The Fall to Power Read Online Free Page B
Author: Gareth K Pengelly
unsheathing their weapons at the approaching giant with his strange, crystalline swords, demanding to know his business.
The sole survivor was allowed to flee on his horse, wide-eyed with terror as he galloped at full-tilt to the Barbarian City to deliver the warrior’s warning to the Barbarian King.
I am coming for you.
Word spread through the villages of the stranger’s power and his intention to attack the Barbarian King. Soon, the crowds grew, until it seemed the whole population of the Hills and the Plains followed the colossus as he strode ever southward, keeping a safe distance, setting camp of a night, speeding to catch up in the morning after he’d invariably marched on.
Another party of Steppes Barbarians, this time fifty, journeyed North to meet him, the King himself not deigning to meet his challenge, sending a high-ranking Marzban in his stead.
Only the Marzban escaped this time, sent packing, tied backwards to his horse, his urine-stained undergarments bare for the world to witness his humiliation.
Again, the message was delivered to the Barbarian King.
I am coming for you.
***
It was on the dawn of the fourteenth day of the warrior’s march that he beheld the Barbarian City rising high on the Steppes, the Yow running before it, the coast at its back.
After ten long years he had returned to claim the fate that had been promised him.
The armies of the Barbarian King were arrayed against him on the plain before the city, ten thousand strong; mounted Savaran, Clansmen warriors on foot, axe-wielding berserkers and score upon score of archers wielding both long- and crossbow.
At their rear, safe atop the walls of the city, the Barbarian King himself watched with interest as the battle unfolded, playing with his long, greying moustache, his keen eyes unreadable as they looked out from his scarred and pockmarked face.
The warrior from the North raised his hand, bidding his followers from the Plains and Hills to remain on the hillside behind him, before striding down to meet his enemies.
As per Steppes tradition, each Clan sent forth a champion, warriors of renown amongst a warrior race, each skilled, strong, brave and unbeaten, each wielding a weapon gifted to them as they lay in their cot, each groomed by masters of the killing arts to be slayers of men.
A dozen such warriors ranged out to meet the stranger before the army, each, in turn, seeking his blood, seeking to claim his head – and the honour of victory – in the name of their respective clans.
Each, in turn, was cut down like a child.
Even as the last champion fell to the dust, the Steppes generals signalled the archers to attack, the morning sun blocked out, the plain cast into shadow, as the sky filled with innumerable barbed arrows and metal bolts that descended like a cloud of locusts towards the waiting warrior.
Slowly, and with care, the giant stuck his swords, point down in the dirt, before raising his hands to the sky.
The incoming missiles stopped.
They didn’t smash and fall, no, not as if they’d hit an invisible wall suddenly erected in the sky. No; they simply stopped, all momentum arrested – nay, paused – hanging motionless in the bright morning sky.
As the onlookers on both sides watched on in rapt awe, the warrior twisted his fingers, the blood of the Barbarian archers running cold as the arrows and bolts copied the motion, turning slowly, inevitably, till they pointed back the way they’d come.
Shrieks of terror, wailings of
The sole survivor was allowed to flee on his horse, wide-eyed with terror as he galloped at full-tilt to the Barbarian City to deliver the warrior’s warning to the Barbarian King.
I am coming for you.
Word spread through the villages of the stranger’s power and his intention to attack the Barbarian King. Soon, the crowds grew, until it seemed the whole population of the Hills and the Plains followed the colossus as he strode ever southward, keeping a safe distance, setting camp of a night, speeding to catch up in the morning after he’d invariably marched on.
Another party of Steppes Barbarians, this time fifty, journeyed North to meet him, the King himself not deigning to meet his challenge, sending a high-ranking Marzban in his stead.
Only the Marzban escaped this time, sent packing, tied backwards to his horse, his urine-stained undergarments bare for the world to witness his humiliation.
Again, the message was delivered to the Barbarian King.
I am coming for you.
***
It was on the dawn of the fourteenth day of the warrior’s march that he beheld the Barbarian City rising high on the Steppes, the Yow running before it, the coast at its back.
After ten long years he had returned to claim the fate that had been promised him.
The armies of the Barbarian King were arrayed against him on the plain before the city, ten thousand strong; mounted Savaran, Clansmen warriors on foot, axe-wielding berserkers and score upon score of archers wielding both long- and crossbow.
At their rear, safe atop the walls of the city, the Barbarian King himself watched with interest as the battle unfolded, playing with his long, greying moustache, his keen eyes unreadable as they looked out from his scarred and pockmarked face.
The warrior from the North raised his hand, bidding his followers from the Plains and Hills to remain on the hillside behind him, before striding down to meet his enemies.
As per Steppes tradition, each Clan sent forth a champion, warriors of renown amongst a warrior race, each skilled, strong, brave and unbeaten, each wielding a weapon gifted to them as they lay in their cot, each groomed by masters of the killing arts to be slayers of men.
A dozen such warriors ranged out to meet the stranger before the army, each, in turn, seeking his blood, seeking to claim his head – and the honour of victory – in the name of their respective clans.
Each, in turn, was cut down like a child.
Even as the last champion fell to the dust, the Steppes generals signalled the archers to attack, the morning sun blocked out, the plain cast into shadow, as the sky filled with innumerable barbed arrows and metal bolts that descended like a cloud of locusts towards the waiting warrior.
Slowly, and with care, the giant stuck his swords, point down in the dirt, before raising his hands to the sky.
The incoming missiles stopped.
They didn’t smash and fall, no, not as if they’d hit an invisible wall suddenly erected in the sky. No; they simply stopped, all momentum arrested – nay, paused – hanging motionless in the bright morning sky.
As the onlookers on both sides watched on in rapt awe, the warrior twisted his fingers, the blood of the Barbarian archers running cold as the arrows and bolts copied the motion, turning slowly, inevitably, till they pointed back the way they’d come.
Shrieks of terror, wailings of
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