===== Chapter 8 - The End of the Siege =====
When the host of Clagor was released and marching north, Prul-Gar’s army was still bound in the siege of Baldemar.

By that time the siege had been going on for more than four years, and still the defenders showed no sign of relenting. Galen Greatwood and his men had full reign of the city. Supplies were brought in by means of several portals, but where they came from no one knew, for only the enigmatic Demon Knights were able to pass through them; any humans (or at times unlife spies that managed to get into the city in spite of the wards) simply walked through the portal without being transported anywhere.

Prul-Gar himself seemed unwilling to attack the city because of the wards still in place to protect it, which would have meant he’d have to sacrifice a huge part of his army. Instead he tried to wear down the defenders with magic attacks from outside the perimeter of the wards, but the losses he inflicted were small and seemed easily replaced as more of the Demon Knights came through the portals.

Finally, when Clagor was free and two other wards close to breaking, Prul-Gar decided that he could not wait any longer. In the early summer of the fifth year of Destruction he began to amass his armies for the final assault on the city.

The attack started in the middle of the night, while most human defenders were asleep, but the knights manning the walls were tireless and calmly prepared for meeting the onslaught.

The first ranks of the unlife – weak skeletons and zombies – crumbled to dust as soon as they entered the area of the wards, but the following ranks did not hesitate for a second before going after them. After some time the wards seemed to be getting weaker, the unlife almost reaching the walls before being destroyed. At this point Prul-Gar sent forth his companies of shadows to assault the walls themselves.

The battle was long and hard, with the Demon Knights holding the wall and the human defenders reduced to taking care of those unlife that managed to break through, though these soon increased in number as the wards continued to weaken and the assault increased in ferocity.

Finally, seeing the defenders start to break, Prul-Gar himself appeared on the battlefield. Surrounded by a score of his personal guards, he approached the city, intent on crushing any opposition remaining in the city.

But when he had almost reached the walls – by then battered and broken rubble – the wards flared to life once more, this time in a very small area centred on Prul Gar and his guard. All lesser undead in the area were slain in an instant, and while Prul-Gar himself seemed largely unaffected, his guard was noticeably uncomfortable.

Then a group of fighters appeared out of the city to confront Prul-Gar. Prul-Gar focused on the apparent leader of the group, Galen Greatwood, but just as he began to turn on the hated human, another figure, dressed in robes of dark red and carrying a staff of dark metal in his right and a small sceptre in his left hand, stepped to the front and addressed the lich. “No, Prul-Gar, it is me you will fight today!”

With those words the figure, levelled his staff at the lich and waves of dark energy raked across the lich, leaving him staggering.

In the meantime, Galen and the rest of the group moved to engage Prul-Gar’s elite guard. With him were some of the human knights that had come with him in the first days of the siege, as well as such notable heroes as Lady Celia Liamyn, Lady Saffron Ders, weapon master Herent Arnimane and the half-dragon sorcerer Ando.

Prul-Gar retaliated against the mysterious sorcerer with magic of his own, but few who were there had time to spare to witness it, for everyone had to fight for his own life.

After much fighting Prul-Gar’s guard was defeated though Master Arnimane, Ando and more than half of the knights had fallen in the battle. When the survivors tried to get their bearings, they saw the nameless sorcerer kneeling above Prul-Gar, pressing his sceptre against the lich’s head and pouring its energies into him. Finally the lich ceased to struggle and was no more.

Galen Greatwood, moved forward to help the sorely wounded sorcerer get up and, after exchanging a few words with him, called out that the wards would soon fail completely and ordered a full retreat.

Though Prul-Gar was dead, the city had been overrun and most of the Demon Knights had been cut down. Galen and his group battled their way to one of the portals, taking along as many survivors as they could and escaped to the mysterious place whence the Demon Knights had come. From there only Lady Liamyn and Lady Ders ever returned to Derimir, though they will not speak of what they saw.

On the identity of the mysterious sorcerer who single-handedly defeated Prul-Gar, there has been much speculation in the years since then. Many say it was Jaysek, returned from the dead one last time to save the day, though Lady Liamyn has dismissed the idea as preposterous.

The remains of Prul-Gars army – less than a tenth of their original number – remain to haunt the area of Baldemar to this day.