[MR] From the Ashes

[David Ritterskamp]

Smoke rose over the shattered fields.
Crows feasted on the remnants of a once-proud army.
The banner of the Red Bull and its allies flapped triumphantly in the rapidly-chilling air.
After four years of battle, the Phoenix was undone, its armies scattered, its foes finally, viciously victorious.
The survivors staggered into the hinterlands, bearing their wounded with them.  The warriors and populace of Stierbach and Co. piled wreckage from the various battlefields in a heap near a group of ruined buildings and set it aflame.  Long they danced into the night around the shattered dreams of their enemy, laughing and singing.
An old man stepped out of the shadows, wearing the torn and bloody remnants of a Phoenix tabard.  Sweat beaded his brow and his hands were bloody.
“But this is, after all, the Phoenix,” he cackled, and threw a small stone object into the midst of their victory fire.  Laughing, they cut him down and returned to their celebration.
In the morning, however, when they went to douse the fire and move on, they found a stone egg, blistering hot in the middle of stone-cold ashes.  The few warriors that dared touch it were instantly incinerated.  It sat there glowing at them, and silence fell over the camp.
 
War of the Wings VI:  From the Ashes

There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. -Niccolo M.