SamSniped
DJ Goodboye
Is his ontimeliness the same as yours, METY? 
Princes of the Universe, Part II
- Thread starter Sisiutil
- Start date
Terrance888
Discord Reigns
The world is ending! Or at least it will if sis actually does update this weekend...
it will cause the rapture!
Sisiutil
All Leader Challenger
Darn. I'm sorry I couldn't get it up. Uh... I mean... I apologize for not being able to perform... No, wait, uh...
Lemme see what I can do over the next couple of days. The next chapter's half-done, I just got busy this weekend.
Lemme see what I can do over the next couple of days. The next chapter's half-done, I just got busy this weekend.
Darth Caesar
Might be a Wizard
Sisiutil
All Leader Challenger
Chapter 17 – Scipio's Victory
Marcus Scipio and the Battle of Tiflis
Part 2
“Why is it so hard,” Genghis Khan grumbled dangerously, “to hit something as large as a ship with one of these pea-shooters?”
The officer in charge of the cannon squad swallowed painfully and licked his lips. He bowed respectfully to his immortal leader.
“When the ship is in motion, buffeted by waves and wind,” he said, proud that he managed to keep any trace of a nervous tremor out of his voice, “it can be... challenging, Great Khan.”
Khan glanced at the officer. He had asked the question rhetorically, not expecting an answer. But he did not resent the man’s temerity; far from it. Over the centuries, he’d found that very few people had the courage to speak back to him; of those, the number who could do so and be honest were fewer still.
The leader of the once-proud nation of Mongolia grunted and acknowledged the officer’s words with a curt nod. “Understood, captain,” Genghis said. “Keep trying.”
“Yes, sire!” the cannon crew’s commander responded, relieved that he had avoided retribution for his teams’ failure to cause much damage to the approaching Roman ships.
Khan left the parapet and stalked back into the city. As he strode though the streets, his personal bodyguards cleared the way ahead of him while his retainers followed faithfully behind. The citizens of Tiflis quickly parted before him, then stood and stared, anxious to steal a glance at the immortal leader of the Mongols. One man spat on the ground where Genghis had trod after he had passed. Once, Genghis would have taken swift and savage revenge for the insult; now, however, he could hardly be bothered. He marched on, not even turning back to indicate he had noticed.
How had it come to this? he wondered. His mind raced back across the centuries as he remembered how it had all started, riding across the grassy steppes with his tribe, raiding neighbouring settlements and presenting them with a simple choice: join us or die. He’d spent almost every hour of every day on horseback then, even sleeping in the saddle. How glorious it had been, riding like the wind across the plains, uniting the disparate tribes under one banner—his banner! He remembered how one tribe—barbarians, really—had resisted, had responded to his ultimatum with insults and derision. He had besieged their city, captured and razed it, and had every single inhabitant slaughtered. He grunted with satisfaction as he remembered the sight of a murder of crows hopping about upon a veritable mountain of dead bodies, their black beaks pecking ravenously at the rotting, stinking flesh. That had been a good day. He had ordered the ruins left untouched as a message to all those who dared defy Genghis Khan.
But the Romans had dared; Caesar had dared. And now the Great Khan’s dreams of world domination had been torn asunder, ravaged by an unfaltering Roman invasion. Mongolia, for all intents and purposes, was no more; his once great nation that had spread across the continent’s southern plains was now a Roman province. And here was Genghis Khan, immortal leader of the once-dreaded Mongol hordes, holed up in a city, of all places... on an island, no less. A turd of land with barely enough space for a horse to turn around.
This was no place for a Mongol warrior to die. And yes, he knew he would die, he had resigned himself to it. As the Romans marched across the lands he had once ridden and captured city after city, he had foreseen the inevitable. But in one sense, he and his people would remain Mongols to the end: they would go down fighting. And they would take as many Romans as they could manage to the dark place with them.
Khan entered his residence... such as it was. A mere hovel, truly, when compared to the imposing structure he’d constructed in Karakorum. He had been assured by its overly-obsequious owner, a local merchant, that everyone considered the building the finest in all of Tiflis. It would do, Genghis had decided; on campaign, after all, he often made do without so much as a tent. The sky above him and a good horse beneath him, that was all he’d needed... once, long ago.
The leader of the Mongols gave his head a brief shake to clear it. Dwelling on the past was a weakness he could not indulge in. What mattered was the present, and the future. He had one chance, a slim one, but he had to grasp it for all it was worth, for it was all he had left. Caesar would come. He knew it in his bones. He would not take the chance that someone else would take the Khan’s head. Only another one of their kind knew the invaluable worth of claiming the head, and with it the quickening, of another Immortal. Caesar would come, and they would fight... what if Caesar lost?
The thought made the briefest of smiles appear beneath Genghis’ dark moustaches—a hard, mirthless smile, barely recognizable as such. Ah, if Caesar lost, then that changed the game considerably. Mongolia could rise again. First he would lead his armies north through Greece to finish off Caesar’s flame-haired whore. Then he would sail across the vast ocean with his reborn hordes to Rome itself. Alexander could come along if he wanted. Once they had finished off Rome, they would turn on one another. Genghis shrugged. It was inevitable. Alexander had been an ally, off and on, for centuries—but never a friend.
Khan entered his office. He signalled wordlessly for his retainers to wait outside. He sat down at his desk. Some papers lay upon it, details of Tiflis’ defense written upon them. The Khan ignored them. The troops no longer mattered. Caesar would come. It would be just the two of them. And then...
The Great Khan’s reverie was interrupted when the rear door to his office opened. A young woman entered, dressed in the drab, dark grey deel of a servant. She bowed to him respectfully but said nothing.
“Tea,” Khan muttered to the girl. “Strong, and hot.”
“Yes, sire,” the serving girl said. She turned to go.
With astonishing speed, the Khan’s calloused hand reached out and grabbed her wrist. She did not flinch or gasp, and he grudgingly admired her for that. He glanced at her shrewdly. She was attractive, but dressed and did her hair plainly. And she stared back at him unflinchingly, her pleasant face an expressionless mask. The cold face, Mongolians called it. Only a true Mongolian displayed such complete mastery over their emotions.
“Tell me, girl,” Khan growled, “what are the servants—the people—saying? About our situation.” The young woman opened her mouth to speak. “And if you lie to me, if you patronize me with pleasant lies, I’ll know, and your last moments alive will be extremely painful.”
One of her dark brows twitched upward, the only reaction she showed, as if to silently convey how his threat did not frighten her. She shrugged her slender shoulders.
“It varies from person to person, Great Khan,” she said. “Some are angry.”
“At the Romans?”
“Yes, but also at you,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone. “A few, a very few, are confident. A few more are hopeful. Mostly, they’re frightened, though they do their best not to show it. What did you expect?”
Khan grunted quietly, then nodded. “Get my tea,” he said.
“Just tea?” the young woman asked. “You usually have airag at this time of the day.”
The Khan shook his head. He wanted to keep his wits about him. “Not today,” he replied.
He cast an appraising look at the young woman; he considered using her to satisfy a basic male need, but decided against it. The last time he’d been with a woman, he had not been able to... perform. He didn’t want to repeat that incident. Word of that circulating was the last thing he needed. He grunted angrily and pushed the memory away. He blamed Caesar for that as well. The man would pay when they finally faced one another. He would pay dearly.
The Great Khan barely noticed when the rear door to his office closed, so immersed was he in his angry reverie. On the other side of the door, Nara breathed a quiet sigh of relief. Serving Rome as a spy had placed her in more than a few precarious situations, but serving the Khan himself had proved daunting. At least he hadn’t forced himself upon her. Her mother hadn’t been as lucky, she recalled with a shudder of revulsion.
She hated doing this. She had relished it once, but whatever revenge she had sought for her parents, she decided, she had seen fulfilled long ago. She hated living a lie during every waking moment, hated deceiving everyone around her, in moments of honesty, she admitted that sometimes she hated herself. She couldn’t wait for it to be over. She wanted to be with Marcus and make love for days and forget about all of it. She wanted to live with him in a farmhouse somewhere and make babies and grow old and forget about her time as a spy for the Romans.
But that would not happen just yet. Not until Tiflis fell and the Khan lay dead. It couldn’t happen soon enough as far as she was concerned.
She went to get the Khan's tea.
Marcus Scipio and the Battle of Tiflis
Part 2
“Why is it so hard,” Genghis Khan grumbled dangerously, “to hit something as large as a ship with one of these pea-shooters?”
The officer in charge of the cannon squad swallowed painfully and licked his lips. He bowed respectfully to his immortal leader.
“When the ship is in motion, buffeted by waves and wind,” he said, proud that he managed to keep any trace of a nervous tremor out of his voice, “it can be... challenging, Great Khan.”
Khan glanced at the officer. He had asked the question rhetorically, not expecting an answer. But he did not resent the man’s temerity; far from it. Over the centuries, he’d found that very few people had the courage to speak back to him; of those, the number who could do so and be honest were fewer still.
The leader of the once-proud nation of Mongolia grunted and acknowledged the officer’s words with a curt nod. “Understood, captain,” Genghis said. “Keep trying.”
“Yes, sire!” the cannon crew’s commander responded, relieved that he had avoided retribution for his teams’ failure to cause much damage to the approaching Roman ships.
Khan left the parapet and stalked back into the city. As he strode though the streets, his personal bodyguards cleared the way ahead of him while his retainers followed faithfully behind. The citizens of Tiflis quickly parted before him, then stood and stared, anxious to steal a glance at the immortal leader of the Mongols. One man spat on the ground where Genghis had trod after he had passed. Once, Genghis would have taken swift and savage revenge for the insult; now, however, he could hardly be bothered. He marched on, not even turning back to indicate he had noticed.
How had it come to this? he wondered. His mind raced back across the centuries as he remembered how it had all started, riding across the grassy steppes with his tribe, raiding neighbouring settlements and presenting them with a simple choice: join us or die. He’d spent almost every hour of every day on horseback then, even sleeping in the saddle. How glorious it had been, riding like the wind across the plains, uniting the disparate tribes under one banner—his banner! He remembered how one tribe—barbarians, really—had resisted, had responded to his ultimatum with insults and derision. He had besieged their city, captured and razed it, and had every single inhabitant slaughtered. He grunted with satisfaction as he remembered the sight of a murder of crows hopping about upon a veritable mountain of dead bodies, their black beaks pecking ravenously at the rotting, stinking flesh. That had been a good day. He had ordered the ruins left untouched as a message to all those who dared defy Genghis Khan.
But the Romans had dared; Caesar had dared. And now the Great Khan’s dreams of world domination had been torn asunder, ravaged by an unfaltering Roman invasion. Mongolia, for all intents and purposes, was no more; his once great nation that had spread across the continent’s southern plains was now a Roman province. And here was Genghis Khan, immortal leader of the once-dreaded Mongol hordes, holed up in a city, of all places... on an island, no less. A turd of land with barely enough space for a horse to turn around.
This was no place for a Mongol warrior to die. And yes, he knew he would die, he had resigned himself to it. As the Romans marched across the lands he had once ridden and captured city after city, he had foreseen the inevitable. But in one sense, he and his people would remain Mongols to the end: they would go down fighting. And they would take as many Romans as they could manage to the dark place with them.
Khan entered his residence... such as it was. A mere hovel, truly, when compared to the imposing structure he’d constructed in Karakorum. He had been assured by its overly-obsequious owner, a local merchant, that everyone considered the building the finest in all of Tiflis. It would do, Genghis had decided; on campaign, after all, he often made do without so much as a tent. The sky above him and a good horse beneath him, that was all he’d needed... once, long ago.
The leader of the Mongols gave his head a brief shake to clear it. Dwelling on the past was a weakness he could not indulge in. What mattered was the present, and the future. He had one chance, a slim one, but he had to grasp it for all it was worth, for it was all he had left. Caesar would come. He knew it in his bones. He would not take the chance that someone else would take the Khan’s head. Only another one of their kind knew the invaluable worth of claiming the head, and with it the quickening, of another Immortal. Caesar would come, and they would fight... what if Caesar lost?
The thought made the briefest of smiles appear beneath Genghis’ dark moustaches—a hard, mirthless smile, barely recognizable as such. Ah, if Caesar lost, then that changed the game considerably. Mongolia could rise again. First he would lead his armies north through Greece to finish off Caesar’s flame-haired whore. Then he would sail across the vast ocean with his reborn hordes to Rome itself. Alexander could come along if he wanted. Once they had finished off Rome, they would turn on one another. Genghis shrugged. It was inevitable. Alexander had been an ally, off and on, for centuries—but never a friend.
Khan entered his office. He signalled wordlessly for his retainers to wait outside. He sat down at his desk. Some papers lay upon it, details of Tiflis’ defense written upon them. The Khan ignored them. The troops no longer mattered. Caesar would come. It would be just the two of them. And then...
The Great Khan’s reverie was interrupted when the rear door to his office opened. A young woman entered, dressed in the drab, dark grey deel of a servant. She bowed to him respectfully but said nothing.
“Tea,” Khan muttered to the girl. “Strong, and hot.”
“Yes, sire,” the serving girl said. She turned to go.
With astonishing speed, the Khan’s calloused hand reached out and grabbed her wrist. She did not flinch or gasp, and he grudgingly admired her for that. He glanced at her shrewdly. She was attractive, but dressed and did her hair plainly. And she stared back at him unflinchingly, her pleasant face an expressionless mask. The cold face, Mongolians called it. Only a true Mongolian displayed such complete mastery over their emotions.
“Tell me, girl,” Khan growled, “what are the servants—the people—saying? About our situation.” The young woman opened her mouth to speak. “And if you lie to me, if you patronize me with pleasant lies, I’ll know, and your last moments alive will be extremely painful.”
One of her dark brows twitched upward, the only reaction she showed, as if to silently convey how his threat did not frighten her. She shrugged her slender shoulders.
“It varies from person to person, Great Khan,” she said. “Some are angry.”
“At the Romans?”
“Yes, but also at you,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone. “A few, a very few, are confident. A few more are hopeful. Mostly, they’re frightened, though they do their best not to show it. What did you expect?”
Khan grunted quietly, then nodded. “Get my tea,” he said.
“Just tea?” the young woman asked. “You usually have airag at this time of the day.”
The Khan shook his head. He wanted to keep his wits about him. “Not today,” he replied.
He cast an appraising look at the young woman; he considered using her to satisfy a basic male need, but decided against it. The last time he’d been with a woman, he had not been able to... perform. He didn’t want to repeat that incident. Word of that circulating was the last thing he needed. He grunted angrily and pushed the memory away. He blamed Caesar for that as well. The man would pay when they finally faced one another. He would pay dearly.
The Great Khan barely noticed when the rear door to his office closed, so immersed was he in his angry reverie. On the other side of the door, Nara breathed a quiet sigh of relief. Serving Rome as a spy had placed her in more than a few precarious situations, but serving the Khan himself had proved daunting. At least he hadn’t forced himself upon her. Her mother hadn’t been as lucky, she recalled with a shudder of revulsion.
She hated doing this. She had relished it once, but whatever revenge she had sought for her parents, she decided, she had seen fulfilled long ago. She hated living a lie during every waking moment, hated deceiving everyone around her, in moments of honesty, she admitted that sometimes she hated herself. She couldn’t wait for it to be over. She wanted to be with Marcus and make love for days and forget about all of it. She wanted to live with him in a farmhouse somewhere and make babies and grow old and forget about her time as a spy for the Romans.
But that would not happen just yet. Not until Tiflis fell and the Khan lay dead. It couldn’t happen soon enough as far as she was concerned.
She went to get the Khan's tea.
Optical
The Fall of the Eleventh
I am now totally convinced that this epic is back. That was awesome!
Akbarthegreat
Angel of Junil
Great update Sis!
strijder20
Wallowing in irony
Darth Caesar
Might be a Wizard
Great job as always Sis!
Akbarthegreat
Angel of Junil
Verarde
Pondering Wearing A Hat
Thanks, mate. Glad to see you're continuing your wonderful writing. I will spare you the smilie barrage...others may not be so merciful.
Terrance888
Discord Reigns
It's da rapture!
Great as always Sisutil!
r_rolo1
King of myself
I smell that Genghis will have a congestion with his tea ( question: chinese tea or butter tea ? 
) 
But again, we are talking of a immortal, so I'm pretty sure that this is not the end of it ...
Good update Sis. BTW try to make the next soon and not Soon ( patent pending )
) But again, we are talking of a immortal, so I'm pretty sure that this is not the end of it ... Good update Sis. BTW try to make the next soon and not Soon ( patent pending )
![[party]](/images/smilies/partytime.gif "Party [party]")
Verarde
Pondering Wearing A Hat
There. Did I call it, or did I call it?
MoreEpicThanYou
The most Epic.
To this new update, and many more! 
- Joined
- Apr 4, 2010
- Messages
- 8,873
Sisiutil updated his story?
Also, 100th post.
Also, 100th post.
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