‘Now listen carefully,’ the elder woman rasped, ‘you are never to travel to the Dunes of Novalei, do you hear? That desert is dangerous, treacherous, and it is haunted.’

The old woman walked over to the fire and stoked it before sitting back down on her stool.

‘Long ago, there was a great war between the two most fearsome warlords these lands have ever known. Both were proficient in great magic, and both were mounted upon great flying beasts. Their armies counted hundreds of thousands of soldiers and knights, and many of their greatest knights sat upon those great flying beasts.

‘Both warlords were set on conquering the other’s kingdom, and for many years they warred. Many died but there never was any real victor.

‘Then one day, they decided to settle this once and for all and declared a battle upon the then Plains of Dunalei where their armies clashed day and night.

‘For ten whole days and ten whole nights, they fought. They slew each other’s beasts, and bodies piled upon each other, creating mountains of the dead. The hills of corpses dripped rivers of blood as their slaughter continued until finally, tired and battered, only the two warlords remained.’

The elder woman paused and narrowed her eyes sinisterly.

‘But the warlords had not foreseen the arrival of a third ruler, one who had duped them for so long, one who had claimed to remain neutral in their war, and he came with his army and finished the warlords off and whoever remained of their soldiers and knights.

‘The new sole ruler laughed at his deception and triumph as he set the hills of corpses ablaze. 

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