If you disobey the standard Subject-Auxillary-Verb-Object order of sentences, it draws a lot of attention to items not fitting the pattern.
Making writing exciting or dramatic is all about artfully manipulating the readers attention and making what's important to the story's events or pace stick in the reader's mind.
Combine this with the fact that English at one time was a fully inflected language with flexible word order. So it's no surprise that being flexible with the word order can lend a "medieval times" or Shakespeare-ish flair to writing if done right. You have to be a good writer to pull this off.
So you can see for the reasons abobe why this is a tactic used by writers to make their narratives more interesting.
In particular, for verbs of motion, beginning the sentence with the preposition indicating direction of movement draws a lot of attention and emphasis to that motion. Sort of like camera shots that move quickly tend to engage movie viewers more strongly.