The Withered Land, THE EMPIRE FALLS: HELL'S AVATAR

THE EMPIRE FALLS: HELL'S AVATAR -- PART ONE

"There was a time, following the last great triumph of the corrupt and tyrannical rule of the Has'Zyndamaggi Dominion, during the period immediately following the appearance of The Wound and the beginning of the Long Death, wherein the Emperium had initiated the Cosmic Revocation recalling the Faithful among their far-flung interplanetary colonies back to the homeworld of Teshiwahur, when the Outer Provinces seized power over their domains and engaged in quiet treasons and subtle counter-conspiracies against the ruling houses of nobility. During this time, there was an evolution and growth in the use of alien Offworld mercenaries, some of whom became popular among the rebel warlords and scheming political provocateurs who frequently recruited these rogue, independent Agents of Change.And some of these mercenaries achieved legendary status as powerful shapers of history. One such Agent of Change was rumored to be an alien from the Upworlds, known only by the name of "Pilgrim"...

-- excerpt from Book III, "Effects of the Stellar Revocation", Calindrogg's Wartime Histories After the Collapse, the Orbital Heliar 98, Post-Wound, prior to the 1st Continental Reconstruction

"Nar'quee chay-lan do'asleth vantae ke-vi'rann hulgeth nume."

Translation: "The pinnacle of sophistication in the ruthless exercise of warfare, is to dominate and subdue the enemy by using his own weapons against him."

-- Commander-General Lord Phyn'Harletas, Hero of the Emperium, on the eve of his invasion of the outlaw Kingdom of Kiroth, on the southern continent

Seventeen years before meeting the cursed, tragedy-haunted princess Nygeia, and before his vengeful campaign to end the tyranny and oppression of the corrupt Emperium as their sovereignty fell to ruin, a young Knight, inexperienced and alone, encounters a vast and lethal conspiracy that threatens his catastrophe-stricken world.

1. FORYNNUHR

It waited.

In the silent Wastes a colossus stood, a cracked and scarred monument of stone and mortar, old as the stones that lay broken at its feet. The colossus was a giant, in aspect more demon than man, a dark tribute to an ancient warrior of renown, once the servant to a king from shadowy antiquity. The statue, built from the blood, sweat and sinew of slaves, was a graven image of the hopes and heroic dreams forgotten by a people lost to Time.

There suddenly was a sound, like the ringing of a huge bell at the bottom of a stone well, and a crackle of night-black lightning seared the air, leaving more than an optical after-image, leaving an actual scar floating in the space above the dry, cracked soil of the plain. A shape stepped out from the rip in the air. A Pilgrim, tall, dour and solitary, emerged and, after taking a brief moment to survey the bleak landscape, began to journey through the terrain's wide expanse, a Wasteland torn by Time, drained of beauty, touched by Chaos. He wrapped his voluminous cloak tightly around his armored body as he noticed the approach of a distant storm from over the horizon, steadily drawing nearer.

He came in answer to a Summons. Something primordial, malignant and angry in this place of neglected memories called him to reluctant duty. He was not a native to this world and on many occasions he found treading its soil unpleasant and uncomfortable, but he could not ignore the urgent beckoning that seized his mind and body and inflamed every molecule of his being as he was transported from his far away home. Yet when he arrived at this solemn place, he had been, as ever, transformed, becoming more muscular and athletic, taller, more sensorily perceptive, and physically redressed, garbed in dark gray metal, an exoskeletal, multi-segmented battle armor and a voluminous cape inscribed with interlocked runic symbols. Stoic, he trudged past the colossus, deeper into the surrounding panorama of desolation.