Meanwhile, on the sandy shores of an emerald isle, there is a keep, standing strong against the wind...
There is a man, standing tall and proud, atop that stony keep. His face, hard-set as bedrock, in his eyes, wonder and regret... No fear.
Before him, the walls of the keep stretch, upon them hardy men. Below them, within, the teeming, terror-mad masses.
Outside... Wond'rous, terrible in it's glory, frightening in ramification, is a rent in the air, as if the Lord himself had torn asunder the very fabric of reality.
Faintly, through that mournful portal, can be heard the sound of galloping hooves and rushing feet, the clash of metal and the clink of chain.
There, too, are voices... One rings out, far above the rest, eclipsing the din of battle.
“Marú na naimhde Éire! Man o Cadhla, bás crua!”
''”Slaughter the enemies of Eire! Men of Cadhla, die hard!”''
There is a great answering roar, and the sounds of war grow to a climax...

…

Through that door of the damned, marches a short man, in conical armour and long moustachios. He carries a crows-beak pike, fastened to it are tattered war banners.
Atop it, the head of Fearghus Cadhla, once chief of a reaver-clan and leader of Ichabod Lael's incursion into the new world.
He marches on, behind him a flood of soldiers with pike and bow.

From his perch above his ancestral home, Ichabod watches as his land is despoiled and the foe prepares for assault. On the walls, his men take what shots they may, hopelessly outnumbered.
Heavy shields of dark iron advance to the sound of deep war drums and the cadence of an unfamiliar tongue.
Flights of arrows fall inward the keep and the screams of the sheltered increase tenfold as Ichabod's serfs are pincushioned by the dozen.
Long ladders are brought up and dropped to the low walls of Lael's seat. Fighting begins in earnest.

…

The sun is dim and the walls are taken. There is fighting in the courtyard and the men of Eire make their foes pay dearly for every cubit.
Sir Ichabod Lael stands within the keep, armoured as his retainers, in full maille and helmed in steel, with shield and warsword.
From outside, the last of his men is despatched. Through the door with the faltering rays of the sun, comes a champion of bloodshed and his lords of war, in heavy iron and lamellar, with glaives and swords and all the panoply of combat.

Ichabod screams the furore celtica and the two sides clash.

…

The lands of Eire, always embroiled in petty war, now unite against a common foe, more terrible than any Norseman or English. As the months go by, news from the interior is less and less.

One day, the coned armies of yellow men are arrayed before the Pale, in hundred-thousands.

The sun has set and a new terror has come to this world at war.