Lothrak barely had time to breathe before a dozen rough, grasping hands hoisted him out of his armour and held him aloft, his new brothers carrying him belly-up into a hall lit by blazing fireplaces and packed with long tables and chairs. Shoved into the resplendent room, his senses were soon swept away by the sound of raucous cheering and the smell of roasting flesh.

From his seat on the uppermost table, Lothrak watched the festivity unfold. Great platters of carved meats, whole roasted fowlen, cauldrons of bubbling broth and jugs of mulled gutbrew decorated each table. Wardens clawed at the dishes from all sides, seizing the choicest cuts as soon as they could and cramming them into their mouths, before washing it down with gallons of drink. Where quarrels broke out, horns locked and claws swiped until a victor emerged, who proceeded to stuff his face with the fatty, juicy and decadent spoils that his exploits had earned him.

The Karugen smiled. The feasts were everything he had hoped they would be. Camaraderie and contentment hung in the air like intoxicants, flooding his nerves. All his life, Lothrak had only ever faintly tasted the sweetness of such an atmosphere, eating his meals alone while hunched over another Fireheart chronicle, studying the order's history. Now part of the fraternity, Lothrak felt joy ripple through him like never before.

Such was the power of the Graxir; the bond. The union of every Xan-Klar's emotions. Those who stood together were united in spirit, as a reminder of who they were. Xan-Klar, one people, forevermore united.

A shadow moved over Lothrak, and he looked up to see a figure standing beside him. A pink-skinned creature, bony and slender, with a plain brown rag for clothes. Its head was large and angular, with a bottom jaw that split apart into two mandibles lined with flat, brick-like teeth. Four golden eyes, bereft of any pupils, looked down at him before the creature bowed, the chained collar around its throat clinking as it did so.

"More gutbrew, Master Lothrak?" It asked, holding a jug of reddish-brown liquid out to him.

Lothrak raised a hand dismissively. "No, Sirthon. Let me be."

Without another word, the Sirthon hobbled away, chain links clanking with its every step. Lothrak could honestly never tell the difference between male and female Sirthon. Unlike his kind, the slaves all looked the same. He could also never tell how they felt either. The Graxir did not extend to other species, only to Xan-Klar, and Sirthon faces... left much to be desired.

Many of the more religious Xan-Klar took this as evangelical proof that the Xan-Klar were gifted by the divine, chosen as worthy of a greater destiny. Whether that was true or not, Lothrak didn't know for sure, but it seemed easy to believe so, given the glorious empire the Xan-Klar had carved from the Sirthon's downfall. But did that prove anything? Was this divine providence, the mere superiority of the Xan-Klar body and mind, or did their strength come from the rule of their nation? From the Empire and its Emperor?

Amidst the feast, Lothrak found himself pondering this. He tried to concentrate, but the swirling menagerie of emotions and celebratory cries battered at his concentration and wore at his attention span until it was all just background noise.

Hoping for a brief moment of peace, Lothrak arose from his seat and slipped out of the hall, passing through the nearest doorway into a long, lantern-lit corridor. As he stepped outside, he felt a chill on his scales as the heat of the fires was traded for the cool dusk breeze that swept in through the open windows, mixing with the jasmarn shaders that lent a pleasant smell of herbs to the indoor air. The noise and emotions from the feast were still prevalent, and so Lothrak strode further down the corridor, his cloak and his tail scraping the ground as he did so.

As he moved away from the feast, he felt the emotions of his new brothers ebb slowly away, gradually fading until nothing more remained. Lothrak felt a pang of loneliness as it happened. Everyone, even the servants, were gathered in the great hall, and so with them far gone, no-one else remained nearby.

However, on the plus side, he now had the peace he needed to concentrate.

While walking down the corridor, Lothrak's gaze glimpsed a tall, wide opening in the walls of the Fireheart sanctuary, with an outcrop of tiles extended from underneath it, lit by a vibrant red glow and lined by thick metal railings; a balcony. With a smile on his scaly lips, Lothrak stepped out, hoping to feel the warm light of the sun on his scales.

However, as he did so, the saline scent of the salt-marshes slithered up to greet him. A vast urban sprawl decorated the horizon, its towering industrial complexes sprouted up on every street like fungus in a mould forest. The loud, clanking clamour of the oil drills, the factory machines and the raging gridlock of transport vehicles on the thin, congested streets. A sky tinted with the shade of dried blood, besmirched with grimy clouds and a low-hanging sun, loomed over it all, its meagre light bringing no warmth to the world, yet still illuminating the festering, frost-tinted swamps that surrounded the city on all sides.

Lothrak grimaced coldly.

Kenostros, capital of Sirtha Prime. A place so unpleasant that it made Lothrak reminisce about his birthworld, Tratkaloth, home of the Xan-Klar. Of drilling with his brothers and sisters upon the training grounds, the light of Gruskon glaring down upon them from the aquamarine sky above and the black-and-navy banners of the Empire flapping like wings in the tussling wind.

Regret twinged inside Lothrak as he remembered he had attained knighthood long after the Great War of Survival had come to an end. The inexorable tragedy of time had denied him the chance to fight for the Empire in their time of greatest need; when the very existence of the Xan-Klar race was threatened by a menace from beyond the stars.

The facts from the history books and news broadcasts all came flooding back. Of how the Sirthon invaded his people's homeworld, their forces purging entire Xan-Klar cities, slaying their children and crushing their eggs, in the name of genocide. Of how Skaldrak the Saviour united the scattered peoples of Tratkaloth in this time of great crisis, leading them to victory over the invaders... and of how, after years of planning and technological acquisition, Emperor Skaldrak launched his great crusade of vengeance against the Sirthon scum. A crusade that raged on for over fifty Tratkalothan years before the great enemy was finally defeated.

In that time, Xan-Klar beyond counting had died. But, through their strength and storied courage, the righteous had prevailed over the evil, and now the Empire spanned over twenty-two worlds. Skaldrak the Saviour had created a dominion beyond dreaming for his people to rule and defend.

But with new lands came new struggles. New alien species had been discovered, and in the case of Sirtha Prime, shared a world with the Xan-Klar. They called themselves the Galactic League, a collection of species that had all been wronged by the Sirthon. The green-skinned Nalyr, the arthropod-like Viruun, the titanic Kropen, the gaunt Maggiral, and the ever-bizarre humans.

Born and raised back on Tratkaloth, Lothrak had only ever seen a human once, on a holovid broadcast from Imperial News Headquarters. The beige-coloured, fur-headed, scaleless creatures were strange, and the fact that they only had two eyes made his stomachs retch.

But it was not their appearance that perplexed him the most. It was what they did with the accursed Sirthon which wound up on their side of the planet. Instead of teaching the vanquished their place in the galaxy, the humans tried to uplift and integrate the murderers, treating them as equals.

The Imperial News had relayed this to the people, and every Xan-Klar responded with mocking disbelief. When Lothrak discussed it with his fellow Nageerans, or squires, they did much the same. And he wouldn't deny it; a degree of bewilderment wormed its way through him as well.

To treat a defeated enemy as an equal? What kind of crazy creatures did that?

Lothrak was about to think more on that when, suddenly, he felt something. A tingling sensation at the very edge of his senses, slithering into his mind through the Graxir. Turning his head, his three eyes locked onto the wall of the Fireheart sanctuary, piercing through the stonework at what lay behind it, steadily approaching. Another Xan-Klar.

Following the movement with his gaze, Lothrak felt the figure approach the balcony entrance, its thoughts determined and fixed on something. On him. However, the moment the Xan-Klar came into sight, all the tension in the blue-scale's body dissipated.

"Looking for me, Kathonir?"