The Fall to Power Read Online Free Page A

torchlight, depicting his myriad victories over the years.
    He walked, slowly, taking in once again, as he had for a century, the scope of his power, the scale of his realm, before passing into the antechamber of his quarters.
    Here, sheathed in a stone plinth, his swords rested, slumbering.
    He surveyed the weapons, warmly, as though gazing upon old friends, his eyes taking in the flickering torchlight that rebounded, trapped within the facets of the translucent obsidian Glaives, whose blades would never dull, whose intricate hilts would never lose their lustre.
    Dexter, the right hand sword, its blade long, coming to a point like an apothecary’s knife, six feet in length and weighted perfectly for stabbing his foes. Dexter had tasted the hearts of many a foe.
    Sinister, the left hand sword, shorter, stubbier, its blade thicker like that of a butcher’s cleaver, the weight more on the blade to make easier the crushing and dismemberment of those foolish enough to be in his way.
                  As he walked past, he trailed his fingers along the cool material, feeling the weapons stir, but he bade them remain asleep. There will be other wars, he told them. There will be blood. But it is night-time. Rest.
                  He left the antechamber, making to brush aside the velvet curtain that led to his room, but stopped, sniffing gently.
                  A perfume, light, floral, heady, applied with oil upon freshly washed skin.
                  He pushed his way gently into his chamber.
                  The servant girl who had first poured his wine earlier that evening stood there, bare-footed on the warm carpet, wriggling it between her toes as though unused to the feel of comfort, and he smiled slightly as he remembered the amused glint of blue eyes as he’d left the Great Hall.
                  She stood, naked but for a silk robe wrapped about her lithe form, her milky skin soft and smooth in the dim light from the oil-lamp on the bedside table. She seemed tiny, doll-like in front of the four-posted bed that dominated the centre of the chamber, its proportions suited to fit a god-king.
                  He could feel the disgust with herself, yet also her longing. Her eyes were averted, looking to the carpet rather than him. She was trembling.
                  He spoke to her, his tones quiet, gentle, as one would speak chancing upon a delicate fawn in a forest clearing that might bolt at any second.
                  “You don’t need to be here, if you would rather not be,” he told her, sincerely. “I know you hate me.”
                  Silence for a few moments, then the serving girl dragged her eyes from the floor, summoning the courage to look deep into his green eyes, war raging within her soul until finally one side won.
                  She let the robe drop to the floor in a ruffling of slippery fabric, revealing the pale and slender curves beneath.
                  The King smiled. He always gave them the choice.
    But , in the end, it was really no choice at all.
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter Two :
     
    The warrior descended from the North, where the red glow touched the heavens and, from that day on, nothing would ever be the same again.
                  The curious crowds gathered about him from the villages that lay nestled in the deep, dark forests of the Hills, youths running here and there to tell people of the giant with his twin swords.
                  The warrior was bare-chested, his only clothes the charred hide about his waist and the fresh bear-skin across his shoulders. He spoke to no-one, stopping neither for food nor rest, as he left the mountains, crossing the Plains, heading South towards the Steppes and the Barbarian City.
                  At one point, a passing raiding party of twenty Savaran crossed his path,