text: [Themes: fan fiction, war, historical]
  
  Rumble.
  
  A rumble could be heard in the distance. A sound like thunder. High up, the sun's rays were slowly but surely blocked by dark, ominous clouds. As that happened, a shadow fell over the land, a dark sign of what was about to happen. The troops waited, having been posted to block the road from a possible attack.
  
  Rumble.
  
  A cloud of dust could be seen on the horizon, hard to make out in the dim light. The soldiers stiffened, sensing a possible threat. It started drizzling, then quickly escalated into a heavy downpour. Lightning flashed, a jagged line splitting the sky into two dark halves.
  
  Rumble.
  
  The dust cloud hid the things that were causing it. Ten thousand hoofs charged across the earth, making a terrifying sound that sounded like thunder, but was a lot more potent. The horsemen approached the army, starting their charge at one kilometer from the soldiers sent to block the path.
  
  Sensing that an attack was imminent, the commander of the defending soldiers ordered his soldiers to form up in a solid line. They did so in a formation that featured overlapping shields, and spears bristling from everywhere. A calvary charge would break into pieces upon it.
  
  Six hundred metres from the shield wall, the horsemen reached their full speed.
  
  The soldiers confidently waited.
  
  Five hundred metres away, they unslung bows from saddle hooks.
  
  The soldiers confidently waited.
  
  Four hundred metres away, they notched arrows and bent their bows.
  
  The soldiers confidently waited.
  
  Three hundred metres away, and a black wave of arrows soared through the air, thudding into shields and even penetrating some, but dealing minimal damage only.
  
  The soldiers were not so confident now, and waited impatiently for the enemy to appear. Had archers fired upon them? Or did the horsemen dismount to use the bow?
  
  Every six seconds, a volley of black shafts would smash into the lines of the defenders, with more and more devastating results. At first, only the shields were penetrated, and few fell to the intense storm of arrows thanks to their armour. A couple of volleys later, the arrows punched through armour and shield with ease, shredding the armour of the defenders and sending them into disarray. Then, as the demoralised defenders tried to protect themselves, the attackers stopped fifty metres away from the defenders and rained arrows upon them, a rain that was more destructive than the natural one falling.
  
  The desperate survivors, decimated by arrows that seemingly originated from nowhere and blinded by rain, tried to retreat, but the horsemen discarded their bows, and drew swords as one. They rode down the survivors and methodically hacked every last one into pieces. The road was now clear, but there were bodies ripe for looting before they moved on.
  
  The commander of the horsemen looked proudly at his force. With it, he would conquer the world.
  
  [Author's Note: If you have ever read Conn Iggulden's Conqueror series, this story was taken from 'Bones of the hills'. Whatever your choices are, you will die in the game, you can consider being successful as a win, if you are. There is an 'epilogue' if you are successful.]
  
  > Continue
  You are Samuka. You are now standing at the gates of Otrar, with five thousand men. Your task is an impossible one: stop an enemy four times your size from breaking out of the city to attack your Khan from the rear. To do so, you must delay the enemy for up to a day, impossible odds with what you have, but you must do your best.
  
  There are two gates to hold, one on each end of the city, and you tell your second-in-command, a Chin man named Ho Sa from Xi Xia, to hold one gate with half the men while you hold the other. You have a few defenses to slow the enemy. First, you have some makeshift barricades that will stop the enemy for a while and allow your men to send death in the form of arrows to the enemy while they try to break through the barricades.
  
  Then, you have your bow and arrows, weapons of death that will take many of the enemy down.
  
  And lastly, you have catapults capable of launching clay balls filled with a mixture that would ignite when in contact with fire. This is your last and final resort, to burn down the gates.
  
  You know you won't make it out of this alive, so your only hope is that your sacrifice gives your Khan enough time to destroy an Arabian host of more than three hundred thousand strong. If you fail to delay the army here, your Khan will be destroyed, crushed between two armies and the hard earned empire you helped to conquer will be lost to the mists of history.
  
  > Next
  A wave of armoured warriors surges forward, running towards the barricades that your men had hastily put together hours ago. You know your arrow supply is limited, but you want to scare the Arabs with a magnificent wave of arrows for your first volley. You gauge the distance the Arabs are from your warriors, and when they get to a hundred meters away, you unleash a great wave of arrows upon them. The arrow wave flies towards the charging soldiers, and completely halts the charge, with the front line dead or dying. Then, their comrades climb over the bodies of their fallen friends and continue the charge. Your archers were given strict orders to stagger their volleys, and you see that they are following your instructions, From the walls of Otrar, bowmen spit shafts at your force, but the arrows get blocked by your barricades.
  
  To your right, you see a section of barricade collapse. Do you lead men to go defend that portion? Already there are Arabs trying to enter through the collapsed section.
  
  > lead men to defend the collapsed portion
  You lead the men under your command to the breach, but another officer, who has some of the reserves also charges there. Your two groups collide, and in the confusion, none of you reach the breach. The barricades are overrun, and you quickly direct your forces to meet the threat. After what seems like an eternity, the enemy is driven back, but you have lost more of your men than you should have. As the last of your men face the overwhelming numbers again, you know you have failed in your mission, and the men of Otrar will step over your cooling corpses to crush Genghis' army between them and the Shah's army