One Voice.
Let it be Written.
One Power.
Let it be Done.
One Order.
Let it be Finished.

The cavern stank of the stale stench of death long gone. The mouldering corpses of the unknown and unnamed victims of the purges following Lenin's bloody accession to power watched unseeing the age old drama that unfolded before them. Bits of rags fell away from scraps of bone as the wind, never before seen in this foundation cave beneath the Winter Palace, blew coldly through, coming from nowhere, and ending nowhere. That the Order War had begun three millennia before, far to the south, in the midst of a civilisation that thrived on the backs of the spoils of war, of the looting of nations and the death of thousands, made no difference to the call of Fate.
Jounn'I was the first to arrive, Jur'Khan Chung, general of the Golden Horde, follower of Batu Khan, the despoiler of Kiev, flanked by the three most powerful Masters of his Order. Lord of the Third Order, his bulk imposing and his slanted black eyes holding the endless promise of malice and pain, he walked with the implacable purpose of a creature certain of victory. He had never been defeated, not from the first moment that he had struggled through the earth to rise before his beloved Sire, Julia Erenia, the second Lord of Jounn'I. She had been killed three centuries later, by the cold hand of the vampire that emerged from the darkness, opposite. The Mongol's black eyes burned with hatred as he beheld his nemesis once again.
Patricius Quintus Eranus stalked with the feline grace of the two and a half thousand year old predator that he was, followed proudly by his three, made in his image and no less imposing. Not as large as Jur'Khan Chung, and dressed impeccably in black silk and dark grey shirt, he was one who had rode at the head of the invincible legions of Rome, in the days of the Republic, when the Eternal City had taken its first tentative steps towards the hegemony of Empire. Lord of the Second Order, he had been the scion of one of the great senatorial families of the Republic, a general at nineteen, victor of a score of battles against the Carthaginians. The follower Scipio Africanus himself, he had basked in the glory of his mentor. For two and a half thousand years he had occupied the thoughts of the Masters of the other orders, the only one left who had been present for the original war, one of those who had bound Thoikaris. He reached the centre circle, a newly emerged ring of fire in the centre of the cave, and waited, staring expressionlessly at the Lord of Jounn'I. As Jur'Khan Chung wanted revenge as badly as he wanted the power with which he would achieve it, so did the Roman.
The object of his fevered hatred came silkily through the third opening in the cavern that loomed over them all, waiting for its prophesised purpose to be fulfilled. Drusilla, resplendent in black and crimson, her skin ivory white against the darkness around her she, too, was flanked, but by only two of three Masters of her depleted line. Aurelius had once been the strongest of the Orders, but the mighty had fallen. Angelus guarded her with the dedication that had never been his primary characteristic, his smirk buried beneath a mask of concentration, his bulk imposing to any but the present company, who viewed him with contempt. That he had had a soul for so long was bad enough, but he had never claimed leadership of his Order when he could, and that in their eyes was unforgivable. Dracula followed, through reluctantly, having gone for so long without calling anyone master, and chafing at having to follow a reborn Drusilla. Never interested in the battle that was about to commence, he chafed now that being bound to take part, for fighting another's battles was anathema to the proud independence of spirit and conscience that had seen the Balkans erupt in a crimson forest of stakes, upon which had hung the rotting bodies of the infidel Turks, their screams of agony as they died music to his mortal ears even then, before had been reborn at the hands of Nest himself to serve an even greater evil than the twisted ultramontane Christianity that had been his raison d'ĂȘtre when he had been human. His handsome face cold, he watched the others carefully. He had met them all before, had battled with some and hunted with others, but this day all was subservient to the final end of a war that had been held in abeyance for most of recorded history. The world had moved on, the place of vampires taken by others more powerful, so their kind was treated like dogs by demons that thought themselves masters of all, but the powerful would never be ruled, choosing to die first as they would. Their kind did not change, and after today their place would be restored, the combined power of all of them vested in one, all-powerful Order.
Drusilla could feel Spike coming, though she felt, too, his reluctance. It mattered not, to her. Once he came, he would have no choice but to follow the call of his blood. The Lords of the Orders were balanced in power, their swords by their sides. It was the others that would tip the balance and, flanked by Angelus, Scourge of Europe, and Dracula, the Impaler himself, waiting for Spike, the Slayer of Slayers, she knew that she had the advantage. Each of hers were legends in their own right, and what other Order could make such a claim?
Jur'Khan Chung was flanked by Hatukani, Bane of the Samurai, but she was all the power that he could muster. For four centuries, she had ruled the Land of the Rising Sun like her own feudal fief, letting none others hunt but by her permission, seldom given and grudgingly. The other two, Chihiltipec and Khilthizezi, Aztec and Zulu, were lesser creatures, given to the wanton satisfaction of the enhanced urges of their natures before all else, voluptuaries both, whose sexual conquests ran to the hundreds of thousands. Drusilla's full mouth twisted into a sneer, the knowledge and contempt contained within something that she could never have summoned before the Ba'Quvar amulet had restored the sanity that had been ripped from her in the confessional. The lesser Masters of the Third Order were a shaming contrast to the ice cold aestheticism of their forebear, Jounn'I himself.
And what of Akhenaton, she wondered idly as she felt Spike draw closer, his grudging acceptance of the call that she had put forth clear to her, as was the inevitability of his submission, and the rewards that he would earn as a result, for she had ever a weakness for her only Childe, prodigy of rebellion and brutality that he had been for so long, a credit to her even in the midst of her madness. She twitched irritably as she felt the hatred borne by Angelus for her boy come through the bond that they now shared. She would not have the outcome of the battle rendered unfavourable by the inability of her Sire to work with those whom he despised. It was that pragmatism that separated himself and Spike, she knew, and it was that pragmatism that made Spike superior to his mentor. The conquest of principle by practicality had ever marked her lover for a century, and so it should have been. For what did vampires have of principles? Hunters had no such luxury, they were for prey, able to take shelter in numbers. That was the reason, she knew, that Masters seldom hunted in groups, and then only by necessity. Predators without equal in evolution, they had evolved to be solitary. Lions to jackals.
The Roman was flanked by Vost, his favoured offspring, the Butcher of Bavaria, he who had depopulated a province in one week of awesome carnage, hiding his activities in the searing cauldron of innocently spilt blood that had been the Thirty Years War. To Vost's left was Miya Sarim, a Moroccan Berber originally, of the same line of warriors that had taken Spain from the Christians and fought tooth and nail for five hundred years against the ruthlessness of the Spanish Reconquista, dulling the famed Toledo blades with martyred Muslim blood. To his right, Jean-Pierre de Guise-Montcalm, so called Lord of the Grave. One of the fomentors of the genocidal French Wars of Religion, it was he who had appeared like an angel to Joan of Arc and set her on her course to the flames that consumed her at the hands of the vengeful English nobility, fighting a losing war against the resurgent French who had risen as one to cast the invaders back into the stormy seas of the Channel that would, in turn, deny the ambitions of Louis XIV and Napoleon himself. Drusilla could see why an impressionable schizophrenic in fifteenth century France could have imagined him one of God's messengers. His blonde hair hung to his shoulders, his figure lean and powerful, his grace affected for so long that he could not now have done with it even had he wanted to.
The ring of fire in the centre of the room burned brightly, the orange and yellow flames leaping and dancing to the wind that still blew through the room. In the centre were four swords, each of different make and design. One was a gladius, the sword that in the hands of Rome had conquered an Empire, and it would fall to Patricius to wield it, though it was no fencer's blade. The second was a katana, one of the finest edged weapons ever made, crafted with loving care by the blacksmiths of the samurai, carved from hundred of thousands of folds of the finest sheet steel. It waited for Jur'Khan Chung, and reflected his black eyes, even in the barely illuminated darkness. The third was a sabre, made for her, she knew, though her ultimate ancestor, Aurelius, would have scoffed that it was light enough to break at the first pass. She knew that it would not, that nothing would break any of these swords other than the final destruction of those destined to wield them. The fourth, a simple longsword, was irrelevant, everyone knew.
'The last comes now,' Dracula whispered from behind her, his silken tones sending a chill of desire through her, though she suppressed it. There would be plenty of time later, when the world lay at the feet of Aurelius, to indulge. She turned to the third entrance to the cavern.
All that was seen for a moment was darkness.
Spike, William the Bloody, Slayer of Slayers, immortal legend at the tender age of one hundred and forty nine, far and away the youngest of this company of the elders of their kind but not disdained for it, strode into the chamber as though he owned it. Drusilla's eyes widened with joy as she saw him, for nothing in his manner betrayed the reluctance that she knew he had felt before he had entered, a grudging willingness that she felt at that moment transformed into grim eagerness. He had come home to her, she celebrated in the quietness of the icy depths of her mind, though she carefully kept her face impassive. Any mistake would be fatal in this company, she knew.
The others looked at him patiently, though Hatukani's eyes narrowed with hatred, for he had denied her her prize in China a century before, killing the Slayer that she, too, had been hunting. And so brazenly, she raged behind her Lord. A pup, barely weaned from the grave, having the audacity to challenge what she had claimed! She would see him suffer for that alone, and suffer he would. She would petition the Lord to leave him alive when this ended, that he would learn the true meaning of pain at the hands of a mistress of the craft of torture, one who had had seven hundred years to perfect the art, practised on thousands, from the lowliest farmers of the rice fields to the highest Shogun. Tokugawa himself had been given to her, and how the famed warlord had screamed then, beside the corpses of the Jesuits he had ordered to be flayed for their boldness in challenging the supremacy of the Light of Heaven. She would make his fate a lover's kiss compared to what she had planned for the black clad upstart.
No time and no patience for formalities dulled anyone's mind.
'One Voice,' Patricius intoned as Spike took his place behind Drusilla, giving her pale, cold hand a brief squeeze on his way past to stand on the other side of Dracula from his despised grandsire.
'Let it be written,' his three Masters whispered behind him, their faces focused on the ring of flames that rose in response through forces beyond them all. As one, they drew their swords, waiting for the ring to fall for their Lord to claim his.
'One Power,' Jur'Khan Chung's voice shattered the sudden stillness, engendered by the knowledge that what had been begun could not but end other than the triumph of one and the deaths of the others. Come what would, most of the most powerful vampires in history would fall here this day.
'Let it be done,' his followers whispered as their blades, too, illuminated the room with the reflected red glow of the flames that rose still higher.
'One Order,' Drusilla crooned, enjoying the feel of the words on her tongue meaning, as they did, power in and of itself, the power that she had earned through the boldness with which she had stolen the charm that she wore in her bodice, and the eagerness with which she awaited the revenge of Patricius whom, even now, she could feel staring at her back with all the malevolence that two and a half millennia of thwarted desire alone could nourish.
'Let it be finished,' she heard whispered from behind her.
The primal joy that she felt was not presaged by any reaction that she had seen as she had watched both Patricius and Jur'Khan Chung in turn as they had completed their parts of the ritual, but they were both soldiers, always keeping their faces from betraying anything of what they felt for fear of provoking the ambition of a subordinate, though that was no possibility here, for the Masters were bound to give obedience to their Lords. It was a matter of blood as much as it was one of duty and honour, though honour was at best a vague concept among vampires, pack animals as they were.
'Oh dear God,' she breathed, involuntarily, and cursed herself for it as she closed her eyes and raised her head upwards. The Master had felt like this, she was sure. She had never met him, but she could feel him within, even now, his strength and that of the Order that he had commanded for seven centuries coursing through her, enhancing her own even without the amulet at he bodice that she no longer needed. With a sharp pull, she tossed it aside. Now acknowledged Lord of her Order, she needed nothing else.
Other than the loyalty of those behind her, and she learned in that second of divesting herself of that which she stole to earn the unending wrath of another Lord more powerful than she, that she could not count on that loyalty.
There was a hiss of breath indrawn as Spike knelt to pick up the Charm of Ba'quvar, turning it over in his hands, inspecting it objectively. His was not the place to speak until battle commenced, though for some reason the ring of fire had yet to fall, still warding off the acquisition of the swords of power as easily as it had done before the ritual was completed.
Drusilla turned to stare poisonously at her wayward childe. She had been tolerant of his foibles when in the depths of her madness but, lucid as she was now, she would brook no interference from him, ready as she was to instil in him the discipline that he had so long lacked.
'Such a little thing,' he murmured, still staring at the jewel, ignoring the others who observed him as they might a new species in their midst. 'Enough to wake a vampire asleep for two and half thousand years, enough for Dru to risk what she did to get it. Enough to provoke all of this.' He looked up for the first time, taking in the mouldy tomb, the illumination of the ring of red flame in its centre. 'Such a little thing.' He dropped it, and with one swift step, crushed it beneath him.
Drusilla did not care a great deal, for nothing could start until the swords were taken, and she had outgrown the use of the charm, but the breach of discipline alone was enough to warrant retribution, balanced as everything was on a knife edge. Taking a mental breath, she used powers that she had not possessed moments before, and lashed at him with her mind and all of the power that the ritual conferred, amplified by the mystical energy of a Sire's bond.
He smiled without humour as her determination yielded to confusion, and then pain.
The scream of agony that came from her lips as she felt what she had projected to him lash back against her with all the power than she had used shattered the eerie silence of the cavern. All but Patricius, who had risked the end of everything that he and others knew to have his vengeance, he who knew that she deserved far worse, and would suffer such at his hand when this ended. He would forego the power of the ages to torture her for as long as she lived, and observed her as a child might an insect impaled on a stick.
Spike said nothing for a moment, despite the feral snarl of fury of Angelus to his left, and the malice that he could feel from Dracula to his right. He knew that they could not touch him until given permission by their Lord, and she was currently beyond conscious choice. Her howls of agony had degenerated into a barely audible groan, and she struggled to rise on shaking limbs, but was barely able to stave off collapse. Patricius watched her carefully, though a small smile flickered across his coldly handsome face.
'More awaits you, woman,' he whispered, loudly enough for the cavern to pick up the echo and make the implacable sentiment audible to all who stood around the ring of flame, with one eye for what was happening and another to their enemies. The ritual stipulated a truce until the ring fell and the swords were drawn, but such creatures could not long remain quiescent in such company.
Spike strode forward confidently, his duster behind him in the unnaturally warn breeze, his normally white hair reflecting red from the fire. He stopped in front of his once-beloved Sire, though made no move to attack her.
'Confused, luv?' he asked her, his voice sardonic. She looked up at him with an expression that was part hatred, part fury, and part betrayal. ' He threw back his head and laughed. 'You can't discipline those not of your Order, Dru,' he told her, his voice becoming serious. 'Should have learned that a long time ago.'
'You cannot abandon your Order, you insolent cur,' Dracula snarled, losing a vestige of his vaunted self-control, the same control that had seen him through centuries. 'You have no choice but obedience to the oldest law of our kind.'
'You pompous prick,' Spike snapped back. 'You think because some hack lush of an Irishman scribbled some barely readable prose that was one step up from Varney the Vampyre you are somehow something special?'
The members of the other Orders looked on, eager for anything that might weaken Aurelius, once the strongest of the Four, listening to Spike's voice as his taunts grew in intensity and precision.
'Look at you, all tooled up for a Victorian dinner party,' he drawled, watching Angelus at the same time. He could see his grand-sire's anger rising. 'What happened to blending in, you dumb bastard? Our best sword is anonymity?' He leaned forward slightly. 'Ever hear that, you ponce? You look about as anonymous as a two headed pygmy.' Spike chuckled as he saw Dracula shake off he restraining hand of Drusilla as she attempted to rise weakly from the dusty floor of the ancient cavern, her pale face grey with pain. 'Losing the run of yourself there, boy,' he continued to taunt his elder. 'Defying your Lord now. Not the best way to start a war.'
'Perhaps the best way to end one,' Patricius said calmly from the shadows as he watched Drusilla rise from the ground in her agony and rage, his face dispassionate as though he were watching an interesting experimental specimen. 'What do want, William?' he continued, flanked by Vost, de Guise-Montcalm and Serim. They, too, looked curious. He had chosen well with his children down through the centuries, he knew, always using intellect as his main criteria.
'I want this to end,' Spike told him, his voice suddenly calm as he deliberately turned his back on the rage of his Sire and the Masters that followed her, though she was staring at the fire in the centre of the cavern, waiting for it to fall, waiting for this to be over that she might take her revenge on her Childe once and for all. The love that she once carried within her that had lit her black world like a candle in the dark was gone, replaced only by raging hatred for his betrayal. 'I want it over and done with, finally.'
'You can have your wish if you take your place,' the Roman told him, his silken voice dead. 'I will see that your death is swift and painless.'
'You're too kind, general,' Spike replied, nothing of sarcasm in his voice, for he knew that the offer was genuine, meant as the only favour that Patricius could bestow in his quest for the blood of Drusilla. The truth lay bare before all of them present, impatiently though they waited. There could be no switching of loyalties, not now. Not once the ritual had begun. 'But I don't think that I'm quite ready to die.'
'Then take your place and fight for your Sire, not that it will do you any good,' Jur'Khan Chung snarled at him from his left, feeling less and less sure of himself as time passed and the fire did not dim to allow him to get to his sword. He had been sure of victory before but, for all his calculation and all his desire for revenge against the arrogant Roman who had killed his Sire, he was beginning to realise that he and his followers were badly outclassed. He knew how powerful he was, a match for any, but of his followers only Hatukani had the strength to last this day. Against the likes of Vost or the Impaler, who stood silently, waiting, the other two would be chaff on the wind. For all of their age, they were dilettantes in the business of war that stood before them today.' 'Take my place and fight for my Sire,' Spike ruminated, as though genuinely interested in the choice that lay before him, ignoring the watchful looks of the others as they waited, their patience thinning, though they could do nothing while bound by the ritual that they themselves had completed. 'Don't think so.' 'You have no choice, boy,' Drusilla told him, her face still grey with pain that it was taking all of her determination to overcome. 'Learned nothing yet, Dru?' he demanded contemptuously over his shoulder, barely bothering to look at her though he could sense her fury even without the bond that they shared. 'One thing I learned, over the years. There's always a choice.' He rounded on Angelus, a contemptuous smile on his face. He pointed. 'Learned that from the Slayer when you tried to unleash Acathla, you simpering fool. Learned it again yesterday.' A new voice rang through the cave, at once younger and still more powerful than any of them. 'You're right, my love, there's always a choice.' The faces of Jur'Khan Chung and Drusilla were pictures of both astonishment and fury as Buffy, darkly majestic in black leather pants and charcoal grey top, cut low, strode into the chamber with as much assurance as any of them could have mustered, her endless victories behind her, worn like a cloak over her beauty. Patricius simply smiled. So much for Thoikaris, he thought to himself. I have instead created an Order. The two of them met by the ring of fire that slowly dimmed as the former Slayer turned vampire queen took her place in the crucible of war. None there could mistake the link between them, or the glorious ease with which they complemented each other, immortals waiting for eternity to unfold in front of them with an abandon that the others here, stultified by endless age and the uncaring unfolding of years of jaded amusement, could match. Dead creatures, full of the joy of living as their lips met in a passionate embrace that all but ignored the deadly company around them, and the malice of the ages directed towards them from all points of the compass as they kissed. 'My loyalty is no longer yours to command, Drusilla,' Spike said, using her full name for the last time. 'It belongs to another.' 'You mated,' Jur'Khan Chung breathed in mounting horror as his plans were reduced to ashes by the introduction of a variable that he could never have anticipated, but which followed closely an axiom that he realised now he should have remembered. No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy. Patricius looked on with interest. Caring nothing for the power that would come with victory in the Order War, meaning nothing to him as it did without Helena with whom to share it, he cared only about the revenge that would soon be his. He had thought that by regenerating Thoikaris from the oblivion into which he had been instrumental in casting her that he would remove William the Bloody from the equation, fatally weakening Aurelius and thus Drusilla, knowing too that Thoikaris' hatred was reserved for the descendants of Cornokalen more than it was for him. What had transpired was even better. Now, the Order War might well never be won. He could still have his revenge, and he would not have to contend with the myriad labours that would take a millennium as Lord of all vampires on earth. 'You cannot hope to win the Order War, girl,' Jur'Khan Chung continued as Drusilla took time to recover from her worst nightmare come to life, Angelus behind her looking even more shocked. Dracula was merely interested. Like Patricius, he cared nothing for the power that would come if his Lord won, and was irritated that she had seen fit to restart something that would have been better left buried. 'Whatever has happened, you are not of the Four.' 'I don't want to win it,' she told him sweetly, but her voice was deeper, more serious and more grave than it had been before, her hands, still brown from the sun that she would never again enjoy, entwined in the pale hands of her lover. 'I just want to make sure that you don't. The amount of power that would be gained her is beyond anything that anyone should ever have.' 'We transcend those limitations, Slayer,' Patricius spoke for the first time. He would not brook interference, though the slip of a girl to whom he spoke resembled her ancestor, his Helena, the only human offspring of Thoikaris that was also a vampire, so much that his unbeating heart almost broke when he saw her. But nothing would prevent his vengeance - not her, and nor her impudent lover, whatever the obvious depths of the feeling that they shared. 'You might,' she acknowledged, watching Drusilla carefully, knowing that the first threat would come from there, seeing the vampiress inch towards the flickering embers of the dying ring of fire above which Buffy stood, in which the Swords of Power were barely any longer trapped. None was meant for her, she knew instinctively and from what Spike had explained to her. She would be able to wield none of them, for she was of no Order but her own. But she was still the Slayer, and was far from defenceless. 'But these others do not.' She moved closer to him, relinquishing Spike's cold hand with a pang that was quickly buried in the resolution that she felt. She had one shot to get through to the ancient Roman in front of her, to the only creature in the room capable of wielding the power of the One Order while at the same time wanting none of it. 'I can help you,' she whispered to him as the others watched her. She could see the conflict within him being waged with all the intensity with which the coming war would be fought. He wanted vengeance against Drusilla for taking away the only reason that his sanity had been able to weather two and a half thousand years alone, and he needed the power that the winning of the war would bring to do it. But she could also see the pain within him that was made worse by both her presence and her proximity, by showing him what it was he was missing. He yearned for death, she knew. She remembered the look from the mirror into which she had glanced after the birth of her and Spike's daughter, the sheer inability to see what it was she had for which to go on living. She had Spike, she knew now. But he had nothing but vengeance, and it was cold comfort, even for one such as him, whose emotions had been leeched away by two millennia of savagery. 'You won't interfere,' Jur'Khan Chung told her, though his voice was near to breaking. His worst fear was come to life. Not only would the help of the Slayer and her lover tip the balance irrevocably towards the hated Roman, but it would mean his certain death. From being Buffy, Spike smiled at him, coldly. He should have been intimidated by the likes of the Mongol, or Vost, or Hatukani, but she showed nothing of it. 'So sure, are you, you Mongol pig?' he drawled. He cocked his head towards his lover, though he warily watched Drusilla, who by now had recovered and was quivering with the same rage and nervousness that filled Jur'Khan Chung. 'You should know better than anyone here that there are no rules but those made by the strong. Your Great Khan rewrote the rules of war and conquered the most powerful empire the world has ever seen. You think that he would have done that he played by the rules? Using the winter to invade Russia, the frozen rivers as roads for his cavalry? And you say that there are rules?' Spike chuckled, though the sound was without mirth and incongruous in the deadly gravity of the conflict barely held for the moment in abeyance as the cold wind blew through the cavern. 'You would, I suppose, flanked by the likes of those you brought here.' Jur'Khan Chung literally quivered with rage as his weakness was laid bare in front of those to whom the slightest sign of weakness would be enough to guarantee his death, and worse, for he knew that his death would not be slow in coming if he failed here today. He had played for the highest stakes imaginable, with his life and those of his followers, all for revenge, but the tools that he had brought were fragile things, and easily broken. 'Do not speak so of the Great Khan, child. What are you but the product of an effete society which blundered into empire through the mistakes of the French and the Dutch? What pride do you derive from that?'

'None,' Spike answered, keeping a sharp eye on Drusilla, though she was not moving. She was, however, watching him rather than Buffy, who was speaking quietly to Quintus Eranus. All he had to do was keep the other two distracted long enough for his queen to get through to the Roman. It was a brilliant plan that she had had, planning being an aspect of her that he had not expected ever to see, and now it was laid bare in darkness beneath the ancient home of the Tsars, illuminated only by a circle of unnatural flame. 'What pride should I have in it? What difference would it make if I did? You think we are here to prove the lessons of human history? I think you've misjudged your purpose.' The Slayer of Slayers smirked at the furious Mongol, though he could feel too well the rage of Aurelius behind him, begging to be unleashed; and, for all his power, he would last but a few seconds against Drusilla, Angelus and Dracula together. He relied on surprise and unpredictability to build his legend, but there were no longer any surprises. Not here, and not now. 'We waste time,' Drusilla proclaimed in a crystal clear voice that wrenched at Spike's heart, for he had laboured a century to restore her to some level of lucidity that now she had reached without him. He was long over his love for her, but it had lasted two world wars, and it was not something easily banished from his mind. 'This is something with which we should have done, without this interference.' His eyes locked on Spike's, promising an eternity of agony, Jur'Khan Chung's gaze flickered to Drusilla, and he nodded slightly, once. Both Lords then looked to Quintus Eranus, and there their eyes widened with horror. Spike laughed mirthlessly, and strode the length of the cavern, dodging nimbly a flickering flame in the circle of fire that guarded the swords that promised an end to three millennia of cold war in one rush of heat. With the love of his life, whose live he was sure would last the eternity that beckoned temptingly for both of them like the promise of a siren's kiss, he took his place with Vost, de Guise Montcalm, and Serim, as the circle of flame that guarded the swords that alone could end all of this flickered and died. The legions of Quintus Eranus, five legends in their own right, stood watching the others with triumph foreordained.