NOTE: Hi again. I was playing Civilization III: Conquests recently and I couldn't help but try out this scenario. I'm also going to try to use Pina's perspective. I hope you guys like it. If not, it's cool. I haven't written a second chapter yet as of this posting so...yeah.

Also, I took a few liberties here such as changing a few names to make them sound more Latin/Roman as well as flipping some historical roles to try to fit them into the story. It might work, it might not. Let me know what you think. :)

EDIT (August 19, 2017): I've decided to try to move this story forward. I also made a few minor edits here.

Pina had always anticipated the day when she would have to give up everything just to save her country. Now, hundreds of miles away from home, deep in the heart of an entirely different world, she felt the very reality of this very day weigh heavily on her heart. She was going to give herself away in the presence of her enemies. All for the sake of her people.

The Kurultai fell into silence. The many noyans—princes and high nobles—held their breath. From his ornate throne, the Khagan leaned forward to hear her defense.

"Mighty one, I can only ask for your forgiveness on behalf of my country," Pina began. "My people acted foolishly."

She paused. She could hear some of the noyans snicker. A wave of the Khagan's hand brought quiet to the hall. Then he motioned for her to continue.

"I admit that what we did was a declaration of war. But I have initiated the first steps to restoring peace." Pina glanced behind her, at her liaison, a lowly enemy commander now friend. Heads turned as well and she knew she might have possibly damned him as well. "I am sure you are aware of the non-aggression pact I signed with your general. I am aware that this is a fickle agreement. I can only hope and pray that you have mercy on us."

Pina forgot the rest of the words that flowed from her mouth. But by the time she was done, she felt the air around her constrain her breath. The Khagan only stared at her, his fierce eyes flickering with a fire akin to a raging forge. It was the tensest moment in her whole life.

Someone was already speaking in their tongue. It was her friend, her translator, the lowly commander Tami. And she trusted that he used the proper words to convey her message in the proper tone. As soon as he finished, the court flared into a flurry as the noyans began raising their voices in response.

She eyed the throngs of keshiks present. The fearfulness of their ornate bows were seconded by the staves they carried—mysterious weapons made of wood and steel that shot dragon's fire. It was those very staves that reduced whole cohorts to cinders. When their swords wouldn't cut through armor, when their hail of arrows failed to finish the job, they would resort to their staves. And sometimes, a barrage of distant thunder would rock the battlefield to be followed by the whistling death that rained from the sky, ripping up the earth and decimating scores of troops.

These horror stories played in her mind as the Kurultai deliberated around them. Pina was itching to say something when she felt a tug at her sleeve. She looked to see Tami who somberly nodded. She deflated; she had done all she could. The rest was up to the gods.

And so Pina waited. And waited. And waited. Until the voices died down and the Khagan stood up. He spoke like her father—powerful but somehow comforting. Tami translated his verdict.

The scribe who was present in the court later recorded that the Saderan princess could barely contain herself upon hearing the Khagan's response.

Six months earlier...

Pina was training with her aides in the barracks of the Praetorian Guard when the news reached her that the Imperial Army had crossed the Gate at Alnus Hill and made significant gains in the new world. Unlike the men who were sparring in the yard, the princess of the Saderan Empire felt the least joy at the fact that her country was once again aggressively dominating another. If anyone were to ask her, she would rather forge alliances over making vassals.

She wasn't particularly surprised when her brothers Zorzal and Diabo marched through the Gate shortly thereafter. Then returning with batches of slaves towed in chains to the capital. It was an Imperial tradition that went back centuries. Pina never really admired her country's destiny doctrine, let alone the prevalent belief in the superiority of her nation over others. She always had that gut feeling that someday, somehow, the Empire would get a taste of its own medicine.

And it did. A week after the first crossing, both princes scrambled through the Gate looking as though they had been through a serious fight. Or rather lost said fight to an enemy army. And it was true.

Pina immediately rushed to her brothers' care when they reached the capital. Both were bleeding from grievous wounds. The plates on their armor were mired with holes while their mounts, layered as they were in thick mail, barely survived the numerous arrows that jutted out of their hides. The rest of the Imperial Legion that followed suit looked even worse.

"Zorzal, Diabo, what happened?" she asked time and again.

Diabo admitted total defeat while Zorzal, in an attempt to protect what little of his inflated pride was left, insisted that they were taken by surprise and executed a tactical retreat. Pina understood from both that they were lucky to have escaped in time.

Emotions at the Senate were a bubbling cauldron of anger, despair, and denial and Pina had to sit through the maelstrom just to try and gather a reasonable consensus for this military catastrophe.

"Out of the dozen legions that were marshaled through the Gate, only two came back and yet neither could barely fight another battle!" a senator raved.

"None of the legates, not even Magister Militum Colitus Formali, have returned. The Imperial Legion is finished!" another groveled.

"These barbarians have reclaimed what was taken from them. And now they are marching to the Gate to cross into Falmart, into the heart of the Empire itself!" a third raged.

Of course, the princess kept her thoughts to herself but had to bite down on her own anxiety. The atmosphere in the forum was toxic. Several times she looked to her father for his say only to see him keep mum and weather the storm. What beast could the Empire have disturbed that was capable of quickly reducing them to near military impotence?

She found out a month later when messengers scrambled back to the capital from Alnus Hill. The bulk of the Imperial Army—over twenty legions and scores of their beast-folk auxiliaries—had amassed to dislodge the barbarians from the sacred site. The result was a massacre. Thousands of Imperial troops were lost to these "horsemen from the depths of oblivion" whose speed was unmatched, whose arrows blot out the sun and whose staves breathed fire like dragons. Thousands were slain, the rest captured and most probably enslaved. Or worse.

Almost immediately after word reached the Senate, her father called upon the Empire's allies to join the fight to save Falmart from these foreign invaders. As many expected, many heeded the call. And few expected, they too were annihilated. Alnus Hill had become a mountain of corpses.

In the aftermath of the carnage, Pina could only speculate. Who were these riders? What kind of weapons did they field? Was it true that they had more mounts than men?

She felt useless pacing around in the halls of the Imperial Palace. Until she was summoned by her father.

"I am sending you to Alnus Hill," he ordered. "I trust your skills would help you discern a weakness in our enemy's flanks. Take this as an opportunity to prove to me that your little Order of the Scarlet Rose is more than just a plaything of yours."

Pina could barely control her emotions upon hearing that. She was never really good at keeping it together. But her father was right. This was her chance. Enough with being honor guards and all that ceremonial, 'special reserve', Praetorian trash. Dangerous as these barbarians may be, they would be the proving ground for her knights. And if it came to it, it would be their first real battle against a real army. A battle she hoped would not come to pass because she also believed the reports about them.

She had read the official missives, she visited the wounded, talked to the survivors, held the serrated arrows and the bits of steel that were pulled from their battered bodies. There was no denying how deadly powerful these barbarians had proven themselves to be. Her Order was barely numbered five cohorts but could defend against three times their number. But these were no legions, they said. It was a horde. And they destroyed whole legions in open battle.

"Princess, your father sent us all to die," sneered the King Duran of Elbe, once a tower of man now reduced to a cripple lacking an arm and a leg. "He knew ahead of time what had happened to the Imperial Legion. He knew Alnus Hill was a lost cause. He knew that we would hurl ourselves against them. But only he knew that we stood no chance."

"I don't understand," she stammered.

"Princess, your father knew that the Empire lost its army. Without an army to defend itself, the Empire would be at the mercy of its own allies. Do you not see the logic in these politics?"

"Your highness, I'm sorry!"

"Don't waste your sympathy on me or my dead men. You're better off running and hiding before the horsemen get you."

And with that, Pina was forced to leave the man to lick his wounds in peace. If there was any way of reasoning with these 'horsemen of the apocalypse', she would have to find out by herself. And she hoped that in the process she wouldn't end up like her brothers. Or worse.

ORIGINALLY DRAFTED: August 1, 2017

LAST EDITED: August 19, 2017

INITIALLY UPLOADED: August 8, 2017