And so it came to pass that these words spoken in wrath dispersed to all corners of the land proclaiming their message and blasting all minds that heard it. Neighbour turned on neighbour, and in sudden fury fathers dragged sons onto the street and there murdered them. The gentle beasts of the field trampled one another. Herdsmen slew their cattle to bathe in the blood.

The kings and princes of the land fell to fevered imaginings, adorning themselves with armor and weapons, and demanding a throne made from the bones of their kin. Prisoners and slaves were put to the sword and their heads adorned the royal dais. Then those kings sent their soldiers forth into the towns and villages to harvest more skulls for their thrones. Every living thing they killed, all that drew breath was culled from the earth, which in turn was fired and the walls tumbled down so nothing could live there again.

When the earth was made as mud by the lifeblood of innocents and wild creatures roamed the deserted lands drinking marrow from the bones of the dead, the kings and princes turned their armies outside their hollow kingdoms to wage war against each other. The armies of all the lands met in a valley blocked by four mountains to the north and four mountains to the south. And there they fell on one another with every weapon, animal, and cunning machine that they commanded. The battle raged long as fortune waxed and waned from one army to the next.

For eight days and seven nights the warriors of the lands pushed and heaved and stabbed and slew. The kings released their huntings dogs, which harried and bit and gorged themselves on hot flesh. Terrible horsemen on steel-clad mounts charged again and again. The death toll was so great that the valley itself filled with blood and drowned those who fought in its farthest depths. The soldiers in battle hungered, and consumed the fallen and drank their blood to quench their thirst, while the kings ate only flesh of the heads brought to them.

As the sun sank down into the lake of death for the eighth time the battle faltered and stopped, for the bloodthirst that had driven each mortal soul forward had at last been sated. The armies could fight no more and there came a great wailing from the valley as every soldier lifted his voice and cried out for release, for victory or for the strength to carry on. A multitude raised their shouts to a thousand empty gods. None replied, for their true god had heard his servants' cries. His answer was one of bloodlust, power, and awesome violence.

From the boiling blood sea rose eight enormous mighty creatures, each with the head of a hound and body of a lion, and each yoked with great chains of brass. They climbed forth each mountain and behind them dragged upwards a new mountain from the sea, a mountain of bone and skulls that reached fully ten times the height of the eight other peaks surrounding it. Upon its sight, the soldiers of the battle took new heart and rose again from the gore-drenched earth to praise their true lord while the kings and princes threw themselves down in fear as they recognized the true Skull Throne, of which theirs had been only the palest imitation.

Atop the very summit, the embryonic god screamed his name in a birth-cry that echoed and crashed from peak to peak and drove the cowardly mad even as it strengthened the worthy beyond mortal effort.

And the name was Kharneth, our Blood God Khorne.