R. Scott Bakker Omnibus by R. Scott Baker & R. Scott Bakker

Author:R. Scott Baker & R. Scott Bakker
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fantasy, General, Historical, Fiction
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

—MEMGOWA, CELESTIAL APHORISMS

You are fallen from Him like sparks from the flame. A dark wind blows, and you are soon to flicker out.

—SONGS 6:33, THE CHRONICLE OF THE TUSK

Early Spring, 4112 Year-of-the-Tusk, Xerash

The long mule-trains of the Scarlet Spires finally arrived several days into the siege of Gerotha. As though on cue, a new embassy issued from the city—this one walking in the manner of abject petitioners. The gates were not closed behind them. As the Warrior-Prophet had promised, the ancient capital of Xerash had capitulated of her own accord.

As a gift, the embassy brought the twelve heads of those who had orchestrated the earlier closing of the gates, including that of Captain Hebarata, who had mortally offended the Warrior-Prophet. But the Lords of the Holy War were not appeased, and the Warrior-Prophet spoke harshly to the Gerothans, saying that some example had to be set, some sacrifice made, both to atone for and to warn against what had happened. As though justice were to be found in the clarity of proportion, he announced his Toll of Days, saying that since four days had passed since Gerotha had shut its gates against him, so four out of ten Gerothans had to forfeit their lives.

“By dawn’s light tomorrow,” he decreed, “twenty thousand heads must be hung from the battlements of your city walls. If you do not do this, verily you shall all perish.”

That night, while the Holy War celebrated, all Gerotha screamed. Dawn’s light found her walls slicked in blood, their entire circuit ornamented with severed heads, thousands of them, either bundled in fishing nets or strung through the jaw along hanging ropes of hemp. When the heads were counted, it was found that the Gerothans had exceeded their measure by 3,056.

In all of Xerash, no city, town, or fortress would bar her gates against the Holy War again.

Athjeäri, meanwhile, became the first Lord of the Holy War to enter the Sacred Lands. Some time passed before he and his Gaenri realized they had actually entered Holy Amoteu. There was little to distinguish the Xerashi—or the Sons of Shikol, as they called them—from the Amoti in appearance or tongue. They crossed the tablelands of Jarta, whose people had once waged generational war against the ancient Amoti, then descended into a war of their own.

With no more than five hundred thanes and knights, Athjeäri battled his way ever deeper into Holy Amoteu. His sunburned Galeoth found the Amoti to be treacherous and supportive by turns. Though most called themselves Fanim, they had no love of the Kianene, and after months of dreadful rumours many thought the idolaters and their False Prophet invincible. The Padirajah himself had fallen. The great Kascamandri was dead, and here came none other than the mercurial kinsmen of Saudoun, the ruthless Blond Beast of Enathpaneah.

There were encounters at Gim, the famed Anothrite Shrine, Mer-Porasas … Athjeäri himself was wounded in the knee at Girameh, where the Latter Prophet’s mother had been born. Soon their blood-smeared standard, a Circumfix over the Red Horse of Gaenri, became a general sign of panic and terror.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.