing. At first they were swept away, then they slowed it, then at last they found a way to escape. One lesser race, called human, turned its full attention to escape, and ways were found to flee. Mankind and other races discovered a haven. Gates were opened to other worlds, and the races fled, scattering themselves through time and space.
Great holes in the fabric of the universe were opened. Dwarves and men, goblins and trolls, all came through the cracks in reality, the rifts between one universe and another. New races, new creatures, came to Midkemia, and upon this world they sought a place.