Free The Fall to Power by Gareth K Pengelly

cool, fresh air, as his body shuddered with relief after its near-death experience.
                  Slowly, his eyes grew accustomed to the sunlit stone and he frowned, in puzzlement, at the figure that stood on the causeway in front of them.
                  The man was tall, dazzling both in sheen and looks, with long, windswept hair and a stone-headed hammer of titanic stature resting head down on the floor by his side.
                  He flashed them a disarming smile before speaking to them in cheery, youthful tones.
                  “Going somewhere?”
                  His smile morphed, in an instant, into a savage snarl, his face contorting into a death mask of unbridled bloodlust as he charged the nineteen startled men, his hammer whirling an arc of death as he cackled in manic glee.
                 
    ***
     
                  “Khrdas?”
                  Lord Arbistrath shivered in barely suppressed fear at the very sound of the word. This was not what he’d let himself in for. This was not what he had wanted. His father had been an honourable man, doing what was right by his people, even it was in contradiction to the King’s wishes. Arbistrath had tried to live by that example. As a lone child, with few friends of his own age, and no wife, he had done his best to fight down his own haughty, proud nature and win the respect of his people.
                  But now the Khrdas had been loosed and there was only ever one outcome.
                  “Rise.”
                  The youth got to his feet. He was broad with the meaty forearms that came with wielding the pitchfork and scythe, but not as tall as Arbistrath. His smooth skin and youthful demeanour told the Lord that he was not much younger than him, maybe nineteen summers compared to Arbistrath’s twenty four.
                  “What is your name?”
                  “Marlyn, sire.”
                  “You did well, Marlyn. Go to Hofsted, he will find further use for you.”
                  “Yes, sire.”
                  The young trooper scuttled off to join the burly Lieutenant who stood with his officers, ever twiddling his grey handle-bar moustache. How many times had Arbistrath told the man to shave that thing? Sure, it wasn’t the greasy long trails of a Clansman, but moustaches to the young Lord always appeared so…  unseemly.
                  He laughed for a moment, at the absurdity of such mundane thoughts in the dire situation, before turning to the centre of the hall, to the intricate circle of chalk, lit by candles and incense, the heavy, sweet aroma filling the air and making him quite light-headed.
                  The shamans had been drawing the circle since morning and the rite was nearly complete, the complex devices and symbols written therein hurting his eyes to look at if he gazed too long in the dim half-light of the hall with its windows shuttered and barred.
    As he made his way over, the girl turned to him, the lynchpin, the orchestrator, the ambassador from the Valley of the Spirits and, once again, he was struck by the delicacy of her features, the petiteness of her slender form and the copper-red hair that descended in gently spiralling curls to frame her green eyes.
    “How long do we have left?” she asked, her matter-of-factness belying her youth.
    “If the outer door to the keep holds out, then forever,” he replied, eyes gazing at the corridor that led to the entrance of the stronghold. “But if they have some way of breaching that, then minutes.”
    She nodded, only a glimmer in her eyes betraying the nerves she felt, before turning back to her assistants. The circle of transportation was nearly ready, and she could already feel the build-up of elemental power in the ether, as spirits gathered about, drawn in