PROLOGUE
The Fall of House Kallig
Circa 6 Thousand BBY: Ziost
Aloysius Kallig stared downward at the broadsword protruding from his chest, his eyes bulging under his steely mask. The sword had little blood on it, despite having sliced his lungs and cut clean through his Abdominal Aorta. He tried to draw breath, but instead the fire in his chest spread, and his ruined diaphragm seemed to clench around the blade. Exhausted, his lungs filling with blood, he raised his arms with great difficulty and placed his armored hands upon the blade. The taste of iron filled his mouth as he pushed the blade backwards, increasing his pain so that he could draw upon it as his last reserves of strength failed him. His pain turned to anger as the black cloaked assassin holding the sword attempted to lift Aloysius with the blade, his own lethal wound – a poisoned arrow that the Master of House Kallig and removed from his own arm and jammed into the Assassin's trachea. If the Assassin managed not to choke to death on his own blood, then the poison would assure him a lingering, painful death. But it did not matter: Aloysius had lost, the twenty-nine corpses littering the dusty canyon had done their job well. They had poisoned, bled and battered him till he was too weary to dodge the blade that had sealed his doom. The second most powerful Lord of the Sith in the Galaxy drew on the fading dregs of his anger and let burning hot power pool in his fingertips until they felt blistered and bursting. He let loose Sith Lightning as he had thousands of times before, one last time. The lightning shot down the blade, searing his lungs and internal organs. There was a flash—and the Assassin holding the blade shot back 10 meters and bounced against the cliff wall. The edges where the dying general had grasped the blade were scorched and cracked. The smell of burnt flesh filled the air, Aloysius thought that if he was not mere moments away from losing consciousness and life that he would have almost found it appetizing.
He fell to his knees, his black and red robes smeared with blood and dust. Sweat ran into his eyes, worsening his already failing vision: he could barely perceive the tableau of death he had helped construct. Two Assassins were impaled on their own swords; ten had been electrocuted so thoroughly that they did not resemble people so much as burnt firewood. A dozen more were broken and bent into inhuman positions, their heads twisted back, their sand legs so riddled with compound fractures that they had more bone protruding from their lifeless limbs than inside them. The rest lay scatted to his sides, and he could no longer move his head. The great Sith general no longer felt the heat of battle, instead he felt a chill spread through him – he would have shivered, but he no longer had the energy.
As the last of his sight vanish into darkness, the memories of how he'd come to this sorry fate rose into his mind's eye. He tried futilely to block out the images, to not die thinking of how great a betrayal his death was, but it was every bit as impossible to stop the memories as it was to simply shrug off the sword still stuck inside him. He remembered presenting himself before Tulak Hord all those years ago. He remembered offering himself as an ally, being refused, and then slaying Tulak Hord's best warrior general with ease, the red skinned tentacle head flying through the air. He remembered the heavily armored Lord of Hate turning and waving at him to follow, and so he did. They fought so many battles together, back to back, with the only being that fought alongside Tulak more being his Shadow Killer, Khem Val. They had called each other "friend," they had strategized and bonded over the burning mounds of their enemies. Yesterday Tulak had thanked Aloysius for solidifying his status as the most powerful of the Dark Lords of the Sith. He had called Aloysius his "brother," and Lord Kallig bitterly remembered that he was certain Tulak could see him smile through his mask. Yesterday was a long time ago. No one else could have sent so many Assassins, or have known where he was supposed to meet with the Master of the Gathering Darkness. His "friend" had murdered him. The dying Sith Lord tried not to think of his family, but he knew that they would be hunted – Tulak Hord had earned the title the Lord of Hate, and no one who knew revenge as well as he did would suffer the House Kallig to live. He would come after them with all the resources of the Empire. The same Empire Aloysius had helped him unite. And with that simple saddening thought, the man who lived in Kallig's Countenance died.
"Treachery is the way of the Sith."
-Darth Tyranus, 19 BBY