CHAPTER 2
"Open the gates! Open the gates, oh cravens and scoundrels! Else I shall force, pry them open like the shell of a clam!"
"The roaring thunder of destiny shatters at the palm of my hand! I alone wield the power to break men! For I am the true son of Karn; the whipping, lashing master of the New Age of Darkness! Break your swords before me, and the whipping bullets of barrelling screaming steel shall divert themselves in fear of my presence! Fire is my brother-in-arms, and Death and Chaos are at the palm of my hand!"
"All hail the New Wolf of Death!"
"Behind me are the Eaters! Tribesmen, sons of Gulbeb the Father! They have come here to decide the fate of all mankind! Behind me are the Hearkenmen! Sons, Karn-liege! And they have come here also, to see the incarnation of Fire, aye, the Devil I've caught in the palm of my hand!"
"All hail the New Wolf of Death!"
"Sound the drums! Break their walls! Shatter the pride of their centuries old folly! Slaves to no one, our name is the brand marked upon the cattle's back! We, the so-called outernmen of the Heretic Lands, we are the breakers of men! Manslayers! Remember Death! Remember the enslavement of Death! Aye, we are the sons of Gulbeb and we have wrangled the many-headed beast of the Apocalypse!"
"All hail the New Wolf of Death!"
"Tis Manslaughter! The Red Blade of true-born Massacre! Tis the end of this age!"
Your eyes meet. The world stretches thin at this moment; you feel the centuries behind you, and the future claw out beyond: through the armies of Destiny! A shadow, deep to consume the entire world, beyond you! Behind you, the shining light! In your hands outstretched claw: you point at the heart of the satyr; alone beyond the army, from down below to the palisade; you see him waver. You see now: the sun has appeared here, to judge the end of the world!
"Let us fight! Let us decide who inherits the new age! For I am Grol, son of Adam! The harbinger of the Destiny of my people; from here on out, the future will be decided by deadly battle, a duel, not war! Come! Open the gates, let me see eye to eye with the so-called Wolf of Death! And you, tribal scum; you will see then, that will is as easily shook, broken, as it is made and wrought from iron steel and stone! For valor, destiny and blood has led me here! And I will not flee from here in capitulation; come Satyr, Tulkas!
The horse reins up; the black crest grabs the sun; in his hand: the Arbiter of Death, the Sword of Atun, Eater of Worlds, Blind-Suns! The red Sapient Blade's red strike blots out the shining rays of the eyes of the sun!
"So be it, cur"